If I am right, then it seems like we can get rid of 'matter' (in Aristotle's sense) and retain form (viz., actuality). — Bob Ross

I want to say that Aristotle's view is based on his belief that change occurs. So suppose a seed (along with the soil and moisture) changes into a seedling. There is both something that is common to the seed and the seedling (matter) and also something that is different (form). Aristotle does not think it is right to say that there is only a change in form, with no underlying matter which accounts for the continuity between the seed and the seedling. To say that would be to deny the existence of change (because in that case the seed never changes into a seedling, despite the fact that the two phenomena are juxtaposed).

But the view is difficult to understand insofar as neither form nor matter are separate substances. They are more like explanatory principles of material reality. So you say:

Matter (i.e., real, pure potential) is posited as real, instead of merely positing actuality shaping actuality — Bob Ross

Pure potency is "prime matter," which is a contentious topic. Yet for the most part Aristotle will say that all matter is informed—certainly all the matter that we encounter has form within it. So we can never point to formless matter. Matter is a principle of material being, not a species or substance.

Matter isn't conceived of as just prime matter. That's a key distinction. For example, man is made of flesh and bone. Each substrate has some form and some matter, some potential/powers, and dispositions to change in certain ways through interactions. Flesh is made up of cells. Cells are made up of organelles. These are made up of molecules. You have layers of form and potential all the way down, and parts ordered to different wholes. Turning all matter into just prime matter, and then ascribing the function of this prime matter to parts seems to collapse this distinction. It would seem to make it hard to say how something complex, like a man, is made up of so many other complex things that are also wholes.

Now perhaps this is what you mean by "composite," but then you really aren't changing anything.

More importantly, Aristotle thinks there is substantial change, that beings come into and out of existence. Men are generated (conceived) and corrupted (die). A dead man is not really a man but a corpse, substantial change. So now the parts you have been relying upon are no longer parts of a whole. They aren't a "composite." The whole has ceased to be. But the body of dead Achilles is still the body of Achilles. There is a persistent identity here that matter explains.

Whereas, if there is only Form A, which is caused by Form B, then there's nothing in between.

But what receives form in generation without matter? When a new organism is generated for instance? Without matter, we would have to say other forms combine into a wholly new forms (apparently one of their potentials). Yet everything physical is capable of becoming anything else given enough steps. The same atoms might be now rain, now part of a cow, now part of a bridge, now part of a dinosaur, now combined into plastic. The same proton can be part of any element. Without the structured hierarchy of matter as substrate, everything has the potential to become everything else. Each part has every potential at all times.

Yet an ant never becomes an anteater without first being reduced to its material substrate and then incorporated into the anteater (i.e. the matter is there to receive form). However, this process also does not reduce the protons in the atoms to hydrogen ions. The breakdown all the way to prime matter never occurs. Hence, the substrate distinction is important and always in play.

Another way to put this is that removing matter risks collapsing logical possibility and metaphysical possibility by making everything possibly anything possible. That a man requires a certain substrate, particular matter, is part of what delimits what man can become. The potential of the substrate is not identical to the potential of the substantial form, but neither is it identical to prime matter. My body could be heated to 10,000 degrees. I could not. That sort of thing.

As Aquinas points out, form also denotes a particular substrate. The substantial form man does not require particular flesh and bones, but it does require flesh and bones. It's part of what it is to be man. But flesh and bones can also just be slabs of meat. So we cannot say that substrate is only a part of a whole, it can exist on its own too.

Now, depending on how you massage all that, maybe you could just say that substrate is actually "parts." But again, then you aren't changing anything.


But I think this is the kicker: efficient causes always involve something actual acting on something potential. If everything was actual, change would be impossible. Form explains formal cause. I suppose that if you add potency to form you can explain efficient cause with just form, but now form isn't really one principle. Your reduction hasn't worked. You still need *just form* to explain formal causes and *form's potential* to explain efficient causation.


So, rereading your post, you seem to just have recreated matter, except now form is two principles instead of one.

This goes along with the idea that you cannot change a rabbit into something like a frog. Being a frog is not a potential of rabbits. This is an act of sorcery. What it would amount to is replacing a rabbit with a frog, not change, but substitution.

But the body of a rabbit can be broken down and become a frog. A thing's potential is not the same as its composite parts. Likewise, flesh and bones cannot speak lest they be part of a living man.

Removing this distinction risks destroying formal (and thus final) causes because a thing's form now lets it be any other thing. How can it have a proper end then? And if modality is to rely on potentiality, it also causes all sorts of problems there (e.g. a man is no longer necessarily not a cat, etc.) Everything is now potentially everything else in virtue of its form. But then, as pointed out earlier, you still need potentiality (or "possibility"), and so the reduction from one principle to two hasn't been accomplished either.

Also, prime matter is arguably not anything at all. Check out the Timaeus and then consider that Aristotle himself identifies the chora with his notion of matter.

2. The parts of the apple expose the apple inherently to the possibility of change because it exposes it to having potentials that could be actualized. — Bob Ross

What does this mean, "it exposes it to having potentials that could be actualized"? How are you using "expose" here? What would be the difference between having potential and being exposed to potential? If the apple doesn't have potential, but is exposed to potential, where would that potential exist other than within something else. But if the something else has potential relative to the apple, then doesn't the apple also have potential relative to the something else. So doesn't this just amount to saying that the apple has potential, i.e. matter?

Each thing, then, would be caused by a prior actuality which would provide it with compresence of properties, identity through time, and potency by the mere causality of forms upon forms…. — Bob Ross

All well and good, perhaps, unless or until we want to know what each thing is, how it is to be known as that thing and no other. In such case, the tracing back of its identity through time holds no interest for us.

On the other hand, for that family of things of perfectly natural causality, the knowledge of which is contingent at best, as opposed to man-made assemblages of things in general for which knowledge is necessarily given, to trace the “mere causality of forms upon forms” inevitably leads to at least contradictions, and at most, to impossibilities.
————-

…..it seems like we can get rid of 'matter' (in Aristotle's sense) and retain form (viz., actuality). Each thing, then, would be caused by a prior actuality…. — Bob Ross

If matter is missing….what thing can there be? Getting rid of matter in Aristotle’s sense: is there any sense in which matter is not the particular constituency of a thing, regardless of its arrangement or assemblage according to form?
————-

But you asked for a better Aristotle-ian hylomorphic understanding than your own, which I admittedly don’t have, voluntarily confined to the Enlightenment version of the matter/form juxtapositional attitude.

You might be interested in what Aquinas says about angelic beings and intelligences. These are said to be pure form. However, they are not pure actuality, that would make them God. They have potentiality. They can rebel for instance.

But the analysis is instructive because it shows the problems that show up in denying matter. For instance, every angel must be its own species because it lacks matter to individuate it. Hence the form is always unique. But if every form is unique for material things, then there will be difficulties in explaining abstraction and universals.

You would need some other individuating principle and some other principle for determining species.

There is both something that is common to the seed and the seedling (matter) and also something that is different (form)

But by ‘matter’ he is not referring having mass but, rather, a substrate of potential—right?

If so, then how does this seed’s actuality (form) conjoined with its potency (matter)? If it is potential, then it is nothing (non-actual); which would entail there is nothing conjoined with the form (the actuality). Otherwise, there is something that is real which is mere potential (matter) that is conjoined with what is actual (form); and this admits of a nothingness that is something—doesn’t it?

Where my head is at, I would say that seed and seedling are both different developments of the same plant insofar as the seed, as a whole composed of actuality (parts), is affected by something else (e.g, the water, soil, it’s own internal parts organically functioning, etc.). This view would entail that actuality affects actuality by realizing the potential an actuality has relative to the possible ways that actuality can be affected. For Aristotle, it seems like potency is this real nothingness that is conjoined with the actuality and I am not following how that would work.

Aristotle does not think it is right to say that there is only a change in form, with no underlying matter which accounts for the continuity between the seed and the seedling.

But isn’t it the actualizing principle that actualizes something already actual in a way that that actual thing (which was changed) could have been affected that accounts for change? Why posit some real potency which receives the form?

A dead man is not really a man but a corpse, substantial change. So now the parts you have been relying upon are no longer parts of a whole. They aren't a "composite." The whole has ceased to be. But the body of dead Achilles is still the body of Achilles. There is a persistent identity here that matter explains.

My problem with Aristotle’s view seems to be that he posits some real nothingness (potency) which is conjoined with the actual thing; whereas I am thinking that the underlying actual parts in some arrangement (form) makeup the whole. So I would say that the man persists through time insofar as his parts still compose, by way of arrangement, that of a man; and a dead man is not in that arrangement that an alive man is in. I don’t see why we would need to posit a real potency in the sense of a substrate of potential as opposed to positing that ‘real potency’ is merely the ways something that is actual can be affected relative to what it is (i.e., it’s form as received by its parts).

But what receives form in generation without matter?

Like you said, an object is composed of other objects; so each part is composed of form composed of form. You would, at least insofar as you play Devil’s advocate, say that it’s also composed of matter upon matter. However, if form is what is actual and matter is what is potential; then form upon form is just actual beings upon actual beings: it is being composed. So, then, we can explain it this way: an actual object is composed of other actual objects in some arrangement. That arrangement is the actualizing principle of that whole (which composed of actual objects) which is it’s form. This form, or arrangement, is imposed (or received) by the actual parts of that object; and those actual parts, in turn, are made up of actual parts and their arrangement which makes of that whole is it’s form. So form is being imposed on form because being is imposed on being; until you get to God as the pure actuality that has no parts.

I guess one way of thinking about it would be that Aristotle would say there’s a substrate of potency conjoined with actuality; whereas I am thinking about it as an imposed arrangement (form) conjoined with actuality. I don’t see what this ‘magical substrate of potentiality’ is doing.

Likewise, potency is nothing: it is not actual, but what could be actual relative to the nature of a thing—relative to what its parts can receive. Therefore, real potency is a contradiction in terms: a substrate of potential is a nothingness that is real.

Likewise, if God is pure actuality because He has no parts (and thusly no possibility of receiving any actualization) and actuality actualizes what is actual and matter is a substrate of potency, then how could God create matter? Wouldn’t the existence of matter, in this sense, necessitate that that which can receive actuality (i.e., matter) must be so different than what actualizes that it is coeternal with it?

This goes along with the idea that you cannot change a rabbit into something like a frog

I agree that there is a persistence of identity through time and that change requires this; but I don’t see how this entails matter in the sense of real potency. The rabbit cannot become a frog because the arrangement of parts that produces a rabbit is contradictory to that of a frog; which, to me, is to say that the form of a rabbit and a frog are contradictory. Why tack onto this that the rabbit has a substrate of potential that is contradictory to the substrate of a frog?

You might be interested in what Aquinas says about angelic beings and intelligences.

Yes, this is what got me thinking about it more; because I started getting very confused with the idea that an angel is pure form but not pure actuality.

Form is supposed to be actuality that was imposed onto something; and that something is its parts; and Angel’s have parts—just not material parts—otherwise they would be purely actual. The very idea that an Angel can learn entails they have parts that can be affected. So what exactly does it mean for a being that has parts to be ‘purely formal’ in contrast to something that has parts but is ‘not purely formal’? I don’t get it.

For instance, every angel must be its own species because it lacks matter to individuate it.

This is a very interesting thought from Aquinas that I was recently introduced to. Don’t Angel’s have parts though? By ‘part’, I mean something which contributes to the whole without being identical to it. If an angel has no parts, then how is it not God (i.e., purely actual)? If it does, then there can be individuation between them just like material parts: two Angels could have the same Form imposed on different immaterial parts. What do you think?

What does this mean, "it exposes it to having potentials that could be actualized"? How are you using "expose" here?

The arrangement of the parts which makes the whole that whole of this type is the form imposed upon parts (actuality imposed on actuality); and if this is true, then the parts and their arrangement are what dictate potential that a thing has—not some substrate of potential (viz., matter). There’s no extra entity called ‘matter’ going on here.

What would be the difference between having potential and being exposed to potential?

In the sense of what I think Aristotle means, I would say that ‘having potential’ is to have a substrate that can receive actuality in some way (viz., to have matter) whereas ‘being exposed to potential’ would be to have the possibility of being affected because of the parts and their arrangement that the thing has (viz., to have form composed of form). For me, composition entails potency; for Aristotle it seems like a substrate of potency entails potency.

If the apple doesn't have potential, but is exposed to potential, where would that potential exist other than within something else.

I agree that the potency of a thing is relative to that thing—not something external to it; but I don’t get what it would mean for their to be this extra ‘matter’ that is potency that is really conjoined with the actuality (‘form’) of a thing. To me, the parts expose the whole to the possibility of change; because parts can, in principle, be affected and in ways relative to how they are arrangement and what they are themselves. There’s no ‘matter’ and ‘form’ here: it’s just form composed of form.

All well and good, perhaps, unless or until we want to know what each thing is, how it is to be known as that thing and no other. In such case, the tracing back of its identity through time holds no interest for us.

Well, yes, but it is required for change to occur.

On the other hand, for that family of things of perfectly natural causality, the knowledge of which is contingent at best, as opposed to man-made assemblages of things in general for which knowledge is necessarily given, to trace the “mere causality of forms upon forms” inevitably leads to at least contradictions, and at most, impossibilities.

It seems like you are separate causality a prior from causality a posteriori; and I guess I don’t see the relevance. We use what is causally given to us to determine what actually is caused: they have a relation to each other—don’t they?

If matter is missing….what thing can there be? 

If I am understanding Aristotle correctly, form is actuality. It’s not like there’s being and this being is imposed with form: there’s some substrate of potential that is imposed with being (form). So this would mean that matter isn’t referring to being: it potential for being. This means that what would be, is some being that isn’t conjoined with a substrate of potential.

It’s confusing me, to be completely honest.

But you asked for a better Aristotle-ian hylomorphic understanding than your own, which I admittedly don’t have, voluntarily confined to the Enlightenment version of the matter/form juxtapositional attitude.

Not a worry at all: I always appreciate your input.

@Leontiskos

I already asked Timothy this, but I am curious as to your thoughts as well:

Likewise, if God is pure actuality because He has no parts (and thusly no possibility of receiving any actualization) and actuality actualizes what is actual and matter is a substrate of potency, then how could God create matter? Wouldn’t the existence of matter, in this sense, necessitate that that which can receive actuality (i.e., matter) must be so different than what actualizes that it is coeternal with it?

What do you think?

I don’t see why we would need to posit a real potency in the sense of a substrate of potential as opposed to positing that ‘real potency’ is merely the ways something that is actual can be affected relative to what it is (i.e., it’s form as received by its parts).

Let me see if you accept this rephrasing.

"We don't need 'real' potency because it is merely the ways in which something actual has the potential to be affected relative to what it is (i.e. a potential to change)."

I don't see how this is a real difference. You are still positing that things have a determinant actuality (what they currently are) and a potential to become something else. So you still need two principles: currently actual form , and the potentiality of form. But matter just is the potentiality underlying of form.

It's what allows us to distinguish substance from accidents. Being snub-nosed is not attributable to the substantial form of Socrates but to his matter; it is an accident (although obviously actual). You seem to risk collapsing this distinction and making all predication essential because all predication is of "form all the way down." If Socrates breaks his nose and becomes snub nosed, you now have to say that his form has fundamentally changed, because form is nothing but the arrangement of actual parts, and "snub nosed" is a new arrangement (or else else you need to somehow make a substantial form/matter type distinction, which again, then you aren't changing anything).

I am not sure what 'real potency' is supposed to denote in this case either, because you are still positing the idea that determinant, actual things "really" have the potential to change, which seems to me like a "real potency."

(i.e., it’s form as received by its parts).

Right, this is just the idea of matter as determinant substrate. The form of flesh is form as flesh and matter as the matter of a man. The form of the substrate determines its potential. So, a seed can become a plant. Ground seed cannot become a plant, but it can become bread. There are different potencies at play.

I don't get why you refer to "magical potency," but then form possessing both actuality and potential is somehow fine and, at any rate, this still makes form into two principles, one of which is a "real potential."

Further, if everything is simply an arrangement of subsistent parts that are completely actual, then you have basically just recreated early-modern corpuscular materialism. But this is a position rife with problems that Aristotle avoids.

If one acknowledges that things really do have the potential to change, I don't know why "real potency" is problematic or "magical."

Also, consider that all of the atoms in a man's body are replaced very many times in his lifetime. If something just is its parts, then in virtue of what is a man the same man even as every part is replaced? If you say a man isn't his parts, but is rather a particular arrangement of substrate-like parts, that sounds identical to the form/matter distinction, just recreated. Whereas, if things just are the particular parts they are made of, then they go out of being as their parts are replaced and rearranged.

They cannot be just the parts, or the replacement of parts makes them cease to be. They cannot be just the current arrangement, or else when the arrangement changes (when Socrates breaks his nose) he ceases to be and becomes something else. Rather, things must be composites with some form accounting for identity and some underlying substrate accounting for change. We might call this "actual parts with potency" instead of matter, but it seems to be effectively the same thing. And it will still involve "real potency." If there were only illusory potency, things could not really change.

I don't really disagree with what you said here; but then isn't the arrangement of parts the form and the matter is just the parts themselves?

Let's Angels for example, if an angel has parts and form but no matter and a chair has parts and form and matter; then that would suggest that matter is distinct from the arrangement of parts and the actuality of parts: it is a third thing. What is that thing?

@Count Timothy von Icarus

Chewing over this more, here's what I'm thinking. What tripped me up is really Aquinas' view that a thing could exist that has form but no matter and NOT Aristotle's view that beings are composed of both matter and form (other than God).

The parts which receive the form are the matter, and the form is the arrangement of those parts towards some end. Angels have to have parts to be distinct from God, so they must have matter (if they exist). Otherwise, if they have no matter, then they have no parts; and if they have no parts then they are absolutely simple. But only one absolutely simple being can exist (God), so they can't be without parts.

It seems like Aquinas is incorrectly supposing that matter is some sort of material or physical substrate.

If I am correct here, then the substrate that bears the properties of a thing is its parts (matter) in conjuction with what is supposed to be (in form); and the ultimate substrate for this is Being itself (God).

They cannot be just the parts, or the replacement of parts makes them cease to be. They cannot be just the current arrangement, or else when the arrangement changes (when Socrates breaks his nose) he ceases to be and becomes something else

I think I see what you are saying here, now: I was conflating formality with 'structure of being'. The form of a thing provides the structure of a thing, but is not identical to it. Otherwise, you are right that what the thing is would not exist: it was just be 'that which it is' and this would change when its parts change.

To say, then, that a thing is pure form is to say it is without parts; which would then entail that God is pure form which has no structure (other than speaking about Him analogically) because He is One.

I don't really disagree with what you said here; but then isn't the arrangement of parts the form and the matter is just the parts themselves?

Wouldn't this represent an additional supposition along the lines of reductionism? I.e. that all wholes are just the sum and arrangement of their parts?

I think it's to its credit that Aristotle's system avoids this.

I think I see what you are saying here, now: I was conflating formality with 'structure of being'. The form of a thing provides the structure of a thing, but is not identical to it. Otherwise, you are right that what the thing is would not exist: it was just be 'that which it is' and this would change when its parts change.

Right, I think this is very tricky and I had to go over it with a professor pretty closely to clear it up for myself because I had similar questions. Obviously, the whiteness of Socrates' hair is something actual, and if something is actual it must be something, and so it must be form and not matter. But the form/matter distinction isn't rigid in that being white must be a property of Socrates or his hair. We can predicate accidents of Socrates attributable to his matter. The properties of what we consider matter vis-á-vis some whole would be considered form if we were analyzing the substrate in isolation.

Form is always actual, but there can be potential that isn't matter. The biggest example comes from De Anima. The intellect is immaterial, but there is distinction between the active (agent) intellect, and the potential (possible) intellect. The intellect can obviously change. We can merely potentially know French and then learn it, and actually know it. We actually get a gradient of first and second actuality.

Yet the intellect is not a composite of form and matter (although some Islamic commentators unhelpfully call the possible intellect the material intellect). It is immaterial, the idea being that it does not have a substrate in the way "material objects" like a statue do. Indeed, the mind is "potentially all things," making is strangely like prime matter in this respect. This is not to say the body doesn't affect the soul; Aristotle isn't anything like a Cartesian dualist. But the intellect is not simply composed of body. It can be, in a sense, anywhere its thoughts are. When we see a tree across the road, we see a tree across the road. The senses are not "in the head.' We don't see the tree "in our head" or know trees as a universal "within our skill," but rather where there are trees. I think this is a huge benefit of Aristotle, because he doesn't confuse physical dependence with some sort of containment.

This use of "material" has to do with what we might call "physical things." They have some definite location, and matter carries the potential to have location, dimension, etc., as well as the limitation of having some specific location, dimension, etc. Angels, being immaterial, do not occupy space, which is why they can all "dance on the head of a pin." In medieval thought, this capacity to occupy physical space was generally thought of as a limitation, rather than something like a power. Matter, at least as informed substrate, always carries with it an actuality such that it is here and not there, and never everywhere.

Confusingly though, people also speak of material causes in geometry, but this is because we are speaking of shape as abstracted from material bodies.

Form is always actual, but there can be potential that isn't matter. The biggest example comes from De Anima. The intellect is immaterial, but there is distinction between the active (agent) intellect, and the potential (possible) intellect. The intellect can obviously change. We can merely potentially know French and then learn it, and actually know it. We actually get a gradient of first and second actuality.

This gets at the heart of my confusion: hopefully you can help clarify it. If the intellect, or anything, has no matter but has potential; then matter is not the substrate of being of a thing nor the parts which comprise it. So may main question to you is: what is matter?

It seems like matter is just the physical or perhaps material substrate of a thing—no? Aristotle wasn’t using the term matter in terms of ‘having mass’: so what is it? I can’t wrap my head around what it is supposed to be. If a thing is comprised of parts but has no matter (such as an angel, the intellect, etc.), then what is matter?

EDIT: or are you saying that Arstotle would deny that non-material things have parts? This seems to betray the idea of divine simplicity, but maybe Aristotle doesn't care about that.

If the intellect, or anything, has no matter but has potential; then matter is not the substrate of being of a thing nor the parts which comprise it. So may main question to you is: what is matter? — Bob Ross

Hi Bob - if I may chip in here. I'm no expert but have been reading up on hylomorphism. First point is that the term 'hyle' literally meant 'lumber' or 'timber' - signifying the idea of 'raw material' or a substance that things are made or shaped from.

As regards potentiality and actuality, I've noticed an interesting line of thought which draws on Aristotle in this respect.

In his reflections on quantum theory, Werner Heisenberg appealed to Aristotle's metaphysics—specifically the distinction between potentia (potentiality) and actus (actuality)—as a way to make sense of the observed behavior of subatomic phenomena. He proposed that the quantum state, prior to measurement, should not be thought of as describing something actual in the classical sense, but rather as a set of potentialities—real tendencies or dispositions that can be actualized under specific conditions. As he put it:

The probability wave… was a quantitative version of the old concept of ‘potentia’ in Aristotelian philosophy. It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality. — Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, p. 41

This line of thought has since inspired more recent philosophical developments, such as Ruth Kastner’s “Transactional Interpretation,” in which she elaborates on the notion of res potentia—real potentialities—as ontologically significant. Kastner and her colleagues argue that quantum states exist as a kind of non-actual reality (or pre-spatiotemporal structure) that becomes actualized through interaction (i.e., measurement). In this way, their work reactivates the Aristotelian framework in a thoroughly modern context - see Quantum Mysteries Dissolve if Possibilities are Realities:

In the new paper, Ruth Kastner et al argue that including “potential” things on the list of “real” things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses. ... At its root, the new idea holds that the common conception of reality is too limited. By expanding the definition of reality, the quantum’s mysteries disappear. In particular, “real” should not be restricted to actual objects or events in spacetime (i.e. things that actually exist). Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real constituents of existence.

It strikes me that Heisenberg’s appeal to potentia isn’t just a conceptual bridge to Aristotle—it may also subtly reintroduce the idea of degrees of being. In classical metaphysics, especially Neoplatonic and Aristotelian, existence was not a simple binary - particulars could be more or less actualized, more or less real. In contrast, modern metaphysics after Descartes and the rise of mechanism tends to treat existence as univocal—something either exists or it doesn't with no in-between.

But quantum theory, with its probability waves and superpositions, suggests a more graded or layered ontology. If a quantum state isn’t just a fiction but represents a real, albeit non-actual, mode of being, then this seems to reintroduce the idea that there are degrees of real-ness. The higher the probability, the greater the 'tendency to be'—to borrow a phrase Aristotle might have approved of. It’s an idea that hovers at the edge of physics and metaphysics, but it offers a glimpse of a richer ontological vocabulary than modern science typically permits, and also harks back to the classical 'scala naturae', the great chain of being.

I appreciate your response and that all sounds interesting, but right now I am trying to understand hylomorphism simpliciter (viz., the OG theory). I still haven't been able to wrap my head around what 'matter' is if it does not refer to merely the 'stuff' which are the parts that are conjoined with the form to make up the whole. As @Count Timothy von Icarus pointed out, many Aristotelian thinkers posited beings which are not purely actual but yet have no matter (like Angels and the intellect); and this suggests that matter refers to something other than composed being: it's some sort of substance only physical, or perhaps material, things have and it doesn't refer to 'having mass' either. So let me ask you: what is it?

So let me ask you: what is it (matter)? — Bob Ross

Yes, great question—but I think there's actually a deep connection between what Count Timothy said about the immaterial intellect and the point I made about Heisenberg and res potentia.

If we’re asking, “what is matter?”, then one part of the Aristotelian answer is that matter is that which has the potential to take form. But then we can ask: what about things that are possible-but-not-yet-actual—do they count as material? Not necessarily. As Count Timothy pointed out, the active intellect is “potentially all things,” yet it too is immaterial.

That’s where I think the comparison with quantum theory is relevant. In Heisenberg’s interpretation of Aristotle, the wavefunction doesn’t describe an actual physical state, but a set of real possibilities—a kind of structured potentiality. He even likens this directly to Aristotle’s potentia. So here too we have a domain of potentiality that is not quite “material” in the classical usual sense, but also not nothing.

It raises the intriguing possibility that potentiality—whether in the intellect or in the quantum field—is an ontological category separate to what materially exists: neither actual nor material, but still real. Which might suggest that our usual modern categories—matter vs. spirit, physical vs. mental—don’t do justice to the subtle gradations that both Aristotle and quantum theory seem to be pointing to.

I think you're looking for an unequivocal definition of what matter is, but that its nature is actually very elusive - again, something that modern physics is all too aware of.

P.S. Maybe this is why Étienne Gilson quipped that “philosophy always buries its undertakers.” For generations, we were assured that glorious Science would eventually answer all these deep questions once and for all—but here we are, circling back to Aristotle and the metaphysical status of res potentia. As John Haldane notes in his essay Philosophy Lives! metaphysics has a way of outliving the confident predictions of its demise.

The arrangement of the parts which makes the whole that whole of this type is the form imposed upon parts (actuality imposed on actuality); and if this is true, then the parts and their arrangement are what dictate potential that a thing has—not some substrate of potential (viz., matter). There’s no extra entity called ‘matter’ going on here. — Bob Ross

Aristotle showed how this is problematic. Each part, if it was divisible, would itself be an arrangement of parts, and that would lead to infinite regress. And, if we assume that things are composed of fundamental indivisible parts, like the atomists proposed, this is also problematic. There would be nothing to distinguish one indivisible part from another indivisible part, and all would be one.

In the sense of what I think Aristotle means, I would say that ‘having potential’ is to have a substrate that can receive actuality in some way — Bob Ross

I think it would be more appropriate to say that the underlying substrate has received actuality. We are talking about what actually is, and this means it has form already.

I believe the problem you are encountering is due to your jumping ahead, trying to understand "matter" as potential, without getting a fundamental understanding of how "matter" is defined. "Matter" goes into the category of "potential", but this is not how it is defined in the basic sense.

I still haven't been able to wrap my head around what 'matter' is if it does not refer to merely the 'stuff' which are the parts that are conjoined with the form to make up the whole. — Bob Ross

You'll find the answer to this question, in its most basic form, in Aristotle's Physics, where he defines "material cause", in Bk2, Ch 3 "that out of which a thing comes to be and which persists". Notice that the matter of a thing, is in a sense, independent from the thing itself. The matter precedes the existence of the thing, and it persists in existence after the thing perishes. I believe that this is important to understand, because it is the basis of "contingent being". All things made of matter were generated, and will perish, as their matter out lasts them.

So "matter" accounts for the perishability of things, and the fact that things have a beginning in time. But since "matter" cannot account for the reason why a thing is the thing it is, rather than something else, we need to posit "form" as well, to allow that things have whatness.

Contemporary Hylomorphism: A Reading List

If we’re asking, “what is matter?”, then one part of the Aristotelian answer is that matter is that which has the potential to take form

But then matter is something: it isn’t pure potency. There is a something that is receptive to change—fair enough.

If matter is just that which has the potential to take form and this is necessary for change and angel’s can change (e.g., by learning), then wouldn’t angel’s be made up matter?

The problem I have is that ‘matter’ seem to be referring to the mere ‘stuff’ that can receive a form AND material ‘stuff’. An angel has matter in the former sense, but not the latter.

As Count Timothy pointed out, the active intellect is “potentially all things,” yet it too is immaterial.

How is it potentially all things ontologically? It can know things by apprehending the form of a thing, but it doesn’t thereby become identical to it.

Aristotle showed how this is problematic. Each part, if it was divisible, would itself be an arrangement of parts, and that would lead to infinite regress. And, if we assume that things are composed of fundamental indivisible parts, like the atomists proposed, this is also problematic. 

Atomism is false because it posits two or more absolutely simple beings and an absolutely simple being is ontologically indistinguishable from another.

The infinite divisibility of an object is not only possible but necessary. God is the only absolutely simple being (i.e., divine simplicity) and if God is the first member of the causal regress of the composition of an object (which would be the case if the composition is finite in parts) then there would have to be at least one part which is also absolutely simple which is impossible; therefore an objects composition must be equally indivisible and subsistent being of each member is derivative of God as the first cause outside of the infinite regress.

There would be nothing to distinguish one indivisible part from another indivisible part, and all would be one.

Ultimately, reality is a giant infinite web of causality with God as the first cause; and these are both equally necessarily true. The difference between parts is that they are wholes which can be compared.

I think it would be more appropriate to say that the underlying substrate has received actuality. We are talking about what actually is, and this means it has form already.

Yes, but this does seem to posit that there is a real kind of being or substance, distinct ontologically from the parts of a thing, which has the capacity to receive form.

You'll find the answer to this question, in its most basic form, in Aristotle's Physics, where he defines "material cause", in Bk2, Ch 3 "that out of which a thing comes to be and which persists". Notice that the matter of a thing, is in a sense, independent from the thing itself

But this could be the stuff which is the parts of a thing—no? It fits the definition of “that out of which a thing comes to be and which persists”. The parts persist when the whole perishes and the parts are out of which the whole is birthed.

All things made of matter were generated, and will perish, as their matter out lasts them.

I don’t see how this is necessarily the case. A thing could be made of some substance which is capable of receiving form, exist as the whole between the form and its imposition on that substance, have the potential to be affected by other things, and yet no other thing affects it; thereby remaining unchanged. It is metaphysically possible for a thing that is perishable to be in an environment where it will not perish.

But by ‘matter’ he is not referring having mass but, rather, a substrate of
potential—right? — Bob Ross

One place where Aristotle defines matter, he says the following:

For my definition of matter is just this-the primary substratum of each thing, from which it comes to be, and which persists in the result, not accidentally. — Aristotle, Physics 192a31

If so, then how does this seed’s actuality (form) conjoined with its potency (matter)? If it is potential, then it is nothing (non-actual); which would entail there is nothing conjoined with the form (the actuality). Otherwise, there is something that is real which is mere potential (matter) that is conjoined with what is actual (form); and this admits of a nothingness that is something—doesn’t it? — Bob Ross

I think you are conflating matter with potency. There is a relation between the two, but they are not the same thing.

More generally, for Aristotle matter and form are not two substances that must be added together and conjoined by way of some third thing. Hylomorphism is the doctrine that substances are matter-form unities.

But isn’t it the actualizing principle that actualizes something already actual in a way that that actual thing (which was changed) could have been affected that accounts for change? Why posit some real potency which receives the form? — Bob Ross

Material form is not subsistent apart from matter. That's just not how reality works. We don't say, "The round," we say, "The basketball is round."

Likewise, if God is pure actuality because He has no parts (and thusly no possibility of receiving any actualization) and actuality actualizes what is actual and matter is a substrate of potency, then how could God create matter? Wouldn’t the existence of matter, in this sense, necessitate that that which can receive actuality (i.e., matter) must be so different than what actualizes that it is coeternal with it? — Bob Ross

I think that’s basically what Aristotle thought. He certainly did not think God creates matter.

But note that Aristotle in no way wants to begin with God. Aristotle wants to begin with things that we naturally understand, like stones and animals. Aristotle would not accept your presupposition that we should begin our inquiry with God.

I guess one way of thinking about it would be that Aristotle would say there’s a substrate of potency conjoined with actuality; whereas I am thinking about it as an imposed arrangement (form) conjoined with actuality. I don’t see what this ‘magical substrate of potentiality’ is doing.

Likewise, potency is nothing: it is not actual, but what could be actual relative to the nature of a thing—relative to what its parts can receive. Therefore, real potency is a contradiction in terms: a substrate of potential is a nothingness that is real. — Bob Ross

I think you are getting closer here.

I would actually recommend looking at Physics I.8, given that your objection to matter (but really potency) is so close to the view that Aristotle examines there.

You are saying something like, “What use is potency if it doesn’t do anything?” Aristotle begins his dialectical portion by looking at those who denied the existence of change:

The first of those who studied philosophy were misled in their search for truth and the nature of things by their inexperience, which as it were thrust them into another path. So they say that none of the things that are either comes to be or passes out of existence, because what comes to be must do so either from what is or from what is not, both of which are impossible. For what is cannot come to be (because it is already), and from what is not nothing could have come to be (because something must be underlying). So too they exaggerated the consequence of this, and went so far as to deny even the existence of a plurality of things maintaining that only what is itself is. — Aristotle, Physics I.8

Aristotle’s answer to this puzzle seems to be the same answer to your own quandary. You will have to read it, but the key is that matter is not merely “what is not” and form is not merely “what is.” In fact Aristotle will go on to distinguish matter from privation in chapter 9.

I think it is right to say that proximate matter and form are the same thing, but seen from a different angle. Proximate matter is the thing qua potency and (substantial) form is the thing qua actuality. In these characteristic examples of material substances there is no such thing as (proximate) matter apart from form or form apart from matter. For example, when we talk about the form of a bronze statue we are not talking about something apart from the bronze. We are talking about something that the bronze possesses within itself; something that inheres in the bronze.

This gets at the heart of my confusion: hopefully you can help clarify it. If the intellect, or anything, has no matter but has potential; then matter is not the substrate of being of a thing nor the parts which comprise it. So may main question to you is: what is matter? — Bob Ross

Yes, I think this is the question you are asking. I want to say that for Aristotle "matter" and "form" begin as common terms that are then fleshed out philosophically. So if we look at a bronze statue then the matter is the bronze and the form is the shape. And then we could look at the bronze itself, which is proximate matter (i.e. matter conjoined with form), and say that the matter of bronze is the various compounds of the alloy, and the form is their configuration and proportion.

The form is something like the "shape" or intelligibility of the thing, whereas the matter is that which receives the form, or that in which the form inheres. Again, they are not separable, but rather two principles of unified being. So bronze is matter qua statue, and the various compounds of the alloy are matter qua bronze (and then we could go on and on, examining the proximate matter of the compounds, etc.).

Matter is something like that in which the form inheres; the non-accidental substratum of the matter-form unity. It's not a layer cake where matter is on the bottom, form is on the top, and you need an intermediate layer to conjoin the two.

Non-material entities don't have parts in the way material entities are composites of parts. But we can make distinctions within them. The stuff on the intellect is open to a lot of interpretation though, which is why Islamic commentators ran in quite different directions with it (Averoese being a particularly interesting one).

Aristotle is in many ways a philosopher of quiddity. His main question is: "why are things what they are?" and not "why are things at all?" He thinks the cosmos is eternal. Hence, existence is not a question for him. That's what makes Aquinas, while very similar in some respects, quite different. He adds an existential twist that changes a lot

Aristotle throws out the idea of a number of pure actualities moving the world in the Metaphysics, although whether this speculation is actually consistent with the entire corpus, or just a dialectical suggestion, or a stray note is another question.

For Aquinas, there is no difficulty here. Angels and demons are only form, but they are not sheer existence. Only God is subsistent, pure being.

Actually, it's a debate in Thomistic studies whether matter is still the individuating principle or if it is the "act of existence," (and whether this is really a difference, and what it entails).

The focus on the act of existence is something I find very useful, in that it helps avoid conceptualizing form and universals as calcified logic entities. Ultimately, we have a process philosophy grounded by infinite being, which is something that comes across well in St. Maximus as well (who takes much from Aristotle).

That's what makes Aquinas, while very similar in some respects, quite different. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, Aquinas does depart from Aristotle occasionally. On this occasion he is hyper-aware of his departure. Metaphysically, when it comes to material existence Aquinas stays very close to Aristotle, whereas at the extremes he departs a bit (e.g. prime matter, God, angels, etc.).

(@Bob Ross)

I appreciate your guys' thoughts on this. Here's what I am thinking.

"Matter" is 'that which has the potential to receive form'; and 'form' is the 'actualizing principle which gives a thing it's substantial structure'. In this sense, Aquinas' idea of a pure form that is not purely actual is patently false; for parts have the potential to receive form and all beings other than the actus purus have parts. So Angel's have matter: just not material matter.

The idea that matter is eternal seems false in the sense that prime matter could ever exist (yet alone eternally): if Aristotle thinks, as Leontiskos pointed out, that matter is eternal in the sense of never being created then he is using the idea of matter as if it is a separate substance and this eternal matter would be prime matter. On the contrary, the way I see it, that which has the potential to receive form (i.e., matter) is just the potential an already existent substance (comprised of actuality and potency: matter and form) has---the matter and form of a thing are like two sides of the same coin instead of two different substances; so each object has matter insofar as it is comprised of something(s) which have potency until we get to God as the utlimate cause which has no potency (i.e., is not comprised of anything). Consequently, matter, being the potential that the parts of a thing has, is not some separate thing conjoined with form that God creates: it is just a symptom of creating things with parts.

I believe Aquinas gets his critique of prime matter right (more or less) and I simply wasn't understanding how God creates matter with things; but I realize now I was treating it like a separate substance that God creates with things. Matter is must always coincide with form because they are two sides of the same coin: the parts (which have being) are what have the potential to receive form and the form is what gives those parts their structure towards the end. Matter, then, always existed and will always exist with creation because God must create His totality of creation as an infinite of things with parts upon parts upon parts upon ... interrelated to each other; for if we suppose that God creates an object which has a finite chain of parts that derive ultimately back to God (causally), then the very first part(s) after God (as the ultimate one) of the said object would have to also have no parts (since the only more fundamental cause has no parts which could comprise it) and two absolutely simple beings cannot exist. A finite series of composition results in an absolutely simple being creating at least two parts as the first element or member of composition for the object and these two parts would be atomic (i.e, absolutely simple) since they themselves have no parts.

To answer Count, the individuating principle, then, is parts: the stuff that has the potential to receive form; and thusly Angel's being immaterial would not change the fact that the individuation principle would equally apply to them as well. The only kind of being with pure form, then, would be a being which is purely actual; and this kind of being has no principle of individuation that can be applied since it has no parts (i.e., no matter).

I think I've clarified it now: let me know if I am missing anything.