I've learned that hylomorphic dualism offers a different perspective. The soul is not a separate "thing" or "substance" in the way Cartesian dualism conceives it. Instead, it is the form of the body—a principle of organization, a blueprint. — Wayfarer
a separate thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
If the "principle" has a separate existence can't we call it a "thing"? — Metaphysician Undercover
If the soul, as the form of the body, is the blueprint, or principle of organization, and the living body comes into existence as an organized body, then the soul must be prior to the living body, as cause of it, and therefore a separate thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
doesn't this separate existence, whether its called a principle or a thing, necessitate dualism? — Metaphysician Undercover
No actuality can be prior to the existent of which it is the actuality. — Dfpolis
If it were a separate entity, we would have dualism. It is not. A "principle" is the source (arche) of a concept. Consider the actuality and potential of an acorn. Its actuality (eidos = form) is being a kind of nut. Its potential (hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") is to be an oak tree. These are not two substances joined in some way, but one thing considered in two ways. So, human souls are actual human beings, while human "matter" is our potential to be planting soil for daisies. — Dfpolis
I guess you refer to planting an acorn in order to grow an oak tree. (What else?) Like planting sperm in an uterus, an action that will (hopefully) result in the growing of human body.Consider the actuality and potential of an acorn. Its actuality (eidos = form) is being a kind of nut. Its potential (hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") is to be an oak tree. — Dfpolis
Indeed it does, but a being's own form/actuality cannot be a prior cause because nothing is actual until it exists. What is prior is a being's matter, its efficient cause, and its telos or end. Thus, the efficient cause, working on specific matter for a specific end produces a specific form or actuality.when a thing comes into existence it necessarily has a cause of being the thing it is, and not something else. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are confusing the hyle of artificial processes, where the clay or wood can become many things, with that of natural processes, which is determinate. (See my hyle paper.) An acorn has a determinate potential. It will never sprout into a pine or a stalk of wheat.since potential encompasses many possibilities, it cannot be restricted by one specific thing, such as your statement, "an oak tree". — Metaphysician Undercover
No, an acorn is not an actual (operational) oak tree, but a potential one. If you never saw one spout and did not know where it came from, you would not know that its end is to become an oak tree.So your statement "to be an oak tree" does not represent the matter of the acorn, it represents the form of the acorn, as that which restricts the matter to specific possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover
Every creature has a prior creative intention in the mind of God. But, that is a metaphysical, not a physical, explanation. Physically, the form of an acorn is the foundation for the form of the oak into which it may sprout, but, being the foundation for a form is not being the form. It is being a potential.So it is very clear that the form of the acorn "a kind of nut", which restricts the potential (matter) of the acorn so that the possibilities for what it may become are limited, pre-exists the material existence of the acorn. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is confused. What is ontologically, not temporally, prior is God's creative intent. But, God is simple, having no intrinsic diversity. What allows us to speak of distinct "exemplar" ideas in God is the fact that ideas are relational -- relating God, Who is simple, to creation, which is not. So, the Divine exemplars are diversified by terminating in diverse creatures, not by any diversity in the mind of God. Thus, without actual, existing creatures, there are no distinct exemplars. Since exemplars are inseparable from the actuality of the exemplified creatures, there is no dualism.This pre-existence of the form of the acorn, as prior in time to the acorn, therefore separate from the acorn, is what we need to deal with as implying the requirement for dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover
Of course, more is required. Still acorns grow into mature oaks, not pines or oats.Well, the sperm is not a potential human body. It needs to be united, combined with other organic stuff for an embryo to be created. Same thing with seeds and plants. — Alkis Piskas
The problem is that there are two traditions about souls. One is dualistic, and followed by Plato, Augustine and Descartes. The other is non-dualistic, and followed by Aristotle and Aquinas. In De Anima II, Aristotle argues against the idea of a separate soul, and concludes, essentially, that "to have a soul" and "to be alive" mean the same thing. He formulates this by defining the psyche (soul) as "the first actuality of a potentially living body." "First actuality" is being operational, which, for organisms, is being alive. Under this definition, every living thing has a soul, but not in the dualistic sense. Aristotle's psyche carries no mental implications, except in humans because human life involves thinking.But even if sperm is potentially a human body, i.e. the same thing in different development stages, they are both matter. Their relation could not be considered as soul and body or mind and body, a relation from which the subject of dualism arises. Am I right? — Alkis Piskas
Thank you.BTW, nice handling of the ancient Greek language ... — Alkis Piskas
Right. (And I guess there are others too in both camps.)he problem is that there are two traditions about souls. One is dualistic, and followed by Plato, Augustine and Descartes. The other is non-dualistic, and followed by Aristotle and Aquinas. — Dfpolis
(BTW, I'm leaning towards Platon. And I'm a pro-Socrates. Although I have never alalyzed or examined them from a "dualistic" point of view.) — Alkis Piskas
Most contemporary philosophers of mind employ a Cartesian conceptual space in which reality is (at least potentially) divided into res extensa and res cogitans. Then, they ask: how res cogitans could possibly interact with res extensa? — Dfpolis
Indeed it does, but a being's own form/actuality cannot be a prior cause because nothing is actual until it exists. What is prior is a being's matter, its efficient cause, and its telos or end. Thus, the efficient cause, working on specific matter for a specific end produces a specific form or actuality. — Dfpolis
To defend your position, you need to explain how a thing can be actual before it is. I think you are confusing two meanings of "form." An artisan has a "form" in mind before she produces her work, but that "form" is not the "form" (actuality) of the finished product, but her intention, i.e. an end (final cause). In the same way, the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, act on prior states produce final states. — Dfpolis
Every creature has a prior creative intention in the mind of God. But, that is a metaphysical, not a physical, explanation. Physically, the form of an acorn is the foundation for the form of the oak into which it may sprout, but, being the foundation for a form is not being the form. It is being a potential. — Dfpolis
This is confused. What is ontologically, not temporally, prior is God's creative intent. — Dfpolis
The blueprint, or design of the thing, as a form, is actual and prior to the individual material thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
If it were a separate entity, we would have dualism. It is not. A "principle" is the source (arche) of a concept. — Dfpolis
A thing is necessarily the thing which it is and cannot not be the thing it is, by the law of identity. — Metaphysician Undercover
Please expand on why you disagree. — Dfpolis
(I think you have just disclosed your gender! :smile:)Why take one human and divide her into two separate parts? — Dfpolis
No. You cannot have an interaction between a prior intention and its instantiation anymore than a line can interact with its terminal point. First, the intention to create terminates once the object is created, and second, a form as plan is not a form as actuality. If they were, we would have an actuality whenever we had a plan.These must be one and the same form, or else we have the so-called interaction problem. — Metaphysician Undercover
True, but that continuity does not make a plan the same as an actuality.f there is a gap between the form as desired end, and the form as individual object (outcome), there is no causation between the two, and the telos or end is not causal. — Metaphysician Undercover
We must not confuse accidents as unplanned outcomes with metaphysical accidents, which are notes of intelligibility that inhere in, and can be predicated of, the the whole. It is not unplanned accidents that make a thing actual, but the efficient cause implementing the plan. Accidents inhering in a being cannot be prior to that being. Matter as potential is prior, but once we have an actuality, all accidents belong to that actuality or form. For a human artisan, the actuality may depart from the plan because of the stuff used, but that is not the reason a plan is not an actuality.The difference is attributed to accidents, and the accidents are the influence of the matter which is chosen by the artist. — Metaphysician Undercover
Again, if plans were identically actual beings, every time we made a plan, we would automatically make a reality. That would make cars and houses much cheaper.Now the question is whether the influence of matter, and the resulting accidents, renders the form of the individual as a distinct form, or is it just a change of form, allowing the form to maintain its identity as the same form, in the way that a changing object maintains its identity as the same object, by the law of identity. — Metaphysician Undercover
Again, no. The mental form part of the process of execution. There is no gap because that process terminates in the executed reality. If there were a gap, it would mean that were were finished making the thing before it became actual, a contradiction.if we do not allow that the form in the artist's mind, and the form of the artist's finished work, are one and the same form, there is a gap between the two which produces an interaction problem. — Metaphysician Undercover
It does deal with ends, it just calls them "final states"; however, it does not deal with them as intentional.The problem here is that physics does not deal with telos, ends, and intention, but metaphysics does. — Metaphysician Undercover
They both explain, but at different levels. Each level involves a different degree of abstraction, and so the explanations are complementary, not contradictory or even competitive.Physics cannot give an explanation for this, but metaphysics can. — Metaphysician Undercover
But, it cannot, because it has no mind. God has a creative intent. It is manifest in the laws of nature which guide the transformation of the acorn's potential into an oak.[quote="MetaphysicianWhat I am saying is that the oak tree has creative intent when it produces the acorn. — Metaphysician Undercover
I am a moderate realist. That means I think universals do not have a separate existence, but do have a foundation in reality.With your background and interests, I presume you hold to realism concerning universals. Am I right in that? — Wayfarer
Yes. There are volumes on this. I discussed my position on universals (with references) in light of the fact that species are not static but but evolve, in "Metaphysics and Evolution: Response to Critics," pp 849-857. The basic idea is that each instance of a universal has the objective potential to elicit the same idea. It is this objective potential or intelligibility that is the basis in reality for our universal concepts. As populations evolve, the kinds of ideas their members can elicit shift and, so new species concepts are called for.Do you see what I'm getting at? Is this a topic for discussion in the sources you're aware of? — Wayfarer
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