Hylomorphism is the Aristotelian theory according to which substances are composites of matter and form. If my house is a substance, then its matter would be a collection of bricks and timbers and its form something like a structure that unites those bricks and timbers into a single substance. Contemporary hylomorphists are divided on how to understand forms best, but a prominent group of theorists argue that forms are emergent powers. According to such views, when material components are arranged appropriately, (...) a novel substance emerges with the power to impose unity on its components through time. I argue that these accounts of form fall prey to a bootstrapping problem, and so, suffer from issues of redundancy, given plausible assumptions about inherence. In their place, I suggest an ontologically minimalist conception of forms as collective manifestations of the powers of matter. (shrink)

The thus far little noticed element in Aristotle's definition of the soul – namely, its nexus to the particularities of a complex physical body (σῶμα φυσικόν / sôma physikon) – is the key to resolve three apparent inconsistencies of Aristotelian hylomorphism: First, the incompatible modalities of the assumed binding relation between physical body as a simultaneously functional matter and the soul as its form; second, the homonymy problem, i.e., that, according to Aristotle's own statement, a body’s remnant that was abandoned (...) by its soul can only homonymously be called that which it was when it was alive; third, the problem that form in hylomorphism seems to be nothing but a configuration of material parts, which, though conceptualised in abstraction and independent from matter, would nevertheless add nothing new to the material composition in which it is instantiated. If that were so, how, then, can a hylomorphic theory conceive of form as ontologically separate from matter? Without a comprehensive and comprehensible resolution of those three major aporias – that is in line with today’s scientific conception of the world – Aristotle’s definition of the soul as form-without-matter would, in Ackrill's words, ‘resist interpretation’. This paper shows that such a resolution can in fact be achieved and that Aristotle’s hylomorphism allows for a plausible and consistent interpretation. (shrink)

Hylomorphism is the Aristotelian theory according to which substances are composed of matter and form. If a house is a substance, then its matter would be a collection of bricks and timbers, and its form is something like the structure of those bricks and timbers. It is widely agreed that matter bears a mereological relationship to substance; the bricks and timbers are parts of the house. But with form things are more controversial. Is the structure of the bricks and timbers (...) best conceived as a part of the house, or is it related to the house in some non‐mereological fashion? Kathrin Koslicki argues that substances have formal parts and that forms are best conceived as bearing a mereological relation to substances. This paper shows that her argument fails, given the traditional and plausible distinction between substances and accidental unities. I close with a brief suggestion for a non‐mereological construal of forms. (shrink)

Analytic Philosophy, Volume 62, Issue 4, Page 336-358, December 2021.