Author: Jeremy W. Skrzypek
Category: Metaphysics, Historical Philosophy
Word Count: 999 words
When I order a new dining room table and the shipment arrives at my door, I don’t yet have a dining room table. Something more must be done or added to the contents of that box to produce a table.
According to the theory of hylomorphism, what must be added to produce the table is the form of the table.
And the table is not a special case. According to hylomorphism, all material objects consist of both matter and form.
This essay provides an overview of the main claims and basic motivations for hylomorphism.
1. Hylomorphism: The Basics
Hylomorphism (from the Greek words ‘hyle’ meaning ‘matter’ and ‘morphe’ meaning ‘form’) is the theory according to which material objects, things like tables, chairs, rocks, trees, rabbits, planets, and human beings, consist of two fundamental parts, components, or aspects: matter and form.[1]
The matter of any object refers to the materials or stuff of which it is made. In the case of the table, the matter is the wood, metal, and plastic that comes in the box.
The form of the object is the organizing principle that makes the object what it is: the organization, structure, or configuration present in its matter, which allows it to perform the functions or operations characteristic of its kind.[2] For the table, the form is the particular way that the parts need to be arranged and fastened to produce something that can serve our dining purposes.
For things like tables and chairs, the form is just the particular way in which the parts are arranged and fastened. But for things like living organisms, the form cannot simply be the spatial arrangement of the parts.
Living organisms are constantly reordering and rearranging their parts as they grow and age. So, in the case of living organisms, the form might be better understood as a kind of activity or process in which its matter is engaged, which allows it to perform the functions or operations characteristic of that type of organism.[3] Here we might look to the “life” of the organism or the particular metabolic, homeostatic, and developmental processes or activities of which that life is composed.[4]
2. The Motivations for Hylomorphism
Hylomorphism was first introduced by Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) as an analysis of the different types of change we see in the world.[5]
Sometimes objects undergo various changes in their parts and yet remain the very same object. Indeed, the metabolic processes of living organisms require that they be constantly exchanging materials with the outside world. That a living organism remains the very same living organism despite changes in its parts is explained by the sameness of form.[6]
On the other hand, sometimes the parts of an object remain and yet the object that they once composed is gone. So, for example, if I take a sledgehammer to my table, the matter of that table is still there, but the table is destroyed. This is explained by a difference in form.
Hylomorphism also helps to provide a theory of kinds.
Objects are the kinds of object that they are, and possess the characteristic capacities that they do, because of the kinds of forms that they possess. If, in assembling the parts of the dining room table, I give them the wrong form, then I might end up not just with a different object than I would have, but a different kind of object – like a desk, or a chair, or a piece of art. In short, objects of the same kind possess forms of the same kind, and objects of different kinds possess forms of different kinds.
3. Alternatives to Hylomorphism
What are the alternatives to hylomorphism?
Well, perhaps there are no tables. Perhaps nothing new comes into existence when I assemble the contents of the box. Perhaps it is still just those contents, only rearranged. This is the response given by mereological nihilists, who hold that there are no composite wholes, only atomic simples and the various relations they bear to one another.[7]
Or perhaps the table was there all along. Perhaps a table really is nothing more than the contents of the box. Prior to assembling those contents, we might say that a table is there, just unassembled. This is the response given by mereological universalists, who hold that for every possible combination of smaller objects, there is some composite whole, a larger object, composed of just those things, regardless of the proximity or remoteness of those things in space or time.[8]
Or perhaps both the table and the parts exist, and the table exists only after its parts have been assembled, but the mistake is to think of there being some further part or component or aspect that is present in the parts of the table when it is assembled. This could be because the forms of objects are, as Plato understood them, not in the objects at all, but outside of space and time. Or it could be because there are no forms or properties at all, only material objects and their parts.[9]
But notice that the first two proposals clash with how we ordinarily think about the world. It seems intuitive to say that I have produced something new by assembling the contents of the box.
And if that’s the case, then it seems that that new thing can’t just be the things that I started with. For, once again, those things were there before the table was. There must be something more to the table.
4. Conclusion
If I do produce something new when I assemble the contents of the box, then the table is something more than just those contents. The table is not only its material parts, but also the formal organization of those parts.
And that is the fundamental claim of hylomorphism: that there is some kind of formal part, component, or aspect to any table, chair, rock, tree, rabbit, planet, or human being, something beyond its matter which accounts for its existence and nature.[10]
Notes
[1] Some hylomorphists like to think of the form of an object as an additional part or component of the object, whereas others dislike the language of parthood and prefer to call it an aspect or attribute of the object. I have tried to remain mostly neutral on that issue here.
[2] For some recent defenses of hylomorphism according to which forms are best understood as certain types of structures, see Kathrin Koslicki, The Structure of Objects (Oxford University Press, 2008) and William Jaworski, Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind (Oxford University Press, 2016).
[3] For a recent defense of hylomorphism according to which forms are best understood as certain types of activities or processes, see Jeremy W. Skrzypek, “From Potency to Act: Hyloenergeism,” Synthese, Vol. 198, No. 11 (Jun., 2021): pp. 2691-2716.
[4] Aristotle thinks that the forms of living things are so complex and interesting that he designates a special term for them: souls. But in saying that living things possess souls all Aristotle means is that they possess the sort of form that makes them alive. That human beings possess souls, then, is, for Aristotle, uncontroversial: it simply falls out of his hylomorphic analysis of living things. The real question is whether the type of soul that human beings possess gives us unique and distinctive capacities or persistence conditions unlike those possessed by other creatures. For more on the nature of the human person and what makes us the same over time, see Chad Vance’s Personal Identity: How We Exist Over Time.
[5] The best place to look for this is Aristotle’s Physics, Book I, Chapter 7. Aristotle’s teacher and mentor, Plato, was actually the first to introduce the notion of form and to use that notion to explain the existence and nature of material objects. But, for Plato, forms are separate from the material world, altogether outside of space and time. It is Aristotle’s insistence that forms be understood as somehow “in” the objects that possess them that sets his view apart from that of his predecessor. For more on Plato’s theory of the forms, see Spencer Case’s Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: the Journey Out of Ignorance.
[6] This is controversial. All hylomorphists think that sameness of form makes an object the same in kind, but not all think that sameness of form makes an object the same in number. And this is so because hylomorphists are split over whether forms are universal, the very same form belonging to all members of a kind, or particular, a qualitatively identical but numerically distinct form belonging to each member of a kind. Here I am describing the approach taken by the latter camp, according to which sameness of form makes an object the same in kind and the same in number. If we go with the former, then sameness of form is only part (but an important part nonetheless!) of the story for how an individual remains the very same individual over time.
[7] Peter van Inwagen defends this view with respect to material artifacts in his Material Beings, pp. 124-141, but also defends the view that there are living composite material objects later in the book. For further reading on mereological nihilism, see Daniel Z. Korman, “Ordinary Objects,” especially section 1.2.
[8] Michael C. Rea defends this view in his “In Defense of Mereological Universalism”. For further reading on mereological universalism, see Korman, “Ordinary Objects,” especially section 1.3.
[9] For other non-hylomorphic approaches to preserving the existence of both tables and their parts, see David Cornell, “Material Composition,” section 3.
[10] The inspiration for my dining room table example used throughout this essay is Aristotle’s famous syllable argument for hylomorphism in Book VII, Chapter 17 of his Metaphysics. There he argues that even something as simple as the syllable BA is more than the sum of its parts, more than simply the letters B and A, otherwise BA would exist whenever and wherever B and A are found, which is clearly not the case.
References
Aristotle. (1984a). Physics. Translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye. In J. Barnes (Ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 1 (pp. 315–446). Princeton University Press.
Aristotle (1984b). Metaphysics. Translated by W. D. Ross. In J. Barnes (Ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2 (pp. 1552–1778). Princeton University Press.
Cornell, David. (2018). “Material Composition.” In The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Korman, Daniel Z. (2020). “Ordinary Objects.” In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Koslicki, Kathrin. (2008). The Structure of Objects. Oxford University Press.
Jaworski, William. (2016). Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind. Oxford University Press.
Rea, Michael C. (1998). “In Defense of Mereological Universalism.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 58, No. 2: pp. 347-360.
Skrzypek, Jeremy W. (2021). “From Potency to Act: Hyloenergeism.” Synthese, Vol. 198, No. 11: pp. 2691-2716.
van Inwagen, Peter. (1990). Material Beings. Cornell University Press.
Related Essays
Personal Identity: How We Exist Over Time by Chad Vance
Objects and their Parts: The Problem of Material Composition by Jeremy Skrzypek
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: the Journey Out of Ignorance by Spencer Case
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About the Author
Jeremy Skrzypek is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Ohio Dominican University. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Saint Louis University in 2016. His main areas of research are metaphysics, medieval philosophy, and philosophy of religion, with a special focus on issues surrounding the Aristotelian theory of hylomorphism and the thought of Thomas Aquinas. sites.google.com/site/jeremywskrzypek
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