This book presents a contemporary application of Aristotle's metaphysical concepts to the domains of biology and psychobiology. Professor Cooney reconstructs the form/matter or hylomorphic analysis of organisms and mental functions by linking Aristotle's concept of form to that of information in biological control systems. The resulting hylomorphic theory challenges the orthodoxy of contemporary philosophy by offering an alternative to both materialism and dualism. Professor Cooney makes his book accessible to a wide audience by providing clear digests of the (...) scientific information and philosophical issues relevant to his arguments. (shrink)

As there is currently a neo-Aristotelian revival currently taking place within contemporary metaphysics and dispositions, or causal powers are now being routinely utilised in theories of causality and modality, more attention is beginning to be paid to a central Aristotelian concern: the metaphysics of substantial unity, and the doctrine of hylomorphism. In this paper, I distinguish two strands of hylomorphism present in the contemporary literature and argue that not only does each engender unique conceptual difficulties, but neither adequately captures the (...) metaphysics of Aristotelian hylomorphism. Thus both strands of contemporary hylomorphism, I argue, fundamentally misunderstand what substantial unity amounts to in the hylomorphic framework – namely, the metaphysical inseparability of matter and form. (shrink)

This study draws attention to the ordering of matter and form argued for in Aristotle’s Physics II, 8 (199a30–32). This argument for hylomorphic teleology relies on the presentation of nature earlier in Physics II, 1. In this way, it highlights the connections between chapter one’s account of nature as matter and form and chapter eight’s defense of final causality. Grounding final causality in the principles of nature reveals its central importance for Aristotle’s view of nature. To clarify the meaning (...) of hylomorphic teleology I contrast my interpretation of Aristotle with that of Wolfgang Wieland regarding the scope and foundation of the final cause, countering his claim that chance and universal final causality are mutually exclusive. I contend that the presentation of teleology in chapter eight supports a diverse interpretation of the final cause, one that admits chance events while not sacrificing the intrinsic ordering of matter to form. (shrink)

Aristotle is traditionally read as dividing animal souls into three parts, while dividing human souls into four parts (a rational part, with theoretical and pr...

This article, the first of a two-part essay, presents an account of Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism that engages with recent work on neuroscience and philosophy of mind. I show that Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism is compatible with the new mechanist approach to neuroscience and psychology, but that it is incompatible with strong emergentism in the philosophy of mind. I begin with the basic claims of Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism and focus on its understanding of psychological powers embodied in the nervous (...) system. Next, I introduce the new mechanist approach to neuroscience and psychology and illustrate how it can enrich the more abstract ontological framework of Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism. In the third section of this article I establish in detail the many ways Aristotelian hylomorphic animalism is incompatible with strong emergentism in the philosophy of mind. Based on these fundamental differences I show why a criticism leveled against emergentism by the new mechanist philosophy does not hamper my proposed rapprochement between hylomorphism and the new mechanist philosophy. This conclusion, however, leaves untouched the problem I address in the second article, namely, is the new mechanist philosophy compatible with Aristotelian philosophical anthropology’s contention that intellectual operations are immaterial and interact with the psychosomatic operations of the rational animal? (shrink)

Defenders of physicalism often point to the reduction of chemistry to quantum physics as a paradigm for the reduction of the rest of reality to a microphysical foundation. This argument is based, however, on a misreading of the philosophical significance of the quantum revolution. A hylomorphic interpretation of quantum thermodynamics and chemistry, in which parts and wholes stand in a mutually determining relationship, better fits both the empirical facts and the actual practice of scientists. I argue that only a (...) hylomorphic interpretation of quantum mechanics is able to treat thermodynamic quantities, such as temperature and entropy, as genuinely real, which in turn provides grounds for the reality of the direction of time and of molecular structure. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that Aristotelian hylomorphism can supply a useful and informative account of composite entities as these are described by physical theory. In particular, a hylomorphic account of quantum entangled systems is defined in detail, and compared to other alternatives currently on offer—in particular, ontic structural realism. In closing, it is suggested that the view of entanglement outlined here meshes well with a recently proposed ‘coherentist’ conception.

I examine the status of Aristotle’s science of soul and argue that it is trans-generic in the way that Aristotle's universal mathematics is. For just as the branches of the latter differ considerably, so too do the sciences of life: botany, zoology, psychology, and (in Aristotle’s view) astronomy and theology. Discovering the correct definition of soul, which is their starting point or first principle, as with other scientific starting points, involves both induction and dialectic. Induction uses scientific observation of living (...) things to move toward this starting point. Dialectic enables the scientist to assemble endoxa, or reputable beliefs, that allow us to solve each puzzle (aporia) that clouds our understanding (nous) of the starting point that induction enables us to reach. (shrink)

Hylomorphism offers a third way between animalist approaches to personal identity, which maintain that psychology is irrelevant to our persistence, andneo-Lockean accounts, which deny that humans are animals. This paper provides a Thomistic account that explains the intuitive responses to thought experiments involving brain transplants and the transformation of organic bodies into inorganic ones. This account does not have to follow the animalist in abandoning the claim that it is our identity which matters in survival, or countenance the puzzles of (...) spatially coincident entities that plague the neo-Lockean. The key is to understand the human being as only contingently an animal. This approach to our animality is one that Catholics have additional reason to hold given certain views about purgatory, our uniqueness as free and rational creatures, and our having once existed as zygotes. (shrink)

Tim Ingold draws a sharp line between animism and hylomorphism, that is, between his relational ontology and a rival genealogical ontology. He argues that genealogical hylomorphism collapses under a fallacy of circularity, while his relationism does not. Yet Ingold fails to distinguish between vicious or fallacious circles, on the one hand, and virtuous or hermeneutic circles, on the other. I demonstrate that hylomorphism and Ingold’s relational animism are both virtuously circular. Hence, there is no difference between them on this count. (...) A path thus opens for what I call hylomorphic animism. While Ingold’s relational animism leads into obscurity, hylomorphic animism is able to explain the differences in power between material things. (shrink)

Concrete particular objects (e.g., living organisms) figure saliently in our everyday experience as well as our in our scientific theorizing about the world. A hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects holds that these entities are, in some sense, compounds of matter (hūlē) and form (morphē or eidos). The Grounding Problem asks why an object and its matter (e.g., a statue and the clay that constitutes it) can apparently differ with respect to certain of their properties (e.g., the clay’s ability (...) to survive being squashed, as compared to the statue’s inability to do so), even though they are otherwise so much alike. In this paper, I argue that a hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects, in conjunction with a non-modal conception of essence of the type encountered for example in the works of Aristotle and Kit Fine, has the resources to yield a solution to the Grounding Problem. (shrink)

I contend that Descartes’s view of mind-body union is not a Platonic view in which the soul uses the body as its vehicle, but hylomorphic in that mind and body form a single unit. I argue that Descartes’s view is most like Ockham’s, and therefore Descartes is entitled to maintain a hylomorphic theory to the same extent that Ockham is. I argue further that the soul is the substantial form of human being, and that mind and body are (...) incomplete substances that are substantially united to form the human substance. Finally, I address Descartes’s claim that the whole soul has its principle seat in the pineal gland, and conclude that this does not imply a Platonic view as one might suspect. This hylomorphic interpretation avoids the problem of mind-body interaction, which might be seen as preventing the possibility of the soul’s immortality, because an explanation of the behavior of one entity is required instead of an explanation of the interaction between two, apparently incompatible, entities. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

In this paper I will claim that the standard interpretation of Aquinas’s philosophy of mind is not satisfactory. A better reading is possible, which I will call strong hylomorphic dualism. Thus, I intend to do three things: first, I introduce strong hylomorphic dualism by highlighting the shortcomings of the standard reading, to which I will refer as weak hylomorphic dualism; second, I reconstruct two arguments provided by Aquinas to prove that his position is in fact best understood (...) as strong hylomorphic dualism. Finally, I suggest that Aquinas thinks of the relationship between intellect and phantasms in terms of what could be called diagrammatic causality, as exemplified by his theory of abstraction and attention to the phantasms. (shrink)

This paper argues against the common justification for the necessity of the state through the particular difficulty of private property right. Instead, I argue that the necessity of the state is internal to the concept of right in general. In order to show this, I point out how Kants adoption of hylomorphic language for the concept of right, where there is a formal and material aspect of right, allows us to understand the Rechtslehre as progressing through a syllogistic deduction (...) from innate right (major), private right (minor) to public right (conclusion). Material right is made necessary through its subsumption under formal right in the civil condition. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian hylomorphism has struggled to arrive at anything approaching a consensus regarding the notion of form. Contending that no ‘right-minded modern’ could embrace anything akin to Arist...

Ancient Philosophy Today, Volume 4, Issue 1, Page 96-127, April, 2022.

How should we understand the relationship, for Aristotle, between matter, form, and hylomorphic composite? Are matter and form distinct from each other, so that each hylomorphic unity harbours a plurality within it, or would such a plurality undermine the unity of the composite? A recent strand of argument in both Aristotelian and contemporary literature on hylomorphism has concluded that no genuine unity can be composed of a plurality. I will argue that the objection motivating this conclusion falls away (...) as improperly formulated in light of Aristotle's metaontology—in particular, his thesis that unity is indeterminate. The genuine objection threatening hylomorphic unity is one that Aristotle himself formulates as a central concern in his Metaphysics: no substance can be composed of substances. He answers this genuine objection in his appeal to the actuality/potentiality distinction, and in Metaphysics VIII.6 he reminds us why no more basic problem of hylomorphic unity arises. Against the backdrop of Aristotle's metaontology, hylomorphic unity cannot be undermined by the plurality, just as such, of matter and form. (shrink)

The “New Natural Law” Theory (NNL) of Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, and their collaborators offers a distinctive account of intentional action, which underlies a moral theory that aims to justify many aspects of traditional morality and Catholic doctrine. -/- In fact, we show that the NNL is committed to premises that entail the permissibility of many actions that are irreconcilable with traditional morality and Catholic doctrine, such as elective abortions. These consequences follow principally from two aspects of the (...) NNL. The first aspect is its distinctive version of the planning theory of intention, in which adopting the 'first-person perspective' of an agent is a sufficient, and not merely necessary, condition for determining the nature of his intentional action; this planning theory rests upon an implicitly Cartesian conception of human behavior, in which behavior chosen by an agent has no intrinsic “intentionalness” apart from what he confers upon it as part of his plan. The second aspect is the NNL's distinctive account of basic human goods' incommensurability, according to which there is no common factor shared by basic human goods that allows them to be comparatively ranked in any way that directs practical deliberation. -/- The entailments of these two aspects of the NNL, we argue, amount to a reductio ad absurdum. Pace the proponents of the NNL account, we sketch an alternative hylomorphic conception of intentional action that avoids untoward moral implications by grounding human agency in the exercise of basic powers that are either (a) essential constituents of human nature or (b) acquired through participation in social practices. This conception of intentional action provides a stronger foundation for natural law theory. (shrink)

A ciência experimental se concentra de forma peculiar, embora não exclusiva, no exame dos componentes materiais presentes na natureza e em suas relações quantitativas. Esta abordagem tem sido extremamente bem-sucedida, mesmo que haja lacunas e perplexidades a serem superadas, que, por sinal, também fazem parte do modus operandi da investigação experimental. Entretanto, se esta investigação é necessária para compreender a totalidade da natureza, ela já não é suficiente, o que é também corroborado por um sentimento de incompletude presente nas teorias. (...) Assim, existem razões justificáveis para se investigar a presença de uma estrutura não conceptualizável apenas em termos quantitativos chamada Realidade Velada pelo físico Bernard d'Espagnat, que pode ser assimilada à composição transcendental clássica de ser e essência, desde que este último elemento da composição, a essência, seja equivalente à estrutura forma-matéria, ou estrutura hilemórfica (aqui, matéria deve ser assimilada à matéria prima). Ora, a existência de tal estrutura reposicionaria a filosofia da natureza como conhecimento complementar ao da ciência experimental no sentido de que ele daria uma contribuição metafísica qualitativa relevante à pesquisa do que está além do limiar essencialmente quantitativo, conquanto necessário, oferecido pelas ciências da natureza. (shrink)

This book examines an important area of Aristotle's philosophy: the generation of substances. While other changes presuppose the existence of a substance (Socrates grows taller), substantial generation results in something genuinely new that did not exist before (Socrates himself). The central argument of this book is that Aristotle defends a 'hylomorphic' model of substantial generation. In its most complete formulation, this model says that substantial generation involves three principles: (1) matter, which is the subject from which the change proceeds; (...) (2) form, which is the end towards which the process advances; and (3) an efficient cause, which directs the process towards that form. By examining the development of this model across Aristotle's works, Devin Henry seeks to deepen our grasp on how the doctrine of hylomorphism - understood as a blueprint for thinking about the world - informs our understanding of the process by which new substances come into being. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on Plotinus’ engagement with Aristotle’s hylomorphism against the wider background of Plotinus’ account of living beings. Plotinus’ general point throughout his writings is that, whatever one might think of the soul as an enmattered form, its status is not sufficiently distinct from that of the body and of its attributes. So Aristotle cannot ground his own distinction between body and soul, since the soul is an attribute among others and all attempts to make sense of its status (...) and of its causal role are doomed to fail. This chapter outlines Plotinus’ critical approach to Aristotle’s hylomorphism from the early treatise 4.7 through the treatises on the soul (4.3 and 4.4) down to the treatises 6.7 and 6.3, where Plotinus develops his own sophisticated theory of incorporeal forms. Particular attention is paid to the status of living bodies within Plotinus’ account of causation. (shrink)

Hylomorphically complex objects are things that change their parts or matter or that might have, or have had, different parts or matter. Often ontologists analyze such objects in terms of sets (or functions, understood set-theoretically) or other extensional entities such as mereological fusions or quantities of matter. I urge two reasons for being wary of any such analyses. First, being extensional, such things as sets are ill-suited to capture the characteristic modal and temporal flexibility of hylomorphically complex objects. Secondly, sets (...) are often appealed to because they seem to contain their members. But the idea that sets do contain their members, in the ordinary sense of containment, is a substantive metaphysical position that makes analyses that rely on that idea for their plausibility much more metaphysically committing than is generally thought. (shrink)

This paper is an investigation into the metaphysics of social objects such as political borders, states, and organizations. I articulate a metaphysical puzzle concerning such objects and then propose a novel account of social objects that provides a solution to the puzzle. The basic idea behind the puzzle is that under appropriate circumstances, seemingly concrete social objects can apparently be created by acts of agreement, decree, declaration, or the like. Yet there is reason to believe that no concrete object can (...) be created in this way. The central idea of my positive account is that social objects have a normative component to them, and seemingly concrete social objects have both normative and material components. I develop this idea more rigorously using resources from the Aristotelian hylomorphic tradition. The resulting normative hylomorphic account, I argue, solves the puzzle by providing a satisfying explanation of creation-by-agreement and the like, while also avoiding the difficulties facing extant accounts of social objects. (shrink)

I outline a hylomorphic account of physical reality in which the cosmos as a whole has mental properties which explain its nomological order. According to this theory, the cosmos is directed in its temporal development toward certain ends or goals which it intends, and these ends are immanent to the cosmos rather than being imposed upon it. My object in doing so is to argue that, contrary to Sean Carroll (2021), a view of physical reality as having intrinsically mental (...) aspects need not induce any modifications of the known laws of physics nor violate 'causal closure' under physical laws. Rather, this soft form of naturalism, which includes final causes within nature, provides a foundation for the laws of physics that is lacking in Carroll's hard form of naturalism, which excludes mind from fundamental reality. I propose a trilemma for Carroll in which he should either: abandon naturalism, by admitting that the laws of physics are imposed by a divine mind; abandon realism, by conceding that 'laws' are constructed by human minds; or embrace cosmopsychism, by acknowledging that the cosmos as a whole instantiates a mind. I argue that cosmic hylomorphism, which links consciousness with intentional cognition, is preferable to non-hylomorphic versions of cosmopsychism, which tend to prioritize consciousness over intentionality. (shrink)

A paradox adapted from the well-known 'paradox of increase ' has been formulated against composite Christology in recent literature. I argue that concrete -composite Christologists can reply by denying the premise that the pre-incarnate divine nature = the Second Person of the Trinity. This denial can be made by modifying a hylomorphic theory of individuals. Using an analogy from material coinciding objects, this modified theory provides an illuminating account of how a person can gain parts over time but remain (...) numerically identical, and it demonstrates that concrete nature and person are not the same thing. (shrink)

The debate between relational versus constituent substance ontology is longstanding and ongoing. In the contemporary literature it is mostly taken for granted that any version of hylomorphism must count as a constituent substance ontology. Here I argue that a certain sort of relational substance ontology could also legitimately be labeled hylomorphic, and in fact that relational substance ontologists have some good reasons to affirm this version of hylomorphism.

Simon J. Evnine explores the view that some objects have matter from which they are distinct but that this distinctness is not due to the existence of anything like a form. He draws on Aristotle's insight that such objects must be understood in terms of an account that links what they are essentially with how they come to exist and what their functions are. Artifacts are the most prominent kind of objects where these three features coincide, and Evnine develops a (...) detailed account of the existence and identity conditions of artifacts, and the origins of their functions, in terms of how they come into existence. He then extends this account to organisms, where evolution accomplishes what is effected by intentional making in the case of artifacts, and to actions, which are seen as artifactual events. (shrink)

This article, the second of a two-part essay, outlines a solution to certain tensions in Thomist philosophical anthropology concerning the interaction of the human person’s immaterial intellectual or noetic operations with the psychosomatic sensory operations that are constituted from the formal organization of the nervous system. Continuing with where the first part left off, I argue that Thomists should not be tempted by strong emergentist accounts of mental operations that act directly on the brain, but should maintain, with Aquinas, that (...) noetic operations directly interact with psychosomatic operations. I develop a Thomist account of noetic–psychosomatic interactions that expands upon the first part’s rapprochement between the new mechanist philosophy of neuroscience and psychology and hylomorphic animalism. I argue that noetic–psychosomatic interactions are best understood as analogous to the way diverse higher and lower order psychosomatic powers interact by actualizing, coordinating, and directing the operations of other psychosomatic powers. I draw on James Ross’s arguments for the immateriality of intellectual operations as realizing definite pure functions in order to elucidate the way noetic operations uniquely actualize, coordinate, and direct the psychosomatic operations they interact with. I conclude with a conjectural sketch of how this presentation of Thomist philosophical anthropology understands the noetic and psychosomatic deficits brought about by damage to the nervous system. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reason, Passion, and Metaphysics in Bonaventure:Against Hylomorphic EnthusiasmMatthew J. DugandzicIntroductionContemporary commentators on Aquinas's understanding of the passions all agree that reason is supposed to be the ruler of the passions, but they disagree on the character of this rule. Some would ascribe a high degree of freedom to the passions, such that, even though reason is overall the ruler of the passions, sometimes the passions are right to (...) resist this rule.1 Others argue that the passions ought to obey reason slavishly, such that, if any passion is to be virtuous, it must result from "reason's immediate control,... [that is,] reason now commanding this or that passion."2 Many other thinkers would fall somewhere in between these two positions at various points, such that giving a full account of the range of these positions would be quite complicated, but these scholars could also be placed neatly into two categories according to how they would answer the following question: Are virtuous passions only those that arise in response to reason's immediate command, or can other passions be included, such as those that, for example, without [End Page 123] being explicitly commanded to do so by reason, prompt reason to do this or that, or even inform reason about some aspect of an object?3 Until recently, most scholars of Thomas Aquinas would have held the latter position, that the passions sometimes have some positive roles to play in the virtuous life even when they arise in the absence of an immediate command from reason.4 In recent years, however, the number of scholars who maintain the former position, holding that any passion that does not arise in response to reason's immediate command is not virtuous, has been growing.5 [End Page 124]My aim in this article is further to bolster the case of those who hold that, for Aquinas, the only passions that are virtuous are those that arise from reason's immediate command. I will do this by criticizing an argument that is commonly used by those who oppose this position, and which I refer to as "hylomorphic enthusiasm." Generally speaking, the logic of hylomorphic enthusiasm goes like this: Aquinas's understanding of the relationship between passion and reason is rooted in his hylomorphic view of the unity between body and soul, which unity implies that, for him, reason and passion have something of a collegial relationship, whereby reason rules the passions not despotically, but as a ruler who, though in charge, is nevertheless interested in hearing what his subjects have to say. Paul Gondreau, for example, says that, in Aquinas's view, reason rules over the passions as in a "constitutional monarchy," in which "citizens submit to the supreme authority of the monarch, yet without relinquishing all their political rights and privileges."6 For Gondreau, Aquinas's characterization of the relationship between reason and passion was unique for his time, and was due to his similarly unique "hylemorphic [sic] metaphysics of human nature."7 Bonaventure, on the other hand, did not share this hylomorphic view of the relationship between body and soul, but was rather a substance dualist, and so, consequently, he thought that reason cannot rule the passions politically, but can only "'tame' the passions by a kind of exterior imposition, or forced 'submission to reason' [obtemperat ratoini)]."8In sum, the position of the hylomorphic enthusiasts is this: Aquinas's hylomorphic view of the unity of body and soul implies a collegial view of reason's rulership over passion, while Bonaventure's more dualistic view of the relationship between body and soul implies that reason could rule the passions only despotically, rather than politically. There are a number of premises, both implicit and explicit, in this argument. For the sake of focusing this paper, I will choose to focus on two. First, I will focus on the explicit claim that Bonaventure held a dualistic view of the relationship [End Page 125] between body and soul; I maintain that Bonaventure's understanding of the relationship between body and soul is no more dualistic than Aquinas's. Second, an implicit premise of hylomorphic enthusiasm is that having a hylomorphic or... (shrink)

In Politics I 2 (1253a18–27), Aristotle makes a controversial claim that the polis is prior in nature to the individual. The aim of this article is to reconstruct this thesis. According to recent scholarship, there are two main ways to understand priority in nature in Aristotle. It may be construed as ‘existential priority, or as ‘priority in being’. It is argued that: (a) The first option is problematic; it cannot give us a viable reading of the thesis in Politics I (...) 2. Whereas (b) The second option provides us with a sound approach to the puzzle at hand. Furthermore, it is argued that the exegetical plausibility of the suggested reading of the thesis in Politics I 2 (1253a18–27) may be bolstered if we note that, for Aristotle, the polis is a particular kind of hylomorphic whole. (shrink)

Devin Henry offers a comprehensive study of Aristotle’s hylomorphic account of substantial generation. In particular, he argues that, in Generation of Animals, Aristotle defends a view that Henry calls “reproductive hylomorphism” : an application of the hylomorphic model of substantial generation to the central case of the generation of animals. In this review, I explain Henry's view and offer some criticisms of his two-stage model of reproductive hylomorphism that distinguishes embryogenesis from morphogenesis.

According to a standard interpretation of Aristotle, a material substance, like a dog, is a hylomorphic composite of matter and form, its “essential” parts. Is such a composite some thing in addition to its essential parts as united? The moderate reductionist says “no,” whereas the anti-reductionist says “yes.” In this paper, I will clarify and defend Durand of St.-Pourçain’s surprisingly influential version of moderate reductionism, according to which hylomorphic composites are nothing over and above their essential parts and (...) the union of those parts, where this union is explained by the presence of two modes: a mode of inherence on the side of form and a mode of substanding on the side of matter. (shrink)

It is common to interpret Maimonides as emphasizing the unknowability of God’s essence. In this paper, Sarah Pessin asks us to supplement this interpretation with the additional sense that God’s essence is also knowable for Maimonides. Analyzing Maimonides’ treatment of Exodus 33-34 and his treatment of the various ways of knowing and not knowing “God’s Face” and “God’s Back,” Pessin identifies “philosophical wonder” as a special state in which philosophers and prophets apprehend nature in such a way as to be (...) filled with an awareness of God’s presence in the universe. After presenting passages of the Guide of the Perplexed which beckon to God’s knowability, she goes on to introduce “hylomorphic apophasis”—the idea that God, for Maimonides, is simultaneously manifest in and obscured by the materiality of nature. The essay ends with a consideration of Maimonides’ analysis of a Rabbinic verse about God’s wrapping himself in a prayer shawl. (shrink)

This research examines three thematic areas: philosophy, education, and ecology. It aims to be an interdisciplinary study, fundamentally based on the importance of the philosophy of environmental education and the practical implications that it can have. The problem of the contemporary hylomorphic production approach is first examined and then educational solutions are outlined towards a holistic understanding of the environment and of producing with it and not on it. By environment, in research, we also mean the human being because (...) this is only one of his many appendages; therefore, as such, we try to relocate him to a non-privileged place (a place where he has been autonomously placed for centuries). It aims to be a militant study towards a different anti-anthropocene educational approach that finds its paradigm in the “Green Schools” of Bali, as we will see in the conclusion. Keywords: Hylomorphism, ontology, environmental education, philosophy of education, ecosophy. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates the metaphysics of human body parts; particularly, the epistemic conditions under which something can be said to be a “body part of” some particular human being. In this dissertation I draw on the hylomorphism of Aristotle and John Duns Scotus to argue that a necessary and sufficient condition on human bodily parthood is an object’s functioning for the sake of the whole human being and the maintenance of her biological life. I argue that, on this view of (...) bodily parthood, at least some prostheses or artificial organs are truly body parts of the human beings in whom they operate. I defend this view in reference to both Aristotelian and Scotistic hylomorphism, as well as answering objections raised by some contemporary views of bodily parthood as merely conventional. I argue that this has important implications for medical ethics, including potentially restricting medical interventions in end-of-life care and heightening the legal ramification of damage done to prostheses. I argue that investigation into the metaphysical questions surrounding body parts and their composition can illuminate hitherto underappreciated dimensions of ethical questions in medicine. (shrink)

I formulate an account, in terms of essence and ground, that explains why atomic Russellian propositions have the truth conditions they do. The key ideas are that (i) atomic propositions are just 0-adic relations, (ii) truth is just the 1-adic version of the instantiation (or, as I will say, holding) relation (Menzel 1993: 86, note 27), and (iii) atomic propositions have the truth conditions they do for basically the same reasons that partially plugged relations, like being an x and a (...) y such that Philip gave x to y, have the holding conditions they do. The account is meant to be mainly of intrinsic interest, but I hope that it goes some distance toward answering an objection to classical theories of propositions put forward by King (2014), who writes that ‘since the classical conception of propositions as things that have truth conditions by their very natures and independently of minds and languages is incapable of explaining how or why propositions have truth conditions, it is unacceptable’ (2014: 47). Propositions do have their truth conditions ‘by their very natures’ and ‘independently of minds and languages’. But a fact about a given entity can hold by the very nature of that entity without being a fundamental fact. I argue that this is plausibly the case for atomic Russellian propositions and the facts about their truth conditions. A fact about the truth conditions of such a proposition holds by the very nature of the given proposition but is metaphysically grounded in facts about that proposition’s parts and their essences. If my account is correct, then the supposedly intractable problem of explaining why the given propositions have the truth conditions they do reduces to the problem of explaining why relations have the holding essences they do, which few seem to have found worrisome . (shrink)

This article expands our knowledge of the historical-philosophical process by which the dominant metaphysical account of the Christian God became ascendant. It demonstrates that Marius Victorinus proposed a peculiar model of ‘consubstantiality’ that utilised a notion of ‘existence’ indebted to the Aristotelian concept of ‘prime matter’. Victorinus employed this to argue that God is a unity composed of Father and Son. The article critically evaluates this model. It then argues that Augustine noticed one of the model's philosophical liabilities but did (...) not publicly name Victorinus when he rejected it in De Trinitate, thereby exemplifying the practice of private ‘rebuke’ (ἐλέγχɛιν). (shrink)

In this essay, the author examines the problem of the composition of spiritual substances in Thierry of Chartres and Gundissalinus. While Thierry is reticent to admit a hylomorphism in spiritual creatures, Gundissalinus develops Thierry’s thought on the matter through al-Ghazālī’s and Ibn Daud’s treatment of the composition in spiritual substances. Gundissalinus concludes that spiritual creatures are composed of matter and form, a conclusion that would be unacceptable to his main philosophical authorities.