Contra Pruss on Matter (Part 1)

(This is the first of three blog posts on this topic.)

See here for Part 2.

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), "Thought"

In a blog post from May (‘Good-bye, (Aristotelian) matter’), Professor Alex Pruss of Baylor provocatively argues that we can get by with the notion of material substances without the notion of matter and that matter does not philosophical work even in an Aristotelian theory. It’s an interesting piece that I’d like to consider and attempt some response to.

Pruss assigns five possible theoretical roles that matter might play and shows why either it is not suited to play this role or it is not needed. The basic idea will be that we can get by fine by solving various philosophical problems using only Aristotelian forms and the accidents that inhere in them.

The five roles are:

1.     Matter is what persists through substantial changes.

2.     Matter is why an individual is the same at one time and another (i.e. it solves the problem of diachronic identity).

3.     Matter helps solve the problem of material composition.

4.     Hylomorphism solves the mind-body problem.

5.     Matter plays a role in modern physics.

I’ll ignore the fifth role because I agree with Pruss that there isn’t a fundamental distinction between matter and energy in modern physics.

Before showing what role matter is supposed to play in these issues, I want to begin with some more general remarks about what role form and accidents cannot play because by showing their theoretical limits I’ll be able to create some space for matter.

An important point against Pruss is that a form cannot be the primary subject of material accidents (as in, it may only be the subject of these accidents in virtue of either the matter or composite’s having them).

There are several reasons for supposing this:

·      First, the proposal leads to counterintuitive results. For example, the following will be correct statements, ‘My soul weighs 175 lbs.’ and ‘The form of the tree is brown and green’.

·      Second, it undermines the perfect similarity of forms. In Aristotle’s picture, forms are distinct from each other just in virtue of themselves, but they do not possess different properties. Instead, these different properties inhere in the composite. On Pruss’ picture, though, the accidents will inhere in the form itself. Thus forms of different particulars can be different from each other.

·      Third, it undermines the determinate nature of a form and reverses the explanatory order between the form and the accidents that inhere in a substance. If a form is the sort of thing that can be informed by any number of colors, then it is in potency to these various contrary accidents. Hence we will have the substantial form’s being informed by these accidental forms. Thus these accidents will explain why the form is the way it actually is. This is backwards because forms are supposed to be primary substances, which means that they are causal and explanatory and not to be explained in terms of anything else in the substance.

·      Fourth, the proposal undermines Aristotle and Aquinas’ argument for the immateriality of the human intellect. The difference between the way a substantial form exists in the intellect and the way it exists in the external world is that in the one case it inheres in the possible intellect and in the other some matter. If we jettison matter, then we cannot distinguish these two ways of existing, but part of the reason that this distinction between material and ‘spiritual’ or intentional existence is useful is because it means we can show that the intellect must not have any matter and hence no material accidents if it is to have various different substantial forms inhere in it.

An alternative proposal is to make a real distinction between the material substance and the form. Then the substance is the subject of the form and the accidents. Of course, this means that we get a bare particular view. This is even worse than the sort of bare particular view people see lurking in Aquinas’ notion of prime matter. For if there is no matter it is hard to see what this substance would be apart from its form and accidents. It is not even a potentiality, since we deny the existence of any matter that stands as potentiality to the form.