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Full Idea
The problem of unity disappears if our account is adopted. We allow a matter component and a shape/form component, one existing potentially the other in actuality. …The account is of a unity because one component is material, the other shape/form.
Gist of Idea
Things are a unity because there is no clash between potential matter and actual shape/form
Source
Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045a24)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Metaphysics', ed/tr. Lawson-Tancred,Hugh [Penguin 1998], p.249
A Reaction
It sounds as though the solution is that matter is material and form is abstract, so there is no rivalry. Elsewhere form seems more like a mechanism or a set of powers.
Related Idea
Idea 16108 If men exist by participating in two forms (Animal and Biped), they are plural, not unities [Aristotle]
| 16109 | Things are a unity because there is no clash between potential matter and actual shape/form [Aristotle] |
| 16088 | Aristotle's solution to the problem of unity is that form is an active cause or potentiality or nature [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| 16104 | Unity of the form is just unity of the definition [Aristotle] |
| 13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| 16766 | One thing needs a single thing to unite it; if there were two forms, something must unite them [Aquinas] |
| 16765 | Humans only have a single substantial form, which contains the others and acts for them [Aquinas] |
| 16614 | Matter and form give true unity; subject and accident is just unity 'per accidens' [Duns Scotus] |
| 16780 | Partial forms of leaf and fruit are united in the whole form of the tree [Suárez] |
| 16758 | The best support for substantial forms is the co-ordinated unity of a natural being [Suárez] |
| 12700 | Form or soul gives unity and duration; matter gives multiplicity and change [Leibniz] |
| 16748 | Aquinas says a substance has one form; Scotists say it has many forms [Pasnau] |