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Single Idea 16758

[filed under theme 9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / d. Form as unifier ]

Full Idea

The most powerful arguments establishing substantial forms are based on the necessity, for the perfect constitution of a natural being, that all the faculties and operations of that being are rooted in one essential principle.

Gist of Idea

The best support for substantial forms is the co-ordinated unity of a natural being

Source

Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.10.64), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.4

Book Ref

Pasnau,Robert: 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' [OUP 2011], p.561

A Reaction

Note Idea 15756, that this stability not only applies to biological entities (the usual Aristotelian examples), but also to non-living natural kinds. We might say that the drive for survival is someone united around a single entity.

Related Idea

Idea 15756 Some truths are not because of a thing's properties, but because of the properties of related things [Shoemaker]

The 18 ideas from Francisco Suárez

16667 Substances are incomplete unless they have modes [Suárez, by Pasnau]
17007 Forms must rule over faculties and accidents, and are the source of action and unity [Suárez]
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]
16682 Other things could occupy the same location as an angel [Suárez]
16743 We can get at the essential nature of 'quantity' by knowing bulk and extension [Suárez]
16742 We only know essences through non-essential features, esp. those closest to the essence [Suárez]
16665 There are entities, and then positive 'modes', modifying aspects outside the thing's essence [Suárez]
16666 A mode determines the state and character of a quantity, without adding to it [Suárez]
22143 Identity does not exclude possible or imagined difference [Suárez, by Boulter]
22146 Minor Real distinction: B needs A, but A doesn't need B [Suárez, by Boulter]
22145 Major Real distinction: A and B have independent existences [Suárez, by Boulter]
22144 Real Essential distinction: A and B are of different natural kinds [Suárez, by Boulter]
22147 Conceptual/Mental distinction: one thing can be conceived of in two different ways [Suárez, by Boulter]
22148 Modal distinction: A isn't B or its property, but still needs B [Suárez, by Boulter]
22149 Scholastics assess possibility by what has actually happened in reality [Suárez, by Boulter]
7563 The old 'influx' view of causation says it is a flow of accidental properties from A to B [Suárez, by Jolley]
13074 Only natural kinds and their members have real essences [Suárez, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]