Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Oldest System Prog. of German Idealism' and 'Meditations'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism
13276 The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6
     A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / d. Form as unifier
13277 The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5
     A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 7. Substratum
16631 If we remove surface qualities from wax, we have an extended, flexible, changeable thing [Descartes]
     Full Idea: After taking away what does not belong to the wax, let us see what is left: surely, it is nothing other than a thing that is extended, flexible and changeable.
     From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], (VII:30-1)), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.2
     A reaction: Aristotle worried about nothing being left when you 'stripped' an object, so this could be seen as a positive contribution to scholastic philosophy. Why is the substrate 'flexible'? He talks elsewhere of taking the clothes off the wax and seeing it naked.