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16620
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A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
Nothing can be compounded of matter and form. The matter of a chair is wood; the form is the figure it has, apt for the intended use. Does his Lordship think the chair compounded of the wood and the figure?
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:302), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1
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A reaction:
Aristotle does use the word 'shape' [morphe] when he is discussing hylomorphism, and the statue example seems to support it, but elsewhere the form is a much deeper principle of individuation.
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16766
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One thing needs a single thing to unite it; if there were two forms, something must unite them [Aquinas]
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Full Idea:
One thing simpliciter is produced out of many actually existing things only if there is something uniting and tying them to each other. If Socrates were animal and rational by different forms, then to be united they would need something to make them one.
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From:
Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones de anima [1269], 11c), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 25.2
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A reaction:
This is the reply to the idea that a single thing is just an interesting of many sortal essences. It presumes, of course, that a thing like a horse has something called 'unity'.
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16622
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Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
Essence and all other abstract names are words artificial belonging to the art of logic, and signify only the manner how we consider the substance itself.
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:308), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671
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A reaction:
I sympathise quite a lot with this view, but not with its dismissive tone. The key question I take to be: if you reject essences entirely (having read too much physics), how are we going to think about entities in the world in future?
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