Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

A Problem for the Hylomorphic Dualist

A position in the philosophy of mind that is currently under-represented and under-discussed is Thomistic or hylomorphic dualism.  Whereas the tendency of the substance dualist is to identify the person with his soul or mind, the hylomorphic approach identifies the person with a soul-body composite in which soul stands to body as form (morphe) stands to matter (hyle). In a slogan: anima forma corporis: the soul is the form of the body. To be a bit more precise, the soul is the substantial form of the body, a form that makes of the matter it informs a human substance. 

 


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