Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Some Concepts of Matter

Perhaps Patrick Toner could tell me whether whether I understand the different uses of 'matter' in Aristotelian-Scholastic (A-S) philosophy. Here are some of the distinctions as I understand and interpret them.

1. For starters, we can and do use 'matter' to refer to material particulars, a horse, a statue, a man, and indeed any hylomorphic compound, any compound of matter (in a different sense!) and form.  When we speak of the material world, we mean these material things some of which are primary substances.

2. Then there is matter as individual proximate matter: what a material thing is immediately made of.  Take a nice Southwest example, a quesadilla, the individual proximate matter of which is a tortilla and some melted cheese. 

3. Individual nonproximate matter.  The individual proximate matter of the melted cheese is some cheese. But this cheese and its material components, while individual, are not the proximate matter of the quesadilla.

4.  Matter as specific proximate matter: the various kinds of space-filling stuff.  Cheese and tortillas for example. 

5.  Matter as matter in general.  This is materia prima, prime matter, absolutely indeterminate and bare of any and all forms and, as such, pure potency to any and all forms.

On this scheme, (2) and (3) are designated matter (materia signata) while (4) is undesignated matter: the matter that can be referred to in a definition.  For example, if I eat a quesadilla, the matter I consume is designated matter whereas if I define  'quesadilla,' the matter entering the definition is undesignated and inedible:  'A quesadilla is a common item of Mexican cuisine consisting of a corn or flour tortilla folded over melted cheese and sometimes other ingredients in the shape of a half-moon.' 

Now what about secondary matter, materia secunda?  This contrasts with materia prima.  'Secondary matter' is an umbrella term covering both (2) and (3) and (4).  Or that's how I understand it.  Note that proximate matter is not the same as secondary matter.  The proximate matter of a meat ball is the meat (assuming it is made of meat only), but protein is part of its secondary matter without  being proximate matter.  The concept of proximate matter is relative; the concept of secondary matter is not.

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Bill Vallicella

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3 responses to “Some Concepts of Matter”

  1. Nightingale Avatar
    Nightingale

    In De Trinitate q. 5, a. 3, Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between sensible matter and intelligible matter to consider the object of mathematics.
    “Mathematics does not abstract from every kind of matter but only from sensible matter. Now the parts of quantity that seem to be in a way the basis for a demonstration by means of a material cause are not sensible matter; rather, they pertain to intelligible matter, which indeed is found in mathematics, as is clear in the Metaphysics.” (DeTrin.5.3.rep4)
    I wouldn’t identify intelligible matter with prime matter either, as prime matter indicates potency to substantial form whereas intelligible matter refers to matter inasmuch as it is the subject of quantity.

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  2. BV Avatar
    BV

    This definitely has to be added to the list. Thanks for the contribution.

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  3. Nightingale Avatar
    Nightingale

    Thinking about it more, there is not so much a list of the uses of matter as there are diverse orders according to which matter can be considered. You can combine members from each order and list all the possibilities, but it is probably better to consider each of the orders instead.
    According to quantity:
    Discrete: As 2 and 1 are the matter of 3
    Continuous: As the left and right halves are the matter of the whole
    According to abstraction from accidents:
    Prime matter: as subject (as it were) of substance
    Intelligible matter: as subject of quantity
    Sensible matter: as subject of quality
    According to abstraction from particulars:
    Designated matter: matter as in an individual
    Undesignated matter: matter as in a definition
    According to proximity:
    Proximate matter: as body is to animal
    Remote matter: as leg, flesh, cell, molecule is to animal
    Prime matter: as…prime matter is to animal
    ~~~
    You used “proximate” to describe what I put under quantitative matter, and I appropriated the term for what you called “secondary matter”. Related to this: I remember spending a lot of time wondering why Question 3 of the Prima Pars has both an article on whether God is a body and whether he is composed of matter and form. The reason is that the first considers quantitative part/whole, the second hylomorphic part/whole.
    I’m hesitant to put prime matter in two of those lists, but it is the terminus of each list in a different way.
    As for designated matter, it can be considered as with determinate dimensions (which fluctuates constantly in an individual) or with indeterminate dimensions according to which it is the principle of individual (regardless of its quantitative changes). This appears in De Trinitate q. 4, a. 2; a very difficult section in Thomas.
    These seem to be the most important ways to consider matter in philosophy, but it comes to be used for all kinds of things. In scholastic grammar, for example: the words of a sentence can be seen as the matter of that sentence, or even the subject of a sentence as matter with respect to the predicate. These senses do not match up exactly with any of the ones above, but are related to them and derive from them.

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