{"id":535,"date":"2024-10-01T05:00:25","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T05:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/10\/01\/a-problem-for-hylomorphic-dualism-in-the-philosophy-of-mind\/"},"modified":"2024-10-01T05:00:25","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T05:00:25","slug":"a-problem-for-hylomorphic-dualism-in-the-philosophy-of-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/10\/01\/a-problem-for-hylomorphic-dualism-in-the-philosophy-of-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"A Problem for Hylomorphic Dualism in the Philosophy of Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edward Feser's Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature<\/a> may well be the best compendium of Thomist philosophical anthropology presently available.  I strongly recommend it. I wish I could accept its central claims. This entry discusses one of several problems I have.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem I want to discuss in this installment is whether  an Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) hylomorphic analysis of human beings can make sense of our post-mortem existence as distinct persons. Thomas Aquinas maintains that after death the souls of rational animals, but not the souls of non-rational animals, continue to exist as disembodied forms, numerically distinct among themselves. What the following argument seems to show is that the survival of distinct souls is impossible on hylomorphic dualism.  I will not be questioning whether in fact we survive our bodily deaths. In question is whether A-T style hylomorphism renders it intelligible.<\/span><\/p>\n

1) A primary substance (a substance hereafter) is a concrete individual.  A man, a horse, a tree, a statue are stock examples of substances.  A substance in this technical sense is not to be confused with stuff or material. Substances are individuals<\/em> in that they have properties but are not themselves properties.  Properties are predicable; substances are not. Substances are concrete<\/em> in that they are causally active\/passive. 
<\/span><\/p>\n

2) Material substances are analyzable into matter (\u1f55\u03bb\u03b7, hyle\/hule) and form (\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03ae, morphe). A-T ontological analysis is thus hylomorphic analysis.  <\/span><\/p>\n

3) The soul of an animal, whether rational or non-rational, is not a complete substance in its own right, but the (substantial) form of its body. Anima forma corporis<\/em>. Hylomorphic dualism is not a Cartesian dualism of complete substances, but a dualism of ontological constituents of one and the same complete substance.  <\/span><\/p>\n

4) Substances of the same kind have the same substantial form, where the substantial form of a substance is the conjunction of the essential (as opposed to accidental) properties that make the substance the kind of substance it is. Unlike Platonic Forms, Aristotelian forms cannot exist except as instantiated in matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

5) There are many numerically different human beings (human substances).  I assume that the reader is familiar with the distinction between numerical and qualitative identity and difference. (Comments are enabled  if you have questions.) <\/span><\/p>\n

6) Since these substances of the human kind have the same form, it is not their form that makes them numerically different. (4, 5) What then grounds their numerical difference?<\/span><\/p>\n

7) It is the matter of their respective bodies that makes numerically different human beings numerically different. (2,6) Matter, then, is the principium individuationis<\/em>, the principle of individuation, the ontological ground of the numerical difference of material substances, including human beings.  It is matter that makes Socrates and Plato numerically different substances, not the substantial form they share.<\/span><\/p>\n

8) A human being is a person.<\/span><\/p>\n

9) A person is an individual substance of a rational nature. (Thomas, following Boethius)<\/span><\/p>\n

10) There are many numerically different persons. (5, 8)<\/span><\/p>\n

11) Only embodied, 'enmattered,' persons are numerically different from one another: embodiment is thus a necessary condition of difference of persons. (7) It is matter that makes a person the particular<\/em> person that he is. The matter in question is not materia prima<\/em>, but what Thomas refers to as materia signata<\/em> (designated matter, signate matter) in his De Ente et Essentia<\/em>. As Feser puts it in his Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction<\/em> (2014, p. 199):  "The matter that is the principle of individuation is, in Aquinas's view, matter as made distinct by quantity<\/em> or dimension<\/em> — designated matter<\/em> . . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

12) At death a person suffers the loss of embodiment, which implies that after death, a person survives, if at all, as a disembodied form (until the general resurrection, at which time the disembodied soul\/form acquires a resurrection body).<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore<\/span><\/p>\n

13) After death a human person ceases to exist as the particular<\/em> person that it is. But that is to say that the particular person, Socrates say, ceases to exist, full stop.  What survives is at best a form which is common to all persons. That form, however, cannot be me or you.  Thus the particularity, individuality, haecceity, ipseity of persons, which is essential to persons, is lost. (11, 12)<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edward Feser's Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature may well be the best compendium of Thomist philosophical anthropology presently available.  I strongly recommend it. I wish I could accept its central claims. This entry discusses one of several problems I have. The problem I want to discuss in this installment is whether  an Aristotelian-Thomistic … Continue reading “A Problem for Hylomorphic Dualism in the Philosophy of Mind”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,22,184,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aquinas-and-thomism","category-aristotle","category-death-and-immortality","category-hylomorphism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}