ARISTOTLE'S EXPLANATORY MODEL FOR THE UNITY OF COMPOUNDS

FABIAN MIE

SANTA FE

Taller; TALLER GRUPAL PICT 2016-2128; 2018

Universidad Nacional del Litoral

Famously, Ackrill casted doubts on Aristotle?s distinction of form and matter in its application to living beings. This problem arises because living beings are made of a body that is a full determined or specified matter (sometimes called ?proximate matter?) that cannot be easily detached from the form. This matter is usually called proximate matter, i.e. the matter that is proper to the compound. The qualification of matter in terms of proximate and remote becomes plain when Aristotle sets in motion his explanatory approach, particularly in Met. H4.1044a18, b1-3 and Θ7.1049a1-16. There, he claims that proximate matter is the only one that can really explain the compound?s (material) features and is potentially the form. Ackrill claims that if a stuff is determined enough to be potentially the matter of some compound, it must be already the same as the form; and there is no time in which such a matter could have existed without already having the form. A possible consequence of this reading in which I am particularly interested here is that, since the (proximate) matter has already the form, this latter item, which is notoriously called substance and primary cause (Met. Z17.1041b27-28, 30), turns out to be explanatorily redundant.As a matter of fact, this interpretation of several texts of Aristotle?s metaphysics and psychology challenges the basic distinction between form and mater, which has set in motion Aristotle?s mature hylormorphism. In what can be deemed an uncontroversial summary of the theses in Metaphysics Z17, Aristotle?s hylomorphism consists in the following basic assumptions: (a) form is distinguished from matter in that form is cause and matter is element; (b) the material cause does not provide us with the essence and identity of a compound, so that form is explanatory prior to matter; (c) the ontological map of hylomorphism includes basically three items: compounds, form, and matter; and crucially (d) the class-membership of compounds (i.e. the fact that this thing here is (classified as) a human being or a house) is explainable in terms of form-matter predication: this thing here is a human being because its bones and sinews or its hands and brain are determined or specified by the form of human (i.e. soul). Ackrill?s problem, briefly characterized here above, has a remote antecedent in Nemesius?s discussion about bodies that are potentially alive. I would like, first, to pay some attention to Nemesius, and then come back shortly to Ackrill again in order to try to identify what may be an Aristotelian way out to settle the issue raised by these authors. But before doing that it may be worth putting Ackrill?s problem briefly in context. Ackrill?s problem is, in a way, a result of his rejection of David Wiggins? equation between form and compound: soul and this soul (i.e. a man)  a controversial conclusion Wiggins draws from what he thinks is the parallel: being an axe (or the being able to chop) and an axe. So, interestingly enough, Ackrill?s problem, which is about the indistinguishability of specified matter and form, results from the rejection of the equation between form and compound. The key move from Wiggins?s to Ackrill?s problem is the clarification of matter as constituent. In fact, Ackrills rightly argues that matter constitutes a compound in virtue of having certain structure (a form): a body is (constitutes) a man because it has certain living powers. So, there is no room for Wiggins?s identification of form and compound because, in the end, a compound is made of some matter specified by the form.