Hylomorphism is a philosophical doctrine developed by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, which conceives every physical entity or being (ousia) as a compound of matter (potency) and immaterial form (act), with the generic form as immanently real within the individual.
[3] The idea that everything physical is made of the same basic substance holds up well under modern science, although it may be thought of more in terms of energy[4] or matter/energy.
[5] The Latin equivalent of the hyle concept – and later its medieval version – also emerged from Aristotle's notion.
The Greek term's Latin equivalent was silva, which literally meant woodland or forest.
[5] The word materia was chosen instead to indicate a meaning not in handicraft but in the passive role that mother (mater) plays in conception.
[8] Aristotle explained that "By hyle I mean that which in itself is neither a particular thing nor of a certain quantity nor assigned to any other of the categories by which being is determined.
"[5] This means that hyle is brought into existence not due to its being its agent or its own actuality but only when form attaches to it.
[5] For Aristotle, hyle is composed of four elements – fire, water, air, and earth – but these were not considered pure substances since matter and form exist in a combination of hot, moist, dry, and cold so that everything is united to form the elements.
[15][16] According to Aristotle's theory of perception, we perceive an object by receiving its form (eidos) with our sense organs.
On the basis of his hylomorphic theory, Aristotle rejects the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, ridiculing the notion that just any soul could inhabit just any body.
[25] According to one interpretation of Aristotle, a properly organized body is already alive simply by virtue of its structure.
[29] According to Aristotle, a living thing's matter is its body, which needs a soul in order to be alive.
One approach to resolving this problem[33] relies on the fact that a living body is constantly replacing old matter with new.
[44][45] Some proponents of this interpretation think that each person has his own agent intellect, which presumably separates from the body at death.
[46][47] Others interpret the agent intellect as a single divine being, perhaps the unmoved mover, Aristotle's God.
[56] The ability to deliberate makes it possible to choose the course of action that reason deems best—even if it is emotionally undesirable.
Contemporary Aristotelians tend to stress exercising freedom and acting wisely as the best way to live.
Yet, Aristotle argued that the best type of happiness is virtuously contemplating God and the second best is acting in accord with moral virtue.
In this way, many difficult and perplexing questions regarding hylic nature as it is generally understood will be resolved.
It is open, therefore, to an objector to say that it is not a specific form through which a body exists, but that the corporeal form, which is the substratum in actuality, is that which sustains the specific formHasdai Crescas imagines that celestial-body is like Hylé but as matter in actuality, sure over the opposition about this, i.e. in potential existence.
Medieval theologians, newly exposed to Aristotle's philosophy, applied hylomorphism to Christian doctrines such as the transubstantiation of the Eucharist's bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.
Theologians such as Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas developed Christian applications of hylomorphism.
Others following Aquinas (1225–74) argue that the Neoplatonic interpretation is a mistake: the active intellect is actually part of the human soul.
[62] The chick can lose its feathers due to parasites without ceasing to be an individual chicken.
Some medieval thinkers argued that X's soul is X's only substantial form animating the entire body of X.
Aquinas was also adamant that disembodied souls were in an unnatural state[75] and that the perfection of heaven includes God miraculously enabling the soul to function once again as a substantial form by reanimating matter into a living body as promised by the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.
But atoms and the elementary particles themselves are not as real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts ...
[76]A hylomorphic interpretation of Bohmian mechanics has been suggested, in which the cosmos is a single substance that is composed of both material particles and a substantial form.