Potens per accidens sine accidentibus: Ockham on Material Substances and Their Essential Powers

Vivarium ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 102-122
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Substantial Form ◽  
Material Substance ◽  
Identical Part ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Efficient Causation ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Material Substances

Abstract Medieval scholastics share a commitment to a substance-accident ontology and to an analysis of efficient causation in which agents act in virtue of their powers. Given these commitments, it seems ready-made which entities are the agents or powers: substances are agents and their accidents powers. William of Ockham, however, offers a rather different analysis concerning material substances and their essential powers, which this article explores. The article first examines Ockham’s account of propria and his reasons for claiming that a material substance is essentially powerful sine accidentibus. However, the article subsequently argues that, given Ockham’s reductionism about material substance, only substantial forms – never substances – are truly agents and powers. Thus, a material substance is essentially powerful but only by courtesy – per accidens, as Ockham calls it – because it has a non-identical part, its substantial form, which does all the causal work by itself, per se.

Matter Without Form: The Ontological Status of Christ's Dead Body

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 131-145
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Jaeger ◽  
Jeremy Sienkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Dead Body ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Metaphysical Possibility ◽  
Substantial Form ◽  
Prime Matter ◽  
Material Substance ◽  
Secondary Causes ◽  
Material Substances

In this paper, we provide an account of the ontological status of Christ’s dead body, which remained in the tomb during the three days after his crucifixion.  Our account holds that Christ’s dead body – during the time between his death and resurrection – was prime matter without a substantial form.  We defend this account by showing how it is metaphysically possible for prime matter to exist in actuality without substantial forms.  Our argument turns on the truth of two theses: (i) God is able to produce all acts of secondary causes without those secondary causes, and (ii) Substantial forms are secondary causes of the actuality of prime matter.  We argue that the metaphysical possibility of matter without form is perfectly consistent with holding both there is only one substantial form in a material substance and that prime matter is pure potentiality.  Moreover, we argue that the metaphysical possibility of matter without form does little-to-no damage to our natural understanding of material substances.

Accidental Forms as Metaphysical Parts of Material Substances in Aquinas’s Ontology

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy W. Skrzypek
Keyword(s):  
Standard Model ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Substantial Form ◽  
Prime Matter ◽  
Material Substance ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
Competing Models ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Material Substances ◽  
The Way

Following in the hylomorphic tradition of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas holds that all material substances are composed of matter and form. Like Aristotle, Aquinas also recognizes two different types of forms that material substances can be said to possess: substantial forms and accidental forms. Of which form or forms, then, are material substances composed? This paper explores two competing models of Aquinas’s ontology of material substances, which diverge on precisely this issue. According to what the author refers to as the “Standard Model,” Aquinas’s view is that a material substance is composed of prime matter and substantial form. According to the “Expanded Model,” Aquinas’s view is that a material substance is composed of prime matter, substantial form, and all of its accidental forms. After outlining the main claims of each of the two competing models and considering two arguments in favor of the Standard Model, the author offers two arguments in favor of the Expanded Model. He argues that, given the way in which Aquinas argues for God’s simplicity in question three of the Prima pars, and the way in which he consistently describes the difference between an essence and a suppositum, or individual substance, throughout his works, there is good reason to believe that Aquinas thinks that the accidental forms of a material substance are included among its metaphysical parts.

Aristotelian Powers, Mechanism, and Final Causes in the Late Middle Ages

2021 ◽  
pp. 82-93
Author(s):  
Henrik Lagerlund
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Body ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Substantial Form ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Final Causes ◽  
Material Substances

Henrik Lagerlund explores the topic of final causality in the High and later Middle Ages. He argues that the seventeenth-century mechanists weren’t the only ones critiquing and rejecting final causality. There were earlier figures who developed a form of mechanical materialism that eschewed final causes, most notably William of Ockham and John Buridan. Lagerlund begins with the way that Ockham and Buridan in the fourteenth century understood the mereology of the body. Bodily substances were composed of essential parts and integral parts. Essential parts were its metaphysical constituents, its matter and substantial form. Integral parts were its various extended bits. This distinction generated a metaphysical divide between material objects with extended substantial forms and simple, immaterial substances like God, angels, and the human soul. And this divide raises a number of philosophical puzzles for the entities on either side of it. Of special concern to Lagerlund is the numeric identity and unity of material substances across time. Lagerlund shows how Buridan in particular struggled to make sense of the identity and unity of material substances through time. In the end, Buridan could only say that material substances are successively identical through time; they are not totally or partially identical.

What is affirmative action?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
In Virtue Of

This chapter (1) offers a definition of affirmative action; (2) presents a typology of affirmative action policies; (3) and distinguishes between different kinds of justifications for affirmative action. These are all three useful points. Often when people seemingly disagree about the justifiability of affirmative action, they define it differently; have different kinds in mind even though they define affirmative action in the same way; or have different kinds of justifications of affirmative action in mind, even though they define it in the same way and have the same kinds in mind. Moreover, if we do not know what affirmative action is, we are not in a position to say which non-moral properties it has. If so, we cannot tell whether it is morally justified per se, since presumably if affirmative action per se is (un)justified, it is (un)justified in virtue of non-moral properties that it has by way of definition. The chapter concludes with a thumbnail sketch of the rest of the book.

The Metaphysics of Malfunction

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Rudder Baker ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Intended Function ◽  
Artificial Hip ◽  
The World ◽  
Contrasting View ◽  
Per Se ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Normative Aspect

Any artefact – a hammer, a telescope, an artificial hip – may malfunction. Conceptually speaking, artefacts have an inherent normative aspect. I argue that the normativity of artefacts should be understood as part of reality, and not just “in our concepts.” I first set out Deflationary Views of artefacts, according to which there are no artefactual properties, just artefactual concepts. According to my contrasting view – the Constitution View – there are artefactual properties that things in the world really have. For example, there is a property of being a telephone per se; we apply our concept telephone to things that have that property. Things that have the property of being a telephone are constituted by, but not identical to, aggregates of particles. To be an artefact, an object must have an intended function, among other things. Telephones – in virtue of being the kind of objects that they are – are always subject to malfunction. And malfunctions, when they occur, are just as much part of the world as telephones are. The example of artefacts shows that what is in the world – what really exists – need not be “mind-independent” nor independent of our concepts.

Peter Auriol on the Metaphysics of Efficient Causation

Vivarium ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 239-272
Author(s):  
Can Laurens Löwe
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Efficient Causation

Abstract According to Peter Auriol, ofm (d. 1322), efficient causation is a composite being (ens per accidens) consisting of items belonging to three distinct categories: a change (or, more generally, a produced form), an action, and a passion. The change (or produced form) functions as the subject bearing action and passion. After presenting Aristotle’s account of action and passion, which constitutes the background to Auriol’s theory of causation, this paper considers Auriol’s interpretation of Aristotle’s account in contrast to an alternative interpretation defended by Hervaeus Natalis and William of Ockham. Finally, it shows how Auriol, on the basis of his interpretation of Aristotle, develops his own account of efficient causation as a composite being.

Productive Thoughts

2021 ◽  
pp. 246-289
Author(s):  
Dominik Perler
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Material Things ◽  
Efficient Causation ◽  
Mental Acts ◽  
In Virtue Of

We often experience that we have ideas in our mind, which present possible things and incite us to produce some of them. But how can our ideas be intentional? And how can they give rise to actions? In his theory of exemplar causes, Suárez examines both problems and offers a comprehensive theory. The paper first discusses his solution to the intentionality problem, arguing that he subscribes to an act theory, according to which ideas are mental acts that are about something in virtue of their specific content. The paper then reconstructs his solution to the causation problem, showing that he appeals to efficient causation: ideas are powers and hence efficient causes that immediately produce other acts, thereby triggering the production of material things. The analysis of both problems sheds light on Suárez’s broader theory of cognitive activity by showing that he takes mental acts to be intrinsically intentional and productive.

scholarly journals Design, the Decoration of Culture?

IDEA JOURNAL ◽  
1969 ◽  
pp. 71-84
Author(s):  
Tom Loveday
Keyword(s):  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Built Form ◽  
Material Substance ◽  
Interior Designers ◽  
Architecture And Design ◽  
Investigative Process ◽  
Three Dimensional Space ◽  
Material Substances

Interior designers have tended, like architects, to determine three-dimensional space using geometry by manipulating representations of material substances or building work. Geometry without substance is of thought only and only has one quantity; number. As such design becomes the manipulation of representations with the traditions of geometry. One of those traditions is the understanding of geometry as pure static Cartesian abstraction impurely expressed in substance. Design has tended to do this for a number of reasons, one of which is to engage more fully with the design of built form and another is to distance itself from decoration. This paper explores the issue and asks three questions: Is the repetition of Enlightenment geometry a necessary condition for architecture and design? If it is, does material substance become merely an excessive characteristic of pure concepts conceived as pure abstract geometry? Is culture becoming so dependent on geometry that to make geometry a pure abstraction is to understand material substance as excessive? These questions are reformulated through the investigative process of the paper and are asked in a different form as a conclusion.

Metaphysics and Material Modes

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-63
Author(s):  
Tad M. Schmaltz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Material World ◽  
The Real ◽  
Substantial Form ◽  
Prime Matter ◽  
Material Substance ◽  
Modal Distinction

This chapter concerns the metaphysical basis for Suárez’s account of the material world. It begins with his “analogical” metaphysics, which constitutes a distinctive contribution to the medieval scholastic debate over the applicability of the notion of “being” to God and creatures. Then there is a consideration of Suárez’s introduction into the scholastic theory of distinctions of a modal distinction intermediate between the real and rational distinctions. This new intermediate distinction yields the first clear instance of the early modern notion of a mode. The chapter ends with an examination of the two material modes that are most important for Suárez, namely, the substantial mode of union, which serves to unite substantial form and prime matter, and the accidental mode of inherence, which accounts for the connection between a material substance and its “real accidents.”

Quantity and Extension in Suárez and Descartes

Vivarium ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 168-190
Author(s):  
Tad M. Schmaltz
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Continuous Quantity ◽  
Material Substance ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Francisco Suarez ◽  
Henry More

Abstract This paper compares the development of the notion of continuous quantity in the work of Francisco Suárez and René Descartes. The discussion begins with a consideration of Suárez’s rejection of the view – common to ‘realists’ such as Thomas Aquinas and ‘nominalists’ such as William of Ockham – that quantity is inseparable from the extension of material integral parts. Crucial here is Suárez’s view that quantified extension exhibits a kind of impenetrability that distinguishes it from other kinds of extension. This view sheds considerable light on initially obscure remarks on impenetrability in Descartes’ late correspondence with Henry More. Though Descartes differs from Suárez and other major scholastic figures in his understanding of the relation of quantity to material substance, he nonetheless requires in the end some version of the Suárezian distinction between quantified and unquantified extension.

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