Sex Differentiation, Inheritance and the Meaning of Form in Generation

Sex differentiation raises problems for the account of the import of matter for semen’s capacity to animate. Critics of the view that matter matters for semen’s formal work argue that the male contributes a principle and not a material product and so its material is irrelevant. This chapter shows how the specifics of sexual differentiation and trait inheritance support the view that the male contribution works as form on material through the material capacity of heat. The female contribution is similarly shown to be capable of resisting the male contribution and can loosen the male’s ability to produce an offspring like itself because the male’s form is working through material and affected by other matter. The chapter concludes by showing the limits of contradiction and contrariety for thinking the relationship between form and matter beyond opposites to show how the Möbius strip model presents another alternative.