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 (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.
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 in that they have properties but are not themselves properties. Properties are predicable; substances are not. Substances are concrete in that they are causally active/passive.
2) Material substances are analyzable into matter (ὕλη, hyle/hule) and form (μορφή, morphe). A-T ontological analysis is thus hylomorphic analysis.
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. Hylomorphic dualism is not a Cartesian dualism of complete substances, but a dualism of ontological constituents of one and the same complete substance.
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.
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.)
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?
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, 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.
8) A human being is a person.
9) A person is an individual substance of a rational nature. (Thomas, following Boethius)
10) There are many numerically different persons. (5, 8)
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 person that he is. The matter in question is not materia prima, but what Thomas refers to as materia signata (designated matter, signate matter) in his De Ente et Essentia. As Feser puts it in his Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (2014, p. 199): "The matter that is the principle of individuation is, in Aquinas's view, matter as made distinct by quantity or dimension -- designated matter . . . .
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).
Therefore
13) After death a human person ceases to exist as the particular 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)
Bill,
Thanks for this lucid critique of hylomorphic dualism. It is very helpful for someone like me who has long been disposed to reject this theory but lacks the philosophical finesse required to locate one of its inherent logical faults, which you have done here.
Reading this post today, I went back and reviewed your earlier powerful critical analysis of this variant of dualism in August 2011, where you argue that “there is a tension between soul as substantial form and soul as substantial subsistent form. Ontologically, one wants to protest, a form is not the sort of entity that could be subsistent. Necessarily, a form is a form of that of which it is the form. But a subsistent form is possibly such as to exist apart from that of which it is the form. These propositions cannot both be true,” and to which, in my estimation, Dr. Feser did not offer an adequate counter argument. I recommend this post and the subsequent exchange with Dr. Feser to other readers. All the relevant links are found here: https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2011/08/feser-defends-hylomorphic-dualism.html
Vito
Posted by: Vito B. Caiati | Tuesday, October 01, 2024 at 03:04 PM
Hi, BV,
Thanks for this clearly articulated objection to the post-mortem survival of the soul on the hylomorphic dualist account.
I don't know how to answer it (and I haven't read Feser's book yet), but I do have a related question regarding matter being the principle of individuation (point 7):
There is a certain elegance to the idea that I appreciate: form explains a thing's universality, while matter explains its particularity. However, it's not clear to me how it is supposed to work: if form explains what a thing has in common with other things sharing the same nature, then for matter to distinguish a thing from other members of the same species, doesn't there already have to be some distinguishing features in the underlying matter? But this seems to imply that there are forms already present in the underlying matter (at least to my way of thinking). What otherwise could account for these distinguishing features in the underlying matter?
Posted by: Ian M. | Tuesday, October 01, 2024 at 07:53 PM
Bill,
“It is matter that makes a person the particular person that he is… [,] ‘, matter as made distinct by quantity or dimension -- designated matter. . ..”
Putting aside for the moment the issue of the post-mortem state of disembodied souls, am I wrong in thinking that there is something extremely reductive in explaining the highly variable qualitative features of human beings, such as intelligence, creativity, intuition, and so on, by what is, in the end, a grossly materialist cause? Is it really the case that the explanation of a philosophic genius such as Plato or artistic genius such as Beethoven is to be found in the measure or extensiveness of the matter of which either is composed? This concern is slightly off topic, but I wanted to raise it, even if you do not care to address it, since it has troubled me for a very long time.
Vito
Posted by: Vito B. Caiati | Wednesday, October 02, 2024 at 04:22 AM
Ian M,
You raise a good objection.
Researching the question this early morning, I read Richard Cross' article in the SEP, "Medieval Theories of Haecceity," and it appears that Duns Scotus himself was aware of this problem. Cross writes, "Scotus rejects the view that matter could be responsible for individuation, on the grounds that we require too an explanation for the individuation of (chunks of) matter (Scotus, Ordinatio II, d. 3, p. 1, qq. 5–6, n. 187 (Scotus [OO], 7:483; Spade (1994), 106–107))."
I now see that Duns Scotus also anticipated something like the objection that I raised in my last comment at 4:22 this morning, as Cross briefly states: "Some medieval Aristotelians hold that matter, construed as a substrate for forms and properties, individuates; and it would be possible to hold that the individuation of a substance is explained by some bare particular that underlies properties....Scotus have been able to make any sense of a bare particular in the sense of a bare possessor of qualities, a view that would doubtless have struck him as inconsistent with essentialism."
Vito
Posted by: Vito B. Caiati | Wednesday, October 02, 2024 at 04:56 AM
Hi Ian,
>>if form explains what a thing has in common with other things sharing the same nature, then for matter to distinguish a thing from other members of the same species, doesn't there already have to be some distinguishing features in the underlying matter? But this seems to imply that there are forms already present in the underlying matter . . . What otherwise could account for these distinguishing features in the underlying matter?<<
If this question occurred to you independently of your reading, it speaks well of your philosophical aptitude. There is indeed a problem here and it has been discussed in detail by scholastics over the centuries.
This deserves a separate long post, but briefly: it cannot be prime matter that differentiates S1 from S2. Prime matter is formless. The individuator/differentiator is said to be signate matter, this matter rather than that. But what makes this parcel of matter, the matter of S1, numerically different from that parcel of matter, the matter of S2? If one were to say that the two parcels of signate matter are just different, brute-factually different, then one might just as well say that S1 and S2 are just different. To say that, however, would be to abandon hylomorphic analysis. There are philosophers who would urge precisely that. They would deny the possibility of ontological analysis (constituent ontology) and maintain that the only analysis of things as opposed to language is physical analysis. You can analyze a house into bricks and boards and nails, etc, and those parts into their parts, but there are no metaphysical parts, no 'principles' or ontological constituents such as form and matter. A large topic!
So what differentiates the two parcels? Lower-level forms?
Your point is that the two parcels would seem to need some low-level forms, and what would these be? And might their positing ignite a vicious inf regress?
Gotta go. More later. Thanks for your comment.
Posted by: BV | Wednesday, October 02, 2024 at 05:32 AM
Vito @4:22: >>am I wrong in thinking that there is something extremely reductive in explaining the highly variable qualitative features of human beings, such as intelligence, creativity, intuition, and so on, by what is, in the end, a grossly materialist cause? Is it really the case that the explanation of a philosophic genius such as Plato or artistic genius such as Beethoven is to be found in the measure or extensiveness of the matter of which either is composed?<<
This is not the issue under discussion, Vito. Consider just intelligence. Human beings differ greatly in this respect. Signate matter (materia signata) is not brought in by Thomists to explain qualitative differences in intelligence such as the difference in intelligence between Socrates and Theaetetus, e.g., but to explain the NUMERICAL difference of, e.g., S and T. S and T are two human substances, not one. What makes them two as opposed to one? It can't be the substantial form they share. And whatever that differentiating factor is, it would have to lie deeper than accidental differences -- differences in accidents. Being sunburned is an example of a an Aristotelian accident. Suppose S and T are both sunburned to the same degree and indeed have all the same accidents. They would still be two primary substances, not one: they would still be numerically different. Signate matter is posited to explain this numerical difference.
Posted by: BV | Wednesday, October 02, 2024 at 12:39 PM
Bill,
Thanks for this explanation, which clears up my confusion.
Vito
Posted by: Vito B. Caiati | Wednesday, October 02, 2024 at 12:56 PM
Vito,
Thank you for reminding me of that August 2011 post. The muse of philosophy must have been with me when I wrote: “there is a tension between soul as substantial form and soul as substantial subsistent form. Ontologically, one wants to protest, a form is not the sort of entity that could be subsistent. Necessarily, a form is a form of that of which it is the form. But a subsistent form is possibly such as to exist apart from that of which it is the form. These propositions cannot both be true.”
I believe it was Anthony Kenny who said, "Aquinas is an Aristotelian on earth, but a Platonist in heaven." I quote from memory. The saying brilliantly encapsulates what you quote me as saying above. 'On earth' (not on the planet Earth, you understand, but in the material realm), form and matter are ontological factors or 'principles' -- to use a word favored by some scholastics -- that cannot exist one without the other. No form without a matter that it informs, and no matter that is not informed by some form.
But there are three exceptions that put stress on the system. One is prime matter, matter wholly bereft of form, the aporetics of which I have examined in previous posts. The other is God described by Thomas as forma formarum, the form of all forms, which implies that God is a form without matter.
The third exception is the one we are talking about now: the human soul after death but before the resurrection of that soul's body. Said soul is a matterless form. It subsists like a complete primary substance, but is nonetheless a mere form which 'on earth,' 'here below' cannot subsist like a complete primary substance. Thus there is a tension if not an outright contradiction.
Aquinas tries to finesse the matter by speaking of the disembodied soul as an incomplete substance. It is clear that he is trying to accommodate the very strong intuition that a complete human being must have a body, if not a gross body, then a subtle one, a transformed, spiritualized resurrection body.
'Incomplete substance' smacks of a contradictio in adiecto Sublunary forms are not substances, but 'principles' invoked in the analysis of sublunary substances. If I must have a body to be fully human, then it is difficult to understand how my soul can be a human soul in its disembodied state.
There is also the problem of how a mere form can be a subject of conscious states. This requires a separate post.
And then there is your paramount concern: the tenability of the distinction between human souls and animals souls anent survival of bodily death. We need another post on this to examine what Feser has to say about the unity of consciousness.
Posted by: BV | Wednesday, October 02, 2024 at 01:37 PM
BV,
You've captured my concern very well in your 5:32 am comment.
"If this question occurred to you independently of your reading, it speaks well of your philosophical aptitude. There is indeed a problem here and it has been discussed in detail by scholastics over the centuries."
Thank you. Indeed, the question had occurred to me independently of any reading of it, though I had assumed that either 1) it must have also occurred to the scholastics; or 2) my understanding of hylomorphism was deficient and so my objection was somehow malformed. So I'm glad to know that my concern seems to be a coherent one.
"Your point is that the two parcels would seem to need some low-level forms, and what would these be? And might their positing ignite a vicious inf regress?"
Yes, exactly. And if the two parcels were distinguished by lower-level forms, how is that incorporated into the 'higher-level' form (and in that case, is it really accurate to say that *matter* is individuating rather than these lower-level forms?)? As I understand it, Thomism rejects plurality of forms existing in one substance, so I'm not sure if such a solution would be available to it. Even if such lower-level forms can somehow be incorporated, the infinite regress issue seems to be lurking.
I don't know if Scotus's theory of haeccity would resolve the problem, as I don't know enough about it, but I had wondered if this concern motivated his theory at all. Thanks for the reference to the SEP article, I will need to take a look.
I had put this question to Feser's commentariat on one of his open-thread blog posts a few years back. One commenter suggested that configuration and position in space distinguished one parcel of matter from another, but this doesn't seem satisfying either. Especially on Thomism, which I believe says that space is not an independently existing thing, but rather is dependent on substances existing. So it seems that this solution might be trying to 'bootstrap', so to speak.
Posted by: Ian M. | Wednesday, October 02, 2024 at 08:27 PM
Ian,
If spatiotemporal position is the principle of individuation, then a number of other difficult questions arise. Aquinas is far from holding that there is an 'eternalist' 4D spacetime manifold. With respect to time, I believe he is a presentist just like The Philosopher (Aristotle). I don't know what his theory of space is.
And then there is the problem of understanding relations. If A is taller than B, are there three items here, two relata and a relation? Or are relations reducible to their monadic foundations? I don't have the time now to properly explain this question.
Posted by: BV | Thursday, October 03, 2024 at 05:35 AM
Bill & Vito:
As usual, I am late to the conversation, but there is a lot to absorb in this excellent conversation.
I initially agreed with Vito's comment about the qualitative distinction between different people's rational form. Then Bill pointed out that the qualitative distinction between rational (artistic, etc.) aptitudes was not the issue under discussion but only the quantitative differentiation or individuation of the human form in the material world.
That seems correct to me. However ….
As I understand it, there is a form for rational human beings that is distinct from the form for non-rational beings. But rationality seems to me to be a peculiar form that is not easily squared with the other formal properties of a material body. If Kant's arguments are in any way cogent regarding the necessity of a higher unity of consciousness (Unity of Apperception) to thinking anything at all, then it would seem that rationality per se is or must be individuated. Such an individuation would be, in this context, numerical, not qualitative, and would survive Bill's response to Vito. And also supports the notion that this particular aspect of the human form could survive bodily death.
However I do not know whether this backward importation of a Kantian argument works in the context of the topic under discussion. The modern approach to these issues is so very different than the Scholastic, which apparently Feser is trying to overcome. I look forward to reading his book with great interest.
Posted by: Tom T. | Sunday, October 06, 2024 at 05:01 AM
Tom,
Material beings divide into the inanimate and the animate. Rocks and statues are inanimate. Plants, non-rational animals, and rational animals (humans) are all animate: they have an anima, soul, life-principle. My concern above is merely with rational animals. Non-rational animals are off-topic in this discussion.
My concern above is two-fold: Can the souls of rational animals be reasonably viewed as forms? And if so, can these forms be reasonably viewed as subsistent, i.e. capable of existing when the parcels of designated matter they inform no longer exist?
You mentioned Kant. But to bring Kant into this would muddy the waters even more. His approach in the phil of mind is radically different from Aristotle's, as you appreciate. There is of course Transcendental Thomism (Marechal, Coreth, Rahner and many others in philosophy and theology) and I find it unutterably fascinating. But we can't let ourselves be distracted.
Posted by: BV | Sunday, October 06, 2024 at 10:40 AM
Tom,
Consider these propositions:
1) There are many living human beings (men, rational animals).
2) Each such being has its its own soul or life-principle. There is no one soul for all ensouled substances. See ST Q. 75, art. 2.
3) The soul of a human being is the substantial form of its body.
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.
Now ask yourself: Can these four propositions all be true? In other words, are they collectively logically consistent?
There is a problem here since the first three propositions, taken together, would seem to entail the negation of (4). Do you see the problem? Any two humans must have the same form else they would not belong to the kind 'human being'; but no two human being have the same soul.
How would you solve (or dissolve) this problem within the A-T scheme?
Posted by: BV | Sunday, October 06, 2024 at 11:19 AM
Sorry, I've been traveling and am late getting back to this.
As you state it, I don't think the problem can be solved. The negation seems clear. But dissolved? I can't do that, but I can suggest what I think a solution might look like.
It seems to me that the problem lies with #3, wherein the soul is posited as identical with a substantial form. The soul is individual and singular per #2; a form is universal and applies to many particulars per #4. What's needed is a notion of a soul that is not a form because it pertains only to the individual, but is nevertheless form-like in the composition of a substantive person as the essential properties of that person. But I do not know if or where something like this would fit into the A-T scheme.
There may be a route to a solution in the Thomistic ens/actus assendi distinction and the notion of the actuality of particularized beings as a perfection. But I am treading in waters too deep for me, so I will stop here.
Thank you for your comments. They are always thought-provoking.
Posted by: Tom T. | Friday, October 11, 2024 at 11:50 AM
>>It seems to me that the problem lies with #3,<< I agree.
Feser defends the Thomist conception of souls against the Platonic-Augustinian-Cartesian conception, but unsuccessfully as it seems to me.
But to really get to the bottom of this problematic we need to go back to Aristotle and dig deep into his Metaphysics, in particular Zeta -- which is what I am now doing with the help of such top commentators as Alan Code and Jonathan Barnes.
Posted by: BV | Friday, October 11, 2024 at 01:10 PM