Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

A Hylomorphic Solution to the Interaction Problem?

Interactionist substance dualism in the philosophy of mind is supposed to face a devastating objection, the interaction objection. In the first part of this post I will present this objection in its traditional form and suggest that it is not all that serious. In the second part, however, I take the objection seriously and consider whether Aristotelian- Thomistic hylomorphism has the resources to counter it. 

I. The Traditional Interaction Objection

 It is a given that mind affects body, and body mind. Suddenly remembering the bottle of single-malt Scotch that Harry gave me for my birthday, I am inspired to get out of my chair and pour myself some. After consuming a generous portion, I note that my mental state has altered appreciably. The mental event of remembering causes the physical event of drinking which in turn elicits the mental state of elation, which may bring in its train some loss of motor control.  But how are such interactions possible if mind and body/brain are distinct types of substance, one spatial the other nonspatial? As Elliot Sober put it recently: 

If the mind is immaterial, then it does not take up space. But if it lacks spatial location, how can it be causally connected to the body? When two events are causally connected, we normally expect there to be a physical signal that passes from one to the other. How can a physical signal emerge from or lead to the mind if the mind is no place at all? (Philosophy of Biology ,Westview 2000, 2nd ed., p. 24) 

The above is a piece of philosophical boilerplate endlessly repeated in the materialist literature.  I confess to a difficulty in seeing just what this objection is supposed to be. If Sober is saying that all causation must involve physical contact between cause and effect, then he simply begs the question against the dualist. He simply asserts something that the dualist denies. Is it obvious what the correct theory of causation is?  Is it obvious that all causation involves physical contact between cause and effect and the transfer of some physical magnitude from cause to effect?  Certainly not inasmuch as there are a number of competing theories of causation, among them counterfactual theories, transfer theories, and nomological theories, to name just three broad types.  Given that the nature of causation is up for grabs, and given that the interaction objections requires a transfer theory of causation, one should conclude that the interaction objections is the exact opposite of decisive.

If interactionist dualism is true, then there are cases of causation that do not operate by physical contact. One cannot refute this by saying, or implying, that all cases of causation operate by physical contact. At this point I will be told that dualist interaction is unintelligible. But why? If you say that it is because dualist interaction does not fit the physical-physical pattern, then again you beg the question. If you say that every case of causation involves an intervening mechanism, but there isn't one in the dualist case, then you beg the question in a slightly more subtle way. For what the dualist holds is that there are cases of direct causation. It is not clear that all physical-physical causation is indirect, but even if it were, this putative fact is not a reason to think that all cases of causation are indirect.

But how does mental-physical causation work? If this is a demand for a specification of the intervening mechanism, then the question rests on a false presupposition, namely, that there must be such a mechanism. If, on the other hand, the demand is for a specification of the causally relevant properties and covering laws, then I see no reason why this demand cannot be met.

I think that there is less to the traditional objection than meets the eye: it gives the interactionist dualist little reason to abandon his view.   

II. A Hylomorphic Solution

But perhaps I'm wrong — in the good company of Curt Ducasse, John Foster and a few others. Legions of philosophers have taken the objection sketched above to be crushingly strong. A drastic way of meeting it is by retaining a dualism of substances while denying interaction. Occasionalists, parallelists, and epiphenomenalists deny interaction. But I mention them only to set them aside. An alternative is to hold to interaction while denying dualism. Here we meet materialists and idealists. But brevity is the soul of blog, so I set them aside as well. This brings us to what might be called hylomorphic dualist interactionism. Is it superior to substance dualist interactionism? That is the question.

For the hylomorphist, every material substance is a compound of form and matter. Human beings are no exception. In them, anima forma corporis: the soul is the (substantial) form of the body. Soul is to body as form to matter. The form and matter of a material substance are not themselves (primary) substances: they are not capable of independent existence. They are rather 'principles' uncovered in the analysis of material substances. This is a key difference between substance dualism and hylomorphic dualism. If the mind is a (primary) substance, then it can exist on its own, where 'can' expresses broadly logical possibility. But if the mind or soul is the substantial form of the body, then it cannot exist on its own. It needs matter both to exist and to be individuated.

Thus the hylomorphic dualist, while remaining a dualist, makes a significant concession to materialism. Human minds are essentially embodied minds. Before my conception, there was no res cogitans 'with my name on it,' so to speak. I did not pre-exist my conception. I came into existence at conception. (That I am wholly dissolved in death is not admitted by Thomists, inasmuch as they hold that the human soul is a subsistent form; but let us not worry about this special problem now.) Human minds are essentially enmattered minds in at least this sense: no human mind can exist without at some time being embodied. According to Edward Feser, a consequence of the hylomorphic view is that: 

. . . there is no mystery about how soul and body get into causal contact with one another, for the soul-body relationship is just one instance of a more general relationship existing everywhere in the natural world, namely, the relation between forms . . . and the matter they organize. If this general relationship is not particularly mysterious, neither is the specific case of the relationship between soul and body. The mistake of Cartesian dualists and materialists alike, according to the hylomorphist, is to think of all causation as efficient causation. When it is allowed that there are other irreducible modes of explanation — in particular, explanation in terms of formal causation — the interaction problem disappears. (Philosophy of Mind: A Short Introduction, p. 176) 

Feser here makes two main points. The first is the the soul-body relation is a special case of the form-matter relation; as such, the former is no more problematic than the latter. The second point is that the relation between soul and body is one of formal, not efficient, causation. The two points are logically connected: if the soul is the form of the body, and if the two are causally related, then it is difficult to see how the relation could be one of efficient causation. An efficient cause is either an agent-cause or an event-cause. But forms are neither agents nor events.

Hylomorphism undoubtedly reduces the 'ontological distance' between mind and body, a 'distance' that is troubling on substance-dualist conceptions, but I honestly do not see how hylomorphism solves the problem of interaction. We are assuming that there is interaction, two-way causal influence. We are also assuming dualism in a sense stronger than mere property-dualism: 'hylomorphism' is not just a name for a version of supervenience physicalism. Now interaction is, by definition, efficient-causal interaction. Mental events bring about physical events and physical events bring about mental events. To interpret this interaction in terms of formal causation seems tantamount to denying that there is any interaction. Iteraction is efficient-causal interaction. Formal causation appears irrelevant to it.

To revert to my example, my sudden remembering of having been given a bottle of Scotch is an event-token that enters into the etiology of my rising from my chair. It is rather unclear how this event could be the form of anything in the body. For one thing, the event of remembering is temporally prior to any of the events involved in my rising from my chair. Forms, however, are not temporally prior or posterior to what they inform. So it seems clear that a mental event cannot stand to a physical event it causes in the relation of form to matter.

Turning now to the contemporary Thomist John Peterson for instruction, we read: 

. . . it is just because Peter's human essence or form is in matter that Peter's intellect and will are not to be confused with the intellect and will of a pure spirit. But if this confusion is not made, then the question of how Peter's supposedly purely spiritual volitions can cause the movements of his arms and legs does not even arise. ("Persons and the Problem of Interaction," The Modern Schoolman, January 1985, p. 136) 

I fail to see how this does anything to solve the problem of interaction under the two conditions specified above, namely, that there is interaction, and that mind is irreducible to body. We are told that Peter's human essence is in matter. Fine, he is not a disembodied spirit. But that which thinks in me, if a res cogitans, is also not a disembodied spirit. So merely pointing out that a mind is not disembodied does nothing to solve the interaction problem. And saying that the mind is the form of the body also does nothing to solve the problem. For as I said above, the problem of interaction is a problem of efficient causation, not one of formal causation as alone would be be appropriate if the mind were the form of the body.

Whatever merits hylomorphism may have, it seem quite irrelevant to the interaction problem.

Interactionist substance dualism in the philosophy of mind is supposed to face a devastating objection, the interaction objection. In the first part of this post I will present this objection in its traditional form and suggest that it is not all that serious. In the second part, however, I take the objection seriously and consider whether Aristotelian- Thomistic hylomorphism has the resources to counter it. 

I. The Traditional Interaction Objection

 It is a given that mind affects body, and body mind. Suddenly remembering the bottle of single-malt Scotch that Harry gave me for my birthday, I am inspired to get out of my chair and pour myself some. After consuming a generous portion, I note that my mental state has altered appreciably. The mental event of remembering causes the physical event of drinking which in turn elicits the mental state of elation, which may bring in its train some loss of motor control.  But how are such interactions possible if mind and body/brain are distinct types of substance, one spatial the other nonspatial? As Elliot Sober put it recently: 

If the mind is immaterial, then it does not take up space. But if it lacks spatial location, how can it be causally connected to the body? When two events are causally connected, we normally expect there to be a physical signal that passes from one to the other. How can a physical signal emerge from or lead to the mind if the mind is no place at all? (Philosophy of Biology ,Westview 2000, 2nd ed., p. 24) 

The above is a piece of philosophical boilerplate endlessly repeated in the materialist literature.  I confess to a difficulty in seeing just what this objection is supposed to be. If Sober is saying that all causation must involve physical contact between cause and effect, then he simply begs the question against the dualist. He simply asserts something that the dualist denies. Is it obvious what the correct theory of causation is?  Is it obvious that all causation involves physical contact between cause and effect and the transfer of some physical magnitude from cause to effect?  Certainly not inasmuch as there are a number of competing theories of causation, among them counterfactual theories, transfer theories, and nomological theories, to name just three broad types.  Given that the nature of causation is up for grabs, and given that the interaction objections requires a transfer theory of causation, one should conclude that the interaction objections is the exact opposite of decisive.

If interactionist dualism is true, then there are cases of causation that do not operate by physical contact. One cannot refute this by saying, or implying, that all cases of causation operate by physical contact. At this point I will be told that dualist interaction is unintelligible. But why? If you say that it is because dualist interaction does not fit the physical-physical pattern, then again you beg the question. If you say that every case of causation involves an intervening mechanism, but there isn't one in the dualist case, then you beg the question in a slightly more subtle way. For what the dualist holds is that there are cases of direct causation. It is not clear that all physical-physical causation is indirect, but even if it were, this putative fact is not a reason to think that all cases of causation are indirect.

But how does mental-physical causation work? If this is a demand for a specification of the intervening mechanism, then the question rests on a false presupposition, namely, that there must be such a mechanism. If, on the other hand, the demand is for a specification of the causally relevant properties and covering laws, then I see no reason why this demand cannot be met.

I think that there is less to the traditional objection than meets the eye: it gives the interactionist dualist little reason to abandon his view.   

II. A Hylomorphic Solution

But perhaps I'm wrong — in the good company of Curt Ducasse, John Foster and a few others. Legions of philosophers have taken the objection sketched above to be crushingly strong. A drastic way of meeting it is by retaining a dualism of substances while denying interaction. Occasionalists, parallelists, and epiphenomenalists deny interaction. But I mention them only to set them aside. An alternative is to hold to interaction while denying dualism. Here we meet materialists and idealists. But brevity is the soul of blog, so I set them aside as well. This brings us to what might be called hylomorphic dualist interactionism. Is it superior to substance dualist interactionism? That is the question.

For the hylomorphist, every material substance is a compound of form and matter. Human beings are no exception. In them, anima forma corporis: the soul is the (substantial) form of the body. Soul is to body as form to matter. The form and matter of a material substance are not themselves (primary) substances: they are not capable of independent existence. They are rather 'principles' uncovered in the analysis of material substances. This is a key difference between substance dualism and hylomorphic dualism. If the mind is a (primary) substance, then it can exist on its own, where 'can' expresses broadly logical possibility. But if the mind or soul is the substantial form of the body, then it cannot exist on its own. It needs matter both to exist and to be individuated.

Thus the hylomorphic dualist, while remaining a dualist, makes a significant concession to materialism. Human minds are essentially embodied minds. Before my conception, there was no res cogitans 'with my name on it,' so to speak. I did not pre-exist my conception. I came into existence at conception. (That I am wholly dissolved in death is not admitted by Thomists, inasmuch as they hold that the human soul is a subsistent form; but let us not worry about this special problem now.) Human minds are essentially enmattered minds in at least this sense: no human mind can exist without at some time being embodied. According to Edward Feser, a consequence of the hylomorphic view is that: 

. . . there is no mystery about how soul and body get into causal contact with one another, for the soul-body relationship is just one instance of a more general relationship existing everywhere in the natural world, namely, the relation between forms . . . and the matter they organize. If this general relationship is not particularly mysterious, neither is the specific case of the relationship between soul and body. The mistake of Cartesian dualists and materialists alike, according to the hylomorphist, is to think of all causation as efficient causation. When it is allowed that there are other irreducible modes of explanation — in particular, explanation in terms of formal causation — the interaction problem disappears. (Philosophy of Mind: A Short Introduction, p. 176) 

Feser here makes two main points. The first is the the soul-body relation is a special case of the form-matter relation; as such, the former is no more problematic than the latter. The second point is that the relation between soul and body is one of formal, not efficient, causation. The two points are logically connected: if the soul is the form of the body, and if the two are causally related, then it is difficult to see how the relation could be one of efficient causation. An efficient cause is either an agent-cause or an event-cause. But forms are neither agents nor events.

Hylomorphism undoubtedly reduces the 'ontological distance' between mind and body, a 'distance' that is troubling on substance-dualist conceptions, but I honestly do not see how hylomorphism solves the problem of interaction. We are assuming that there is interaction, two-way causal influence. We are also assuming dualism in a sense stronger than mere property-dualism: 'hylomorphism' is not just a name for a version of supervenience physicalism. Now interaction is, by definition, efficient-causal interaction. Mental events bring about physical events and physical events bring about mental events. To interpret this interaction in terms of formal causation seems tantamount to denying that there is any interaction. Iteraction is efficient-causal interaction. Formal causation appears irrelevant to it.

To revert to my example, my sudden remembering of having been given a bottle of Scotch is an event-token that enters into the etiology of my rising from my chair. It is rather unclear how this event could be the form of anything in the body. For one thing, the event of remembering is temporally prior to any of the events involved in my rising from my chair. Forms, however, are not temporally prior or posterior to what they inform. So it seems clear that a mental event cannot stand to a physical event it causes in the relation of form to matter.

Turning now to the contemporary Thomist John Peterson for instruction, we read: 

. . . it is just because Peter's human essence or form is in matter that Peter's intellect and will are not to be confused with the intellect and will of a pure spirit. But if this confusion is not made, then the question of how Peter's supposedly purely spiritual volitions can cause the movements of his arms and legs does not even arise. ("Persons and the Problem of Interaction," The Modern Schoolman, January 1985, p. 136) 

I fail to see how this does anything to solve the problem of interaction under the two conditions specified above, namely, that there is interaction, and that mind is irreducible to body. We are told that Peter's human essence is in matter. Fine, he is not a disembodied spirit. But that which thinks in me, if a res cogitans, is also not a disembodied spirit. So merely pointing out that a mind is not disembodied does nothing to solve the interaction problem. And saying that the mind is the form of the body also does nothing to solve the problem. For as I said above, the problem of interaction is a problem of efficient causation, not one of formal causation as alone would be be appropriate if the mind were the form of the body.

Whatever merits hylomorphism may have, it seem quite irrelevant to the interaction problem.

Substantial Change, Prime Matter, and Individuation

Change, Accidental and Substantial 

There is no change without a substrate of change which, in respect of its existence and identity, does not change during the interval of the change. In a slogan: no change without unchange. No becoming other (alter-ation, Ver-aenderung) without something remaining the same. In the case of accidental change, the substrate is materia secunda, in one of its two senses, a piece of paper, say, as opposed to paper as a kind of material stuff. It is a piece of paper that becomes yellow with age, not paper as a kind of stuff. In the case of substantial change the substrate is said to be prime matter, materia prima. On the scholastic view, prime matter must exist if we are to explain substantial change. (See Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics, pp. 171 ff.) Thus to the problems with substantial change already mentioned (in an earlier portion of this  text not yet 'blogged') we may add the problems that are specific to prime matter. Besides the route to prime matter via substantial change, there is the route via the very procedure of hylomorphic analysis. Traversing these routes will give us a good idea of why the positing of prime matter has seemed compelling to scholastics.

Given that thought sometimes makes contact with reality, one can ask: what must real things be like if thought is to be able to make contact with them? What must these things be like if they are to be intelligible to us? A realist answer is that these mind-independent things must be conformable to our thought, and our thought to them. There must be some sort of isomorphism between thought and thing. Since we cannot grasp anything unstructured, reality must have structure. So there have to be principles of form and organization in things. But reality is not exhausted by forms and structures; there is also that which supports form and structure. In this way matter comes into the picture.  Forms are determinations.  Matter, in a sense that embraces both primary and secondary matter, is the determinable as such.

Proximate matter can be encountered in experience, at least in typical cases. The proximate matter of a chair consists of its legs, seat, back. But this proximate matter itself has form. A leg, for example, has a shape and thus a form. (Form is not identical to shape, since there are forms that are not shapes; but shapes are forms.) Suppose the leg has the geometrical form of a cylinder. (Of course it will have other forms as well, the forms of smoothness and brownness, say.) The cylindrical form is the form of some matter. The matter of this cylindrical form is wood, say. But a piece of wood is a partite entity the parts of which have form and matter. For example, the complex carbohydrate cellulose is found in wood. It has a form and a proximate matter. But cellulose is made of beta-glucose molecules. Molecules are made of atoms, atoms of subatomic particles like electrons, and these of quarks, and so it goes.

Hylomorphic analysis is thus iterable. The iteration cannot be infinite: the material world cannot be hylomorphic compounds 'all the way down,' or 'all the way up' for that matter. The iteration has a lower limit in prime or primordial or ultimate matter (materia prima), just as it has an upper limit in pure form, and ultimately in the forma formarum, God, the purely actual being. Must hylomorphic analysis proceed all the way to prime matter, or can it coherently stop one step shy of it at the lowest level of materia secunda? I think that if one starts down the hylomorphic road one must drive to its bitter end in prime matter. (Cf. Feser's manual, p. 173 for what I read as an argument to this conclusion.) Ultimate matter, precisely because it is ultimate, has no form of its own. As John Haldane describes it, it is "stuff of no kind." (“A Return to Form in the Philosophy of Mind” in Form and Matter, ed. Oderberg, p. 50) We could say that prime matter is the wholly indeterminate determinable. As wholly indeterminate, it is wholly determinable.

(Question: if prime matter is wholly indeterminate, is it also indeterminate with respect to being either determinate or indeterminate? Presumably not.  Is there a problem lurking here?)

The Antinomy of the Existence of Prime Matter

While it is easy to appreciate the logic that leads to the positing of prime matter, it is difficult to see that what is posited is coherently thinkable. Here is one consideration among several. Call it the Antinomy of the Existence of Prime Matter. It may be compressed into the following aporetic dyad:

1. Prime matter exists.

2. Prime matter does not exist.

Argument for limb (1). There is real substantial change and it cannot be reduced to accidental change. All change is reduction of potency to act, and all change requires an underlying substrate of change that remains self-same and secures the diachronic identity of that which changes. The substrate of a change is the matter of the change. What changes in a change are forms, whether accidental or substantial. Without the potency-act and matter-form distinctions we cannot accommodate the fact of change and avoid both the Heraclitean doctrine of radical flux and the Eleatic denial of change. Or so say the scholastics. In the case of accidental change, the subject or substrate is secondary matter (materia secunda). But substantial change is change too, and so it also requires a substrate which cannot be secondary matter and so must be prime matter. Given what we must assume to make sense of the plain fact of both accidental and substantial change, “prime matter must exist.” (Feser's manual, p. 172) It must exist in reality as the common basis of every substantial change.

Argument for limb (2). Prime matter is pure potency. It has to be, given the exigencies of accounting for substantial as opposed to accidental change. As pure potency, prime matter is wholly indeterminate and wholly formless. In itself, then, prime matter does not exist. It does not exist actually, as is obvious. But it also does not exist potentially: prime matter does not have potential Being. This is because the principle of the metaphysical priority of act over potency requires that every existing potency (e.g., the never actualized potency of a sugar cube to dissolve in water) be grounded in something actual (e.g., the sugar cube). The pure potency which is prime matter is not, however, grounded in anything actual. (Note that one cannot say that prime matter is a pure potency grounded in each primary substance. Prime matter is the ultimate stuff of each primary substance; it is not potency possessed by these substances.) Therefore, prime matter does not exist. It does not exist actually and it does not exist potentially. This is also evident from the first of the twenty-four Thomistic theses:

Potency and act are a complete division of being. Hence whatever is must be either pure act or a unit composed of potency and act as its primary and intrinsic principles. (Quoted by Feser, Schol. Metaph., p. 31)

If so, prime matter does not exist. For prime matter is neither pure act nor composed of potency and act. It is interesting to observe that while purely actual Being can itself be by being something actual, purely potential Being cannot itself be by being something potential (or actual). God is actual Being (Sein, esse) and an actual being (Seiendes, ens). But prime matter is neither potential nor actual. So prime matter neither is actually nor is potentially.

It thus appears that we have cogent arguments for both limbs of a contradiction. If the contradiction is real and not merely apparent, and the arguments for the dyad's limbs are cogent, then either there is no prime matter, the very concept thereof being self-contradictory, or there is prime matter but it is is unintelligible to us. One could, I suppose, be a mysterian about prime matter: it exists but we, given our cognitive limitations, cannot understand how it could exist. (Analogy with Colin McGinn's mysterianism: consciousness is a brain process, but our cognitive limitations bar us from understanding how it could be.) But I mention mysterianism only to set it aside.

But perhaps we can avoid contradiction in the time-honored way, by drawing a distinction. A likely candidate is the distinction between prime matter in itself versus prime matter together with substantial forms. So I expect the following scholastic response to my antinomy:

Prime matter exists as a real (extramental) factor only in primary substances such as Socrates and Plato. It exists only in hylomorphic compounds of prime matter and substantial form. But it does not exist when considered in abstraction from every primary substance. So considered, it is nothing at all. It is not some formless stuff that awaits formation: it is always already formed. It is always already parcelled out among individual material substances. Once this distinction is made, the distinction between prime matter in itself and prime matter together with substantial forms, one can readily see that the 'contradiction' in the above dyad is merely apparent and rests on an equivocation on 'exist(s).' The word is being used in two different senses. In (1) 'exists' means: exists together with substantial form. In (2), 'exist' means: exist in itself. Thus the aporetic dyad reduces to the logically innocuous dyad:

1*. Prime matter exists together with substantial forms.

2*. Prime matter does not exist in itself in abstraction from substantial forms.

Unfortunately, this initially plausible response gives rise to a problem of its own. If prime matter really exists only in primary substances, then prime matter in reality is not a common stuff but is parcelled out among all the primary substances: it exists only as a manifold of designated matters, the matter of Socrates, of Plato, etc. But this conflicts with the requirement that prime matter be the substratum of substantial change. Let me explain.

If a new substance S2 comes into existence from another already existing substance S1 (parthenogenesis may be an example) then prime matter is what underlies and remains the same through this change. Now this substratum of substantial change that remains the same must be something real, but it cannot be identical to S2 or to S1 or to any other substance. For if the substratum of substantial change is identical to S1, then S1 survives, in which case S2 is not a new substance generated from S1 but a mere alteration of S1. Don't forget that substantial change cannot be reduced to an accidental change in some already existing substance or substances. In substantial change a new substance comes to be from one or more already existing substances. (I will assume that creation or 'exnihilation' does not count as substantial change.)

If, on the other hand, the substratum of change is identical to S2, then S2 exists before it comes to exist. And it seems obvious that the substratum of substantial change underlying S2's coming to be from S1 cannot be some other substance. Nor can the substratum be an accident of S2 or S1. For an accident can exist only in a substance. If the substratum is an accident of S1, then S1 must exist after it has ceased to exist. If the substratum is an accident of S2, then S2 must exist before it comes to exist.

The argumentative punchline is that prime matter cannot exist only in primary substances as a co-principle tied in every case to a substantial form. If prime matter is the substratum of substantial change, then prime matter must be a really existent, purely potential, wholly indeterminate, stuff on its own.

The Problem of the Substrate

The problem just presented, call it the Problem of the Substrate or the Problem of the Continuant, may be pressed into the mold of an aporetic tetrad:

1. Prime matter is the substrate of substantial change.

2. Prime matter does not exist in reality except as divided among individual material substances.

3. The substratum of a substantial change cannot be identified with any of the substances involved in the change, or with any other substance, or with any accident of any substance. (For example, the substratum of the substantial change which is Socrates' coming into existence from gametes G1 and G2 cannot be identified with Socrates, with G1, with G2, with any other substance, or with any accident of any substance.)

 4. There is substantial change and it requires a really existent substrate.

The tetrad is inconsistent issuing as it does in the contradiction: Prime matter does and does not exist only in individual material substances.

The obvious solution is to deny (2). But if we deny (2) to solve the Problem of the Substrate, then we reignite the Antinomy of the Existence of Prime Matter. We solved the Antinomy by making a distinction, but that distinction gave rise to the Problem of the Substrate/Continuant. We appear to be in quite a pickle. (For more on the Substrate/Continuant problem, see John D. Kronen, Sandra Menssen and Thomas D. Sullivan, “The Problem of the Continuant: Aquinas and Suárez on Prime Matter and Substantial Generation,” The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Jun., 2000), pp. 863-885.)

The Problem of Individuation

Finally a glance at the related ontological, not epistemological, problem of individuation. This problem is actually two problems. There is the problem of individuation proper, namely, the problem of what makes an individual substance individual as opposed to universal, and there is the connected problem of differentiation, namely, the problem of what makes numerically different individual substances numerically different. It is clear that prime matter cannot be the principle of differentiation. For one thing, prime matter is common to all material substances. For another, prime matter as pure potency is indeterminate, hence not intrinsically divided into parcels. Moreover, pace Feser, prime matter cannot “bring universals down to earth” in his phrase: it cannot be the principle of individuation, narrowly construed. (Schol. Metaph., p. 199) For what makes Socrates an individual substance rather than the substantial form he shares with Plato cannot be common, indeterminate, amorphous, matter.

Prime matter is not up to the job of individuation/differentiation. It is designated matter (materia signata quantitate) that is said to function as the ontological ground or 'principle' of individuation and numerical difference. Unfortunately, appeal to designated matter involves us in an explanatory circle. Designated matter is invoked to explain why Socrates and Plato are individual substances and why they are numerically different individual substances. But designated matter cannot be that which individuates/differentiates them since it presupposes for its individuation and differentiation the logically (not temporally) antecedent existence of individual material substances. Why are Socrates and Plato different? Because their designated matters are different. Why are their designated matters different? Because they are the matters of different substances. The explanation moves in a circle of rather short diameter.

Feser considers something like this objection but dismisses it as resting on a confusion of formal with efficient causality. But there is no such confusion in the objection as I have presented it. Efficient causality does not come into it at all. No one thinks that there is an agent who in a temporal process imposes substantial form on prime matter in the way that a potter in a temporal process imposes accidental form upon a lump of clay. I can grant Feser's point that prime matter and substantial form are related as material cause to formal cause. I can also grant that prime matter and substantial form are mutually implicative co-principles neither of which can exist without the other. Granting all this, my objection remains. Prime matter in itself is undifferentiated. It it differentiated and dimensive only in combination with substantial forms. But this is equivalent to saying that prime matter is differentiated and dimensive only as the designated matter of particular individual substances. But then designated matter cannot non-circularly explain why numerically different substances are numerically different. For the numerical difference of these matters presupposes the numerical difference of the substances.

Ontological Analysis in Aristotle and Bergmann: Prime Matter versus Bare Particulars

Hardly anyone reads Gustav Bergmann any more, but he is well worth reading. It is interesting to compare his style of ontological analysis with that of the great hylomorphic ontologists, Aristotle and Aquinas. The distinguished Aristotelian Henry B. Veatch does some of my work for me in a fine paper, "To Gustav Bergmann: A Humble Petition and Advice" in M.S.Gram and E.D.Klemke, eds. The Ontological Turn: Studies in the Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann (University of Iowa Press, 1974, pp. 65-85)

I want to focus on Veatch's comparison of Aristotle and Bergmann on the issue of prime matter versus bare particulars. As Veatch correctly observes, "all of the specific functions which bare particulars perform in Bergmannian ontology are the very same functions as are performed by matter in Aristotle . . . ." (81) What are these functions?

1) One of the jobs bare particulars (BPs) perform is that of ontological individuator, in classical parlance, that of principium individuationis. Take a typical Bergmannian example, an 'Iowa example,' if you will.  There are two round, red spots on a piece of paper. The spots are identical in respect of size, shape, and (shade of) color. But there are two of them. On Bergmann's 'assay' of the situation, there are two particulars and three universals such that each of the particulars exemplifies all three universals. Since the spots are the same in respect of the universals they exemplify, there is need of a differentiating/individuating factor, and this is the particular 'in' each spot. But the particular in each spot is 'bare' in the sense that, in and by itself, it is propertyless. No doubt BPs exemplify properties and cannot exist without exemplifing properties; but in themselves they are bare of properties. But what does this mean exactly?

Although BPs exist only as exemplifying universals, there is nothing in the nature of a BP to dictate that it exemplify any particular universal: BPs have no nature. This is what makes them bare. BPs and first-order universals are promiscuously combinable, if you will. BPs, being in themselves devoid of properties, differ among themselves solo numero: their difference is bare numerical difference. This equips them to serve as the individuators or differentiators of 'ordinary' particulars which on Bergmann's assay are composites built up out of universals and bare particulars. BPs are the ontological grounds of numerical difference. Thus BPs do the same job that matter does in Aristotle.

You have not understood the notion of a bare particular if you think that they are bare of properties.  They cannot exist without properties.  Nothing can.  What makes them bare is that there is nothing in their nature to dictate which properties they have. 

2) A second job of bare particulars is to serve as substratum or support of properties. Properties are predicable entities; particulars are not. A bare particular 'in' an ordinary particular is the ontological ground of its being impredicable. For Veatch, Aristotelian matter plays a similar role: 

Likewise, for Aristotle, it is presumably just because primary substances are material that they are unable to be, as Aristotle says, either 'present in' or 'predicable of' a subject. But could one not say just the same thing of Bergmann's bare particulars? They are neither present in nor predicable of a subject. (81) 

3) Bare particulars are intrinsically indeterminate, but determinable, where universals function as determinations much as forms do for an Aristotelian. "In short, they [BPs] are to the characters [universals] which they exemplify much as potency is to act or as matter to form." (81)

Veatch Contra Bergmann

Veatch now lodges a reasonable complaint against Bergmann. How could "matter or bare particulars [be] among the ultimates that one arrives at in a process of analysis. . ."? "For how could anything which in itself is wholly indeterminate and characterless ever qualify as a 'thing' or 'existent' at all?" (81) On Bergmann's assay, an ordinary particular has more basic entities as its ontological constituents. But if one of these constituents is an intrinsically indeterminate and intrinsically characterless entity, how could said entity exist at all, let alone be a building block out of which an ordinary particular is constructed?

For Veatch, form and matter are not ontological atoms in the way bare particulars and simple universals are ontological atoms for Bergmann. "Matter and form are not beings so much as they are principles of being." (80) 'Principle' is one of those words Scholastics like to use.  Principles in this usage are not  propositions.  They are ontological factors invoked in the analysis of primary substances, but they are not themselves primary substances. They cannot exist on their own.  Let me try to make Veatch's criticism as clear as I can.

An ordinary particular is a this-such. The thisness in a this-such is the determinable element while the suchness is the determination or set of determinations. Veatch's point against Bergmann is not that ordinary particulars are not composites, this-suches, or that the thisness in a this-such is not indeterminate yet determinable; his point is that the determinable element cannot be an ontological atom, an entity more basic than the composite into which it enters as ontological building block. The determinable element cannot be a basic existent; it must be a principle of a basic existent, where the basic existent is the this-such.

This implies, contra Bergmann, that what is ontologically primary is the individual substance, the this-such, which entails that matter and form in an individual substance cannot exist apart from each other. They are in some sense 'abstractions' from the individual substance. The form in a material this-such is not merely tied to matter in general, in the way that Bergmannian first-order universals are tied to bare particulars in general; the form is tied to the very matter of the this-such in question. And the same goes for the matter: the designated matter (materia signata) of Socrates cannot exist apart from Socrates' substantial form.

Veatch says that Bergmann cannot have it both ways: "His bare particulars cannot at one and the same time be utterly bare and characterless in the manner of Aristotelian prime matter and yet also be 'things' and 'existents' in the manner of Aristotelian substances." (82-83)

Tentative Assessment

Veatch's point against Bergmann has merit, and I believe it can be adapted as a criticism of David Armstrong's thin particulars.  There is no difference that I can see between a Bergmannian BP and an Armstrongian TP.  (Armstrong gives no evidence of having read Bergmann carefully, so I discount his claim that his TPs are different from Bergmann's BPs.) 

But is Veatch's view really any better? What is the ontological status of his 'principles' form and matter?  Their status is unclear.  They cannot exist on their own, nor can they have the 'building block' status of Bergmann's ontological atoms.  Thus they don't 'promiscuously combine' as Bermann's BPs and first-order universals do.  So in some sense they are abstractions isolated by the mind of the ontologist.  And yet they have a fundamentum in re.

They therefore seem as murky as Bergmann's bare particulars.  And so we hit another impasse.

Hardly anyone reads Gustav Bergmann any more, but he is well worth reading. It is interesting to compare his style of ontological analysis with that of the great hylomorphic ontologists, Aristotle and Aquinas. The distinguished Aristotelian Henry B. Veatch does some of my work for me in a fine paper, "To Gustav Bergmann: A Humble Petition and Advice" in M.S.Gram and E.D.Klemke, eds. The Ontological Turn: Studies in the Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann (University of Iowa Press, 1974, pp. 65-85)

I want to focus on Veatch's comparison of Aristotle and Bergmann on the issue of prime matter versus bare particulars. As Veatch correctly observes, "all of the specific functions which bare particulars perform in Bergmannian ontology are the very same functions as are performed by matter in Aristotle . . . ." (81) What are these functions?

1) One of the jobs bare particulars (BPs) perform is that of ontological individuator, in classical parlance, that of principium individuationis. Take a typical Bergmannian example, an 'Iowa example,' if you will.  There are two round, red spots on a piece of paper. The spots are identical in respect of size, shape, and (shade of) color. But there are two of them. On Bergmann's 'assay' of the situation, there are two particulars and three universals such that each of the particulars exemplifies all three universals. Since the spots are the same in respect of the universals they exemplify, there is need of a differentiating/individuating factor, and this is the particular 'in' each spot. But the particular in each spot is 'bare' in the sense that, in and by itself, it is propertyless. No doubt BPs exemplify properties and cannot exist without exemplifing properties; but in themselves they are bare of properties. But what does this mean exactly?

Although BPs exist only as exemplifying universals, there is nothing in the nature of a BP to dictate that it exemplify any particular universal: BPs have no nature. This is what makes them bare. BPs and first-order universals are promiscuously combinable, if you will. BPs, being in themselves devoid of properties, differ among themselves solo numero: their difference is bare numerical difference. This equips them to serve as the individuators or differentiators of 'ordinary' particulars which on Bergmann's assay are composites built up out of universals and bare particulars. BPs are the ontological grounds of numerical difference. Thus BPs do the same job that matter does in Aristotle.

You have not understood the notion of a bare particular if you think that they are bare of properties.  They cannot exist without properties.  Nothing can.  What makes them bare is that there is nothing in their nature to dictate which properties they have. 

2) A second job of bare particulars is to serve as substratum or support of properties. Properties are predicable entities; particulars are not. A bare particular 'in' an ordinary particular is the ontological ground of its being impredicable. For Veatch, Aristotelian matter plays a similar role: 

Likewise, for Aristotle, it is presumably just because primary substances are material that they are unable to be, as Aristotle says, either 'present in' or 'predicable of' a subject. But could one not say just the same thing of Bergmann's bare particulars? They are neither present in nor predicable of a subject. (81) 

3) Bare particulars are intrinsically indeterminate, but determinable, where universals function as determinations much as forms do for an Aristotelian. "In short, they [BPs] are to the characters [universals] which they exemplify much as potency is to act or as matter to form." (81)

Veatch Contra Bergmann

Veatch now lodges a reasonable complaint against Bergmann. How could "matter or bare particulars [be] among the ultimates that one arrives at in a process of analysis. . ."? "For how could anything which in itself is wholly indeterminate and characterless ever qualify as a 'thing' or 'existent' at all?" (81) On Bergmann's assay, an ordinary particular has more basic entities as its ontological constituents. But if one of these constituents is an intrinsically indeterminate and intrinsically characterless entity, how could said entity exist at all, let alone be a building block out of which an ordinary particular is constructed?

For Veatch, form and matter are not ontological atoms in the way bare particulars and simple universals are ontological atoms for Bergmann. "Matter and form are not beings so much as they are principles of being." (80) 'Principle' is one of those words Scholastics like to use.  Principles in this usage are not  propositions.  They are ontological factors invoked in the analysis of primary substances, but they are not themselves primary substances. They cannot exist on their own.  Let me try to make Veatch's criticism as clear as I can.

An ordinary particular is a this-such. The thisness in a this-such is the determinable element while the suchness is the determination or set of determinations. Veatch's point against Bergmann is not that ordinary particulars are not composites, this-suches, or that the thisness in a this-such is not indeterminate yet determinable; his point is that the determinable element cannot be an ontological atom, an entity more basic than the composite into which it enters as ontological building block. The determinable element cannot be a basic existent; it must be a principle of a basic existent, where the basic existent is the this-such.

This implies, contra Bergmann, that what is ontologically primary is the individual substance, the this-such, which entails that matter and form in an individual substance cannot exist apart from each other. They are in some sense 'abstractions' from the individual substance. The form in a material this-such is not merely tied to matter in general, in the way that Bergmannian first-order universals are tied to bare particulars in general; the form is tied to the very matter of the this-such in question. And the same goes for the matter: the designated matter (materia signata) of Socrates cannot exist apart from Socrates' substantial form.

Veatch says that Bergmann cannot have it both ways: "His bare particulars cannot at one and the same time be utterly bare and characterless in the manner of Aristotelian prime matter and yet also be 'things' and 'existents' in the manner of Aristotelian substances." (82-83)

Tentative Assessment

Veatch's point against Bergmann has merit, and I believe it can be adapted as a criticism of David Armstrong's thin particulars.  There is no difference that I can see between a Bergmannian BP and an Armstrongian TP.  (Armstrong gives no evidence of having read Bergmann carefully, so I discount his claim that his TPs are different from Bergmann's BPs.) 

But is Veatch's view really any better? What is the ontological status of his 'principles' form and matter?  Their status is unclear.  They cannot exist on their own, nor can they have the 'building block' status of Bergmann's ontological atoms.  Thus they don't 'promiscuously combine' as Bermann's BPs and first-order universals do.  So in some sense they are abstractions isolated by the mind of the ontologist.  And yet they have a fundamentum in re.

They therefore seem as murky as Bergmann's bare particulars.  And so we hit another impasse.

An Aristotelian on Earth, a Platonist in Heaven

It's been said of Aquinas. 

On Aristotle's hylomorphic ontology, form and matter are 'principles' or ontological factors involved in the analysis of sublunary primary substances. These factors are not substances in their own right.  Now Thomas is an Aristotelian in ontology.  But when it comes to God and the soul he goes Platonist.  God is forma formarum, the form of all forms, and yet self-subsistent. The soul after death is capable of existing in separation from matter while it awaits the resurrection of the body.  Anima forma corporis: the soul is the form of the body. But in the human case the soulic form is more than a principle invoked in hylomorphic analysis. It is capable of existence independent of matter.

The sublunary Aristotelianism and the superlunary Platonism exist together in a certain  tension. Whether this tension gets the length of a contradiction is a further question.

"Get the length of" is a classy phrase which has long languished in desuetude. I resurrect it from the writings of F. H. Bradley.