[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[Neo-Scholastic]

Personally, I think Hylomorphism is a crock; it's a band-aid that covers the gaps in our knowledge of efficient processes.  But I admit that I'm pretty ignorant about it.

I appreciate and can respect your strong feelings sinceI know they are based on careful reflection. At the same time, I am suspicious of bankrupt theories issuing promissory notes. What you exclude by design up-front, never fits on the backend...whether it is idealism or materialism. As the joke goes No matter; never mind.

[Belacqua]

Personally, I think Hylomorphism is a crock; it's a band-aid that covers the gaps in our knowledge of efficient processes.  But I admit that I'm pretty ignorant about it.

I appreciate and can respect your strong feelings sinceI know they are based on careful reflection. At the same time, I am suspicious of bankrupt theories issuing promissory notes.  What you exclude by design up-front, never fits on the backend...whether it is idealism or materialism. As the joke goes No matter; never mind.

I still don't understand the issue.

If you have a bronze sculpture and you melt it down and make a cannon, you've changed the same matter to a different form. If you have a bit of matter in the form of a piece of paper, and you burn it, the same matter has changed to the form of smoke and ash.

Nothing about this is "a band-aid that covers the gaps" in anything. Nothing about it conflicts with what science tells us. 

Has someone been suggesting that hylomorphism demands something else?

[Angrboda]

I appreciate and can respect your strong feelings sinceI know they are based on careful reflection. At the same time, I am suspicious of bankrupt theories issuing promissory notes.  What you exclude by design up-front, never fits on the backend...whether it is idealism or materialism. As the joke goes No matter; never mind.

I still don't understand the issue.

If you have a bronze sculpture and you melt it down and make a cannon, you've changed the same matter to a different form. If you have a bit of matter in the form of a piece of paper, and you burn it, the same matter has changed to the form of smoke and ash.

Nothing about this is "a band-aid that covers the gaps" in anything. Nothing about it conflicts with what science tells us. 

Has someone been suggesting that hylomorphism demands something else?

Looking over the Wikipedia entry, one issue is how hylomorphism is applied to living beings, including humans.

[Peebothuhlu]

I appreciate and can respect your strong feelings sinceI know they are based on careful reflection. At the same time, I am suspicious of bankrupt theories issuing promissory notes.  What you exclude by design up-front, never fits on the backend...whether it is idealism or materialism. As the joke goes No matter; never mind.

I still don't understand the issue.

If you have a bronze sculpture and you melt it down and make a cannon, you've changed the same matter to a different form. If you have a bit of matter in the form of a piece of paper, and you burn it, the same matter has changed to the form of smoke and ash.

Nothing about this is "a band-aid that covers the gaps" in anything. Nothing about it conflicts with what science tells us. 

Has someone been suggesting that hylomorphism demands something else?

Hi Bell... sorry for sticking an oar in here but....

In your example I think something better would have been;

"Take a bronze sculpture and you melt it down and make a cannon, you've changed the same matter to a different form. If you have a bit of matter in the shape of a tree, you use the wood to make a furniture setting." Would have been a closer fit to one another.

Since.. with the bronze you're simply applying heat and form work and the shape is different. With the paper you're actually chemically chancing things around some what so... they aren't analogous. Where as the wood being shaped from tree to furntiure is a closer fit.

 

But... that brings on a differnt aspect in that the bronce is a rather uniform alloy where as the tree is composed of a LOT more discreete and individual parts... So till not quite exaclty the same... but closer, none the less.

 

Cheers.

Not at work.

[Belacqua]

Looking over the Wikipedia entry, one issue is how hylomorphism is applied to living beings, including humans.

Of course hylomorphism applies to humans. We are made of matter and we're put together in a certain way.

I'm guessing you don't like certain of the conclusions that Aristotle and Thomas draw concerning what the human form consists of.

---

Since.. with the bronze you're simply applying heat and form work and the shape is different. With the paper you're actually chemically chancing things around some what so... they aren't analogous. Where as the wood being shaped from tree to furntiure is a closer fit. 

Both objects are made of matter arranged in a certain form. Both examples are fine.

[Angrboda]

I'm guessing you don't like certain of the conclusions that Aristotle and Thomas draw concerning what the human form consists of.

How many wrong guesses are you allowed?

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

Since.. with the bronze you're simply applying heat and form work and the shape is different. With the paper you're actually chemically chancing things around some what so... they aren't analogous. Where as the wood being shaped from tree to furntiure is a closer fit. 

Both objects are made of matter arranged in a certain form. Both examples are fine.

Ah, okay then, right. So stars and planets are both made out of matter as well and so totally the same/similar.

Pffft... what's the issue with specifics when it comes to how matter is put together or even composed of?

It's all just 'Stuff'.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm guessing you don't like certain of the conclusions that Aristotle and Thomas draw concerning what the human form consists of.

How many wrong guesses are you allowed?

Belacqua's examples are perfectly sound but the stakes are pretty low for pots and chairs. Does it mean something to be human as opposed to a mixture of carbon, water and trace elements? If humanity is a convenient fiction then so are rights, values, and intelligence. Mereological nihilism fails, not because of those very real defeciencies, but because it is self-defeating. If there arent things then words mean nothing. IMHO that is not a serious position.

[vulcanlogician]

Belacqua's examples are perfectly sound but the stakes are pretty low for pots and chairs. Does it mean something to be human as opposed to a mixture of carbon, water and trace elements? If humanity is a convenient fiction then so are rights, values, and intelligence. Mereological nihilism fails, not because of those very real defeciencies, but because it is self-defeating. If there arent things then  words mean nothing. IMHO that is not a serious position.

I'm sympathetic to what you've said here. We can't have "selective mereological nihilism" that refutes hylomorphism but then goes on to say there are things like chairs, human rights, etc. But at the same time, I don't think Angrboda is doing this. Angrboda finds mereological nihilism compelling in regards to chairs, human rights and everything else... (at least when we have our philosopher's caps on-- which is fine).

As to the charge that mereological nihilism contradicts itself-- ie "mereological nihilism is a theory with a "form," makes metaphysical truth-claims about reality, when in fact, according to mereological nihilism, no metaphysical truth claims can be made."-- I think the mereological nihilist can answer these charges. "Sure, mereological nihilism is false just like all other metaphysical claims. It's just bears the best 1:1 resemblance with reality. If any claim is true, it's true. And if no claims are true, it's also true... at least 'true enough.'"

[Neo-Scholastic]

It goes deeper.

Sure, it could be that some intangibles are not real but that is different from extrapolating from examples about chairs and pots and concluding that no intangibles are real. Here's an intangible: a unit. Are there units? If not how can we do math without it. Or maybe go the other way: is there a totality? ...the All, as it were.

It is obvious were I am going by mentioning units and allness. These are attributes of God: unity and perfection. And we recognize those attributes in creatures to the degree they participate as some limited kind unity and completeness. So I can see why an atheist would deny the validity of any intangibles even if it comes at the cost denying the validity of math and the utility of language.

That is why I think the issue is deeper. The intelligibility of the material world of change necessarrily depends on the reality of some unchanging intangibles to make sense of it...like a unified and complete ground for being. And it is my position that, even if the 5 Ways do not demonstrate to the satisfaction of Pyrrhonian skeptics the reality of some grond for being, the 5 Ways still show us how indispensible intangibles are to reasoning.