Disproving The Soul

[Mudhammam]

This is why, from the Aristotle to the Schoolmen, 'primal' matter was considered a first principle. They came to this conclusion by abstracting away all the accidental or contingent properties until all that remained was a fundamental that could not be removed. In the case of primal matter, you get a single property, the propensity to be, which is logically prior to any particular form the stuff takes.

What makes pure materialism wrong is that it lacks a fundamental principle that informs the propensity to be.

My recent reading of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason has led me to similar conclusion, though "primal matter" is to my mind another way of phrasing the materialist's position: "I don't know" ...because we cannot know. But might you call something like a quantum void primal? I'm not sure. I'm inclined to think it is not within the scope of our experience to effectively conceptualize anything that is truly "primal matter," though I'm impressed with the extent that science, especially mathematics, has allowed us some degree of rational conception. Do you think Kant's Transcendental Ideals are another expression of this Aristotlean principle?

Also, wouldn't "primal matter" include mental abstractions? And if so, how is this a dualistic view? My understanding is that Spinoza viewed matter as having dual aspects but his views are typically classified under monism.