(October 30, 2021 at 4:33 pm)Angrboda Wrote: 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.
Sounds like mereological nihilism to me
The thing is, if mereological nihilism is NOT true (and we must admit that many people aren't convinced of mereological nihilism) then some form of hylomorphism seems plausible. There is a such thing as "chair-ness." And in the case of people, we can say that the way the molecules and energy in emjay's body are arranged produces an intelligible "emjay-ness." And were we to use Star Trek transporter technology to reconfigure different atoms in the same shape we would find the same "emjay-ness" to be intelligible in the new configuration of matter/energy.
I emphasized the word "intelligible" to denote that hylomorphism doesn't ask us to accept a concrete fact of "emjay-ness itself" as an eternal form (as Plato would). To hylomorphists, "emjay-ness" is not some airy-fairy thing that floats around emjay's body. All hylomorphism asks us to accept is that "emjay-ness" (like "chair-ness") is an intelligible concept.
The author of The Ethics of Killing, MacMahan, says that hylomorphism is a "polite form of materialism." And I like this take on it. Because, from one way of looking at it, it's materialism through and through; it just adds this metaphysical component of "this thing is intelligibly THIS."
Since you expressed sympathies with mereological nihilism, of course you are prone to reject this. And I'm there with you... 95% or something. But I also see where hylomorphists are coming from. I'm not ready to 100% reject chair-ness yet.
