[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[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.