Michael Egnor tries to solve the dualist problem of interaction

Yes, forms do exist in the mind of God, according to Thomas. Aristotle probably would not agree, as here Thomas is attempting to reconcile Augustine’s Platonic views with Aristotle.

Besides the mind of God, there are also angels, which according to Thomas are pure forms which exist outside of God. If angels are incorporeal forms, how do they exist in space and time? Aquinas speculates that angels are only “present” in a certain space and time insofar as they act upon something in a certain space and time. So they cannot be present in the same way that a corporeal substance can be extended in time and space. However, they can exert powers on something in time and space.

In Thomistic philosophy, it is common to think of matter as the principle of individuation. In the case of corporeal beings like humans, while all humans have the same form (rational soul), this form is associated with different chunks of matter, which results in different individuals (with different physical appearances and so on). Thus, for Aquinas the materiality and corporeality of the human substance is needed to distinguish one human from another.

As for angels, because they are pure forms without material bodies, one cannot resort to matter to differentiate them. But we do know from Scripture that there are multiple angels. To solve this problem, Aquinas holds that each angel is its own unique form.

I’m far from being an expert on this, but reading Aquinas on angels is fascinating. He covers it in questions 50-64 of the first part of the Summa. It’s intriguing how rigorous Aquinas can argue philosophically about what angels are and what they can do. Even if you don’t believe in the existence of angels, think about it as a highly developed system within fantasy or science fiction. As Feser expresses it:

You do not have to believe in angels in order to find the notion of philosophical interest. Working out the implications of the idea of a purely incorporeal intellect is useful for understanding the nature of the intellect, the nature of free choice and its relationship to the presence or absence of the body, the nature of time, and other issues too. In fact there is such a thing as rational angelology, and here as elsewhere Aquinas often surprises with his demonstration of how much might be established via purely philosophical arguments.

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So there is nothing essentially that makes us individuals? That seems surprising!

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This is where @Faizal_Ali looks really smart:

@Rumraket, by your definitions you’ve reduced materialism to something with which everyone would banally agree, which doesn’t make much sense.

I thought materialism was the idea that there is no reality beyond the material of our physical world. An example of a question that arises is if numbers are real in materialism or not. As an emergent concept, perhaps they are not real.

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As far as I know, nothing immaterial or incorporeal, but just matter. But this also underscores the importance of matter in defining the human being. Very different from the substance dualist view.

So there can be no subcategorizations below “rational soul”?

Well what kind of subcategories are you thinking about? A differentiation/categorization has to be based on some quality or quantity. What would you differentiate rational souls by?

Well, perhaps I, as an individual, am a subcategory, and so are you.

So each person is its own subcategory? Well, that would make us like angels. :smile:

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If not, how do you get any notion of what is essentially “you” in a Thomistic framework? How do you define the “self” if we are just arbitrary instantiations of a singular or reduced number of ideal forms? Given the primacy of forms in Thomism, it would seem to seriously degrade the value of our individuality.

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It is incorrect to say that forms are primary in Aquinas. I think the way you’re addressing it here is still substance dualist, where the soul is more important than the matter. But in Aquinas, since the human being consists of body and soul, the matter provides the principle of individuation and the soul gives us the basis for affirming why all humans are equally made in the image of God, despite our material differences.

This is also why for Aquinas, the Resurrection is necessarily bodily, for a disembodied human soul is not existing in a natural state. A complete human is necessarily material and corporeal.

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That’s great for Faizal, I’m sure it’s important to him to look really smart.

Yeah so did I, and what was described in that post I responded to is consistent with that view. The “forms” as described there could simply be another label for the attributes of material entities. Hence there is no apparent contradiction between what he described, and materialism.

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:smiley:

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Well, Aristotle and Aquinas thought of forms differently than we commonly think of properties. That’s why I didn’t say that Aristotle thought of the soul as one form of the body - it is the form of the body which organizes the matter and generates all the other properties that human bodies have.

Thus, while you are on the right path by saying that the the fundamental physical attributes of an object are “aspects” of its form, there is an important difference here between Aristotle’s holism and Democritus’ atomism. First, for Aristotle, the unified whole that gives rise to properties (i.e. the form) actually exists, and is causally prior to the properties that characterize an object. Form characterizes the essence of an object - that which defines something to be what it is, without which it would be something else. In contrasts to the views of many materialists today, form is not merely a disjointed collection of properties that happen to inhere in the same object. Thus, I would not say that properties are truly “aspects” or “parts” of the form - rather, the form causes the matter attached to it to have certain properties.

Secondly, for Aristotle, form is not identical to matter. It is not merely an abstraction drawn out of material properties. It objectively exists, independently of the mind, though it is inextricably connected with the matter. That’s the principle difference with many materialists or physicalists, who are usually monists who affirm nothing more than matter itself exists.

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Can Aristotelian notions of metaphysics, specifically causation, help us do better science? By “better science”, I mean create new scientific theories which

  • rely on these new notions of causation for causal explanation
  • could not be formulated using efficient causation only
  • make novel predictions which can be empirically tested in a way that isolates effects which could only be due to these new notions of causation

If so, which unanswered scientific questions do you think would be possible to address scientifically using these expanded ideas?

Just to be clear, I am asking about science only, and not eg about philosophy or theology.

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Speaking from physics per se, I have not found anything that can be relevant to new research. I am skeptical that final or formal causation can be mathematically expressed in the way that efficient and material causation can. To attempt to do so seems to be a category error. That being said, I have not delved deeply into how Thomism interacts with the philosophy of quantum mechanics and other more foundational matters.

Regarding other areas, I have a neuroscientist friend (postdoc in a top neuro lab) who is a much more die-hard Thomist than I am and is adamant that Thomism can better help formulate coherent theories of mind which may have a more direct influence on the direction of cognitive science research. I’m not an expert in that area, so I don’t have a reference by which to evaluate his claim. But that could be a more promising direction.

Yes, that’s the area that seems best suited. The two that occurred to me are the problems of intentionality and the problems of phenomenal experience. But I think it would be up to your friend to provide the sort of theories that other neuroscientists would accepts as scientific in the sense I mentioned.

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That’s one of the questions I was thinking of as I wrote that article. I’m not sure exactly what specific hypotheses Aritotelian metaphysics would suggest, however.

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I tend to be more of a pragmatist and relativist, so I tend to classify consciousness in the same way I classify hurricanes, planets, suns, and the digestive system. Upon dying, digestion also goes away. I don’t see why we should treat digestion any different than the function our brain carries out. I would also ask where a hurricane goes when it dissipates, or where a star goes when there is a supernova. Instead of getting into metaphysical questions about forms and what not I simply compare the brain and consciousness to other things in nature.

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I guess the difference is we understand pretty completely what a hurricane is and the physical conditions that cause. When these conditions no longer exist, then neither does the hurricane.

The same cannot be said for the mind. I think it is reasonable to believe that, when brain functions cease to exist, so does the mind. But their remains a gap in explaining how those brain processes produce the mind, if we wish to argue that it does.

Honestly, I am still reeling from the realization that hylomorphism is essentially a non-dualist physicalist position. If that is the case, what the heck is the debate about materialism really about?