Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Tennessee, 2007. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Oct. 24, 2007). Thesis advisor: Richard E. Aquila. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The current state of the personal ontology debate can be summarized as a disagreement between two roughly distinct camps. First, there are those philosophers who argue that personal identity consists of psychological continuity. According to the psychological continuity theorist, ones identity over time is traced by following a series of memories, beliefs, desires, or intentions. Opposed to psychological continuity theories are those who argue that personal identity consists of biological continuity. So-called animalists suggest that our identity corresponds to that of a human organism, a member of the species Homo Sapiens. As long as the event of the organisms life continues, there too do we persist, according to the animalist. It is my contention that both views suffer difficulties found when exploring their metaphysical commitments and responses to certain widely-discussed thought experiments. In this thesis, I aim to resurrect the ancient view of hylomorphism, by which I mean the view espoused by Aristotle and adapted by St. Thomas Aquinas that posits matter and form as the basic constituents of every material object. As a theory of personal ontology, I argue that hylomorphism has the resources to provide a formidable challenge to the two main views. I will offer hylomorphic responses to general problems faced by accounts of personal identity such as intransitivity, circularity, fission, and composition, and show how its answers are an improvement over those given by psychological continuity theory and animalism.

The current state of the personal ontology debate can be summarized as a disagreement between two roughly distinct camps. First, there are those philosophers who argue that personal identity consists of psychological continuity. According to the psychological continuity theorist, ones identity over time is traced by following a series of memories, beliefs, desires, or intentions. Opposed to psychological continuity theories are those who argue that personal identity consists of biological continuity. So-called animalists suggest that our identity corresponds to that of a human organism, a member of the species Homo Sapiens. As long as the event of the organisms life continues, there too do we persist, according to the animalist. It is my contention that both views suffer difficulties found when exploring their metaphysical commitments and responses to certain widely-discussed thought experiments. In this thesis, I aim to resurrect the ancient view of hylomorphism, by which I mean the view espoused by Aristotle and adapted by St. Thomas Aquinas that posits matter and form as the basic constituents of every material object. As a theory of personal ontology, I argue that hylomorphism has the resources to provide a formidable challenge to the two main views. I will offer hylomorphic responses to general problems faced by accounts of personal identity such as intransitivity, circularity, fission, and composition, and show how its answers are an improvement over those given by psychological continuity theory and animalism.

Thesis (M.A.)--Liberty University, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references.

Strawson famously classified Aristotle as a descriptive metaphysician, alongside himself, and in contrast to more revisionary philosophers like Plato. The extent to which Aristotle was merely concerned to describe our conceptual scheme has, however, been over-estimated by some. Although common-sense beliefs are among the starting-points from which Aristotle pursues his metaphysical inquiries, the conclusions of those inquiries are in fact quite radical. In chapter one, we identify three interpretative questions about Aristotle's notion of substance: (1) does Aristotle change his mind about what things are the substances between writing the Categories and the Metaphysics? (2) are matter, form and the compound of the two all substances, albeit to different extents, or are only forms substances? (3) however we resolve these questions about hylomorphism, what range of forms count as substantial, and why? In chapter two, we examine the criteria of being a substance. These provide evidence for Aristotle's changing his mind between the Categories and Metaphysics. An examination of the 'χωρıστóv' criterion also supports the view that only forms are substances: Aristotle claims that compounds are separate simpliciter, since they can exist without items in other categories, and not vice versa, but this claim cannot be supported. Only forms are separate in definition, and so, on the assumption that being separate is necessary for being a substance, only forms are substances. If we are to understand the claim that only forms are substances, we should acquire a better understanding of what is meant by 'form', and why Aristotle thinks there are such things. Chapters three to five undertake this task. Chapter three discusses Aristotle's introduction of matter and form in the Physics to account for substantial generation, and his argument in Z.17 that form is substance, since it is what makes some matter one thing. In chapter four, this unificatory role is distinguished from the role of a principle of individuation, and it is argued that only individual forms are suitable to play the latter role. In chapter five, we examine some recent attempts to blur the distinction between matter and form, by maintaining that form is essentially matter-involving. We argue that the view according to which form is defined independently of matter is preferable. In chapters six and seven, we address the third interpretative question. Chapter six argues that artefacts are not substances (and not merely substances to a lesser degree than organisms) because they are not separate, since they depend on the intentional activity of their creators or users. Chapter seven considers Aristotle's views about mixtures. These are also compounds of matter and form, but fail to be substances because, like matter, they depend on a higher form to make them one thing.

No description available.

In recent decades, a number of philosophers have sought to explain the nature of human action using Aristotle’s theory of material constitution. According to these neo-Aristotelian accounts, material objects serve as the paradigm cases for analysing the concept of action. As composites of matter and form, material objects—and, in particular, biological organisms—possess a kind of constitutive unity: they are “hylomorphic wholes”. The same kind of unity purportedly exists with regard to actions, which are constituted likewise. My task in this paper will be to give a precise articulation of this thesis and what it entails. If the neo-Aristotelian claim is right, then material objects really do serve as the paradigm cases for understanding the constitution of action. In Chapter III, I will simply presume the truth of this general claim, in order to focus my attention on the relative merits and weaknesses of specific arguments given in support of it. Before considering these arguments, however, we will need to first clarify Aristotle’s thesis concerning material objects. This will be my aim in Chapter II. In general, I will accept the conventional Aristotelian position that a material thing, qua concrete substance, is constituted by substantial form in matter, a unified whole. I will presume as correct the Thomistic conception of such composites, which employs the distinction between act and potency: matter is pure potentiality for the reception of form, and form is “a determinate actualisation of this potentiality”. / text

[pt] O tema desta pesquisa é o estudo da theoria, isto é, da vida contemplativa como o verdadeiro caminho para a eudaimonía, segundo a filosofia aristotélica. Em sua Ética a Nicômaco, Aristóteles aponta que toda a arte e toda escolha têm, em comum, um fim qualquer, no entanto, há um fim que é objeto único e supremo do homem, este fim é a eudaimonía. Entretanto, o Estagirita mostra que para obter a eudaimonía de forma derradeira, o homem tem que exercer aquilo que há de mais divino em seu ser, ou seja, exercer a atividade da alma que unicamente a ele compete, isto é, a atividade da razão, pois, é através desta que ele consegue, mesmo que seja por um breve momento, alcançar a realidade divina e, assim, contemplar a verdadeira eudaimonía. / [en] The theme of this research is the study of theoria, that is, the contemplative life as the true path to eudaimonia, in Aristotelian philosophy. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle points out that all art and every choice they have in common, an end, however, there is a view that is unique and supreme object of man, this end is eudaimonia. However, Stagirite shows that to get the ultimate form of eudaimonia, man has to exercise what is most divine in his being, exercise the activity of the soul that it belongs only to him, the activity of reason , it is through this that he can, even for a brief moment, reach the divine reality and thus contemplate the true eudaimonia.

Ce travail porte sur les évolutions du concept de forme au Moyen Age, plus précisément entre le XIIIème et le XIVème siècle. Il retrace ces évolutions à travers l'étude de problématiques intriquées qui dominent la métaphysique et la philosophie naturelle du Moyen Age tardif: le problème de l'universel, la controverse de la pluralité des formes, la question de l'intensio formarum, le rapport du fluxus formae au mouvement. / This work deals with the evolution of the concept of form during the late Middle Ages (ca. 1250-1350). It tells the story of this evolution through the study of intricated problems typical of late medieval metaphysics and natural philosophy: the problem of universals, the controversy about the plurality of forms, the intensio formarum debates, the problem of fluxus formae related to motion.

Le titre de ma thèse est “Matter and Explanation. On Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Η”. Le but de cette recherche est de montrer la profonde unité argumentative du livre H (livre VIII), considéré habituellement comme un ensemble d'appendices au livre livre Z, qui le précède. Dans mon travail, conformément à la tendance dominante dans la littérature spécialisée des dernières années, je pars de l'indication donnée par M. Burnyeat dans “A Map of Metaphysics Ζ” (2001). D’après Burnyeat, H achèverait l'analyse de Z en développant le nouveau point de départ dans l'étude sur la substance établi dans le chapitre Z17. Dans ce texte, on considère la substance comme « principe et cause » et, par conséquent, on recherche « la cause pour laquelle la matière est quelque chose ». Cette indication a été utilisée jusqu'à présent pour voir en H l'endroit où ce principe serait appliqué. H aurait ainsi un rôle didactique, explicitant le principe méthodologique établi en Z17. Dans mon travail, je vise à montrer que l’attitude d’Aristote à propos de la notion de substance ne se borne pas, dans le livre H, à une simple synthèse exposant des résultats préalablement acquis. J’estime, au contraire, qu’il procède à une révision profonde du statut de substantialité qui est celui de la matière, c'est-à-dire du sujet ontologique, dont il s’agit alors d’expliquer l'organisation. Cette révision concerne les critères de référence, utilisés dans Z, qui avaient différemment contribué à imposer une lecture déflationniste de la notion de ὕλη. Dans H, au contraire, la matière est abordée en tant que sujet physique sous-jacent aux changements et à travers son rôle dispositionnel à l'intérieur des composées biologiques. Cette perspective de recherche s'accomplit en H6, où Aristote montre la supériorité explicative de son hylémorphisme par rapport à la doctrine platonicienne des Idées. / The main aim of my work – “Matter and Explanation. On Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Η” – is to show the argumentative unity of Book Η (VIII), which has been usually regarded as a mere collection of appendices to the previous Book Ζ. In my thesis I take on the main suggestion provided by M. Burnyeat in “A Map of Metaphysics Ζ” (2001). According to Burnyeat, Η accomplishes the enquiry of Ζ by developing Ζ17's fresh start into the analysis of sensible substances. Starting from Ζ17, Aristotle regards the notion of substance in its explanatory role as “principle and cause” and, as a consequence, he searches for “the cause by reason of which a certain matter is some definite thing”. Burnyeat's suggestion has been so far followed in order to look at Η as at that place where this search is accomplished. Thus, Η would play a didactical-expository role. In my work I aim at showing how in Book Η Aristotle does not confine himself to a mere exposition of the previous outcomes. By contrast, he provides a deep revision of the status of matter's substancehood. Namely of that ontological subject whose organization must be explained. Such a revision concerns those criteria, which in Book Ζ have provided a deflationary reading of the notion of ὕλη. On the contrary, in Η matter is read as subject of physical changes and in its dispositional role within the biological wholes. Such a framework is accomplished in Η6, where Aristotle shows the explanatory primacy of his own hylomorphism over the Platonic Doctrine of Forms.