Form and Matter (Aquinas 101)

What is truth? What is love? What is justice?
In asking the question, one asks for the essences of things, or more simply, what they are. The ancient philosopher Plato called the answers to these questions the “forms.” Aristotle believed in the forms, but saw them as existing in things themselves. Thus, all things of nature are composed of matter and form, and this composite constitution is called hylomorphism.

Form and Matter (Aquinas 101) - Fr. James Brent, O.P.

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[LisaFitzhugh]

Thank you...you anticipate questions within your explanation and therefore offer helpful answers.

[kathiesalter]

Yesterday I listened to the lecture on this subject in Aquinas101, am still in its early stages. It is absolutely engaging. I had been taught about substance and accidents in my instruction to become Catholic, reference the Eucharist, but this really elaborated and is so mentally delightful. Until then I had been reminded of my schooldays Plato, now he diverges, I am intrigued. Each time I comment, I say I am so grateful to you for making all this freely available! It would cost $1000's in college.

[LTDsaint]

These videos are fantastically well done! Many thanks gentlemen!

[iqgustavo]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:

00:00 🤔 Philosophers seek to understand the essences or forms of things when they inquire about truth, love, justice, and more.
00:56 🐕 Aristotle believed that forms or essences exist within the things in nature, making them what they are.
01:23 🧱 Matter, according to Aristotle, is the universal potentiality that exists in union with form, creating a composition of matter and form in all things.
02:10 🧩 The distinction between matter and form is related to the distinction between act and potency, and it holds true at all levels of analysis, even down to the elements.

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[kristindreko]

Thank you, may our Lord Jesus Christ bless you!

[davidrasch]

Listening to this I am reminded of Jesus' dialogue with the Jewish Temple Leadership who choose not to see the origin of their faith, preferring rather to cleave to their five senses....

[graziela]

Dear, I am a Catholic, a translator, and I study Thomism, and if you are interested, you can free through YouTube the access to send subtitles suggestions. So I could send subtitles of each video in Portuguese.

[vwissler]

This lecture, like lectures 3 & 7, takes many repetitions for me to start retaining. For a while, anyway, can I think of FORM as the "DNA" of a thing, a sort of pattern a thing has that "makes" the thing be the thing-expressing-in-nature? What I like about Aristotle/Aquinas is FORM directly expresses as natural forms, rather then nature being a kind of shadow of FORM (which is how I understand Plato).  Aquinas makes natural reality so immediately REAL. He's rearranging a bunch of my assumptions, some of which affect me spiritually re: body/soul not as dual as I thought, and reality/things permeated by FORM which seems really significant but I'm not sure in what way

[chloemines]

Essence of things: forms; act
Matter; potenciality
Hylomorphism; matter and form (potency and act)
Elements?

[mrcoder]

I'm confused and I have a few questions.

What makes form and essence distinct from one another?

What does it mean that a form is actuality while matter is pure potentiality?

[williamvasquez]

I'm confused with some things:

1) The word "Substance": As far as I know, it is what something is. It is what we mention in the definition (As a Category, that means it's necessary to be) - I may be confusing it with "Essence" -
2) If we only know something by the experience of this (I can't know what a German Shepard is but by taking it through analogy-), how can the form be necessary for a thing to be, or to exist?
3) If matter is what something is made of, but it can't exist without a "form", how can it be possible to not exist but to be the "raw materia" that something needs to exist?
4) I found in a book that there is a first and second matter (I understood that the second matter are the elements*).
*And how they are related to all these topics.

All of these ideas are going around in my mind, and I can't understand any of this.
I would appreciate if you could give me an answer. Thanks in advance.

[aisthpaoitht]

Is another way to explain this, that form exists in mind, and is comprised of matter? For example, melted bronze is matter that is pure potentiality of many forms (statue of Zeus, statue of Jupiter, statue of Hermes, etc). It is only actualized into form when changed and recognized as a form, such as turning the bronze into a statute of Zeus. At some point during the creation of the statue, a person will recognize the form and mentally say "that is a statue of Zeus, " thus creating the form. Do I have that right?

And then if the statue is melted down again, the actual form goes away, the matter remains as unformed matter, but the idea/memory of the form persists in the viewer's mind? So when compared to a human, when a person dies, their matter returns to unformed matter, and the actual person is no longer, but the form of the person survives in the mind of God, so to speak? And God can re-actualize the form with matter at some point?

[vgfjr]

Is form more than a visual aspect? It seems so if we use essence. But what is the essence of something? Is it its attributes, the things that distinguish it from other things in terms of tangible, visible, audial, and other more abstract properties like capacity to survive, to love, etc?

[MarshBrik]

So in the question " what is truth?", is there a blend of form and matter that make up truth, or is truth just form?

[Enigmatic_philosopher]

Here is a philosophical critique of some of the key metaphysical ideas presented in the video "Form and Matter (Aquinas 101)" from an analytic perspective:

The video helpfully outlines Aquinas' metaphysical concept of form and matter as the principles of individuation in composite substances. However, some philosophers argue these delineations may reify conceptual divisions not reflected in reality itself.

Specifically, the principle that a form's existence depends on and is limited by its individualizing matter remains an open issue. Critics question whether forms and prime matter can truly be abstracted as distinct layers of being.

Relatedly, the assertion that the human soul or form is the principle of humanity's substantial unity is disputed. Some physicalists deny any non-physical components fundamentally constitute a person.

The explanatory power of the per se/per accidens distinction as applied to attributes is debated. Entities may lack precisely defined essences and instead involve open dynamical relationships.

The dependence of accidents on substances is also controversial, as emergent phenomena challenge tidy ontological hierarchies. Some understand attributes as integral to entities' enduring identities.

By focusing on Aquinas narrowly, alternative metaphysical models were not sufficiently acknowledged. The video would have benefited from situating his view within modern philosophers' revisions and alternative frameworks.

Overall, while clarifying Thomistic metaphysics, the video presents debates as settled without adequately exploring robust philosophical objections and interpretive complexities still very much alive in metaphysical disputes today. A more comprehensive critique was needed.

[Crystal_Falcon]

Is the “essences” of things are their “forms (as you say in the within the first 30 seconds of this video), then what is “essence” in the context of the essence/existence distinction? It seems we have equivocal words and it makes scholastic philosophy a bit messy, IMO.

[michaelanderson]

How can form be viewed as separate from matter when the form of an object is the direct result of the interactions of the particles the object is made of?

[brysonstevens]

I can see the parallel between matter and form, and potency and act, though what is the relation between essence and substance? AMDG.

[Fakerbs]

Those definitions can be related to free-will and determinism somewhat.

[mateusmelo]

So I can say that form and essence are the same concept for Plato, but for Aristotle the essence of a thing is a compound of its form and matter (considering material beings)?