Goodbye to Aristotelian Matter? A Response to Alexander Pruss

    Dr. Alexander Pruss is a prolific contemporary Neo-Aristotelian philosopher who has become immensely influential with his work on infinity, causation, existence, time, modality, philosophy of religion, etc. He is arguably best known for his defense(s) of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) and various forms of the cosmological argument for the existence of God. He also covers an array of philosophical issues on his blog which will be the subject of this post. In his article, "Good-bye, (Aristotelian) matter", Pruss offers some brief critiques of the Aristotelian notion of matter which I believe fall short, so my aim for this post will be to pose my concerns with the content of his article. Given the brief and somewhat casual nature of Pruss's critiques, it is very possible that my responses will be disproportionately technical and critical, but that is only because I want to give as quality of a reply as I can.

    Firstly, Pruss begins the article by stating that while he is committed to the existence of material substances, he questions why one should believe that there is such a thing as "matter," which is "a component of material substances." Trivially, there must be such a thing as "matter" if there is to be anything "material," given that "material" is just the adjectival form of "matter." Just as "additive" means "of addition" and "subjective" means "of the subject," "material" just means "of matter," and one cannot say that x is of matter when there is not any matter for x to be of! Pruss admits this in some sense by saying, ". . . I don’t deny that there is matter in the sense of substances that are so configured as to count as material. Quite possibly, where you have a heap of sand, you have a heap of material substances, and hence matter." However, the difference is that, for Pruss, the existence of matter is entirely reducible to the existence of material substance rather than being an essential component of substances that is composed with form. By the end of this article, I will have hopefully made the problem with that apparent.

    Secondly, since Pruss wants to dispose with the notion of "matter," he reduces the concept of a material substance to simply be "a substance that has at least one geometric property." I will assume that Pruss is using the term "property" loosely, akin to a generic characteristic (given that he admits later in his post that materiality is accidental to material substances, so the notion of "property" as that which properly flows from a thing's essence would be self-defeating for him to use). In addition, although I am familiar with talk of "geometric properties" in contemporary analytic philosophy, I am unsure as to whether it usually refers to a strict set of connotations in the literature or not, so I will provide my interpretation of what a geometric property would be and the issues that follow. A truncated version of my critique of his definition is as follows: if "geometric property" is a second intention, then it is an inadequate definition, and if it is a first intention, then it is still an inadequate definition.

    Something geometric would be, as one could guess from the adjectival examples above, of geometry. Now, the formal object quod of geometry is continuous quantity, and this is clear from the fact that the material object of geometry (the stuff geometry deals with) consists in lines, surfaces, angles, planes, curves, etc., and that the formal object quod renders the material object of a science determinate and attainable to knowledge. Furthermore, continuous quantity is held in the second degree of abstraction, because continuous quantity is considered by the intellect apart from any particular material substance and of material substance in general. Consequently, given that the material object of geometry (lines, surfaces, planes, etc.) is an instance of continuous quantity, and in the second degree of abstraction, quantity is considered per se and not in relation to either particular or general material substance, then geometric properties such as "having lines," "having curves," etc., are second intentions (formalities proper to a thing insofar as it exists in the state of knowledge, i.e. in the intellect, and not as it exists in nature or in itself).

    The issue with defining a material substance in this way is that real definitions (as opposed to a kind of nominal definition) consist in predications of first intention and not second intention, for when we give a real definition of "man," we say that "man is an animal," not that "man is a genus." To reduce the concept of material substance to "a substance that has at least one geometric property" is to reduce the definition of a thing to a predication of second intention, but second intention presupposes first intention, for the formalities of an object as it exists in itself are prior to the formalities of an object as it exists in the intellect, which is made clear from the fact that there must be some formality in rem which allows for the abstraction that produces second intentions to take place at all. Since Pruss's claims would entail that matter is not a part of the real definition of material substance, an alternative real definition must be offered in its place; it is inadequate to offer a nominal definition here.

    Now, if the retort is that "geometric property" is a first intention, and thus constitutes a real definition, because that phrase simply refers to the aforementioned formality in rem which allows for the abstraction and predication of the second intention of "having lines", etc., then it is simply false, because for Pruss, as I will soon expound upon, there is only substantial form with accidents for material substances, so the formality in rem would be an accident, but accidents are not included in the definition of substance; in fact, it is the opposite, substance is included in the definition of accident, because accidents are only understood as modifications of substances, while the definition of substance is complete without extraneous reference. Therefore, on either interpretation, Pruss's definition is inadequate.

    Now that I have dealt with Pruss's definition, allow me to return to my claims that Pruss admits the accidentality of materiality and that there is only forms with accidents with respect to material substance. Of material substances, he states:

Material substances, on my view, are much like Leibniz’s monads; they are like Aristotle’s gods or Aquinas’s angels, plus whatever properties or causal powers are needed for them to count as material. I am my own form, and in this form there inhere accidents.

    It is apparent that he is explicitly rejecting Aquinas' notion that the essence of material substances is constituted by both form and matter by saying that they are more like Aquinas' angels whose essences only consist of form. Given that the essence of a material substance only consists in form, matter is simply not included in the essence of material substances and so is accidental to them, which he fully admits by saying, "I am my own form, and in this form there inhere accidents," and by saying that it is accidents that constitute a substance's materiality.

    The immediate problem that presents itself is the principle of individuation. Multiplication is always in virtue of some principle of diversity. Genus is able to be multiplied into a diversity of species because of a diversity of specific differences; rational, aquatic, terrestrial, etc., are all differences that multiply the genus "animal" into several species. Even though there is a diversity of species due to the differences added to that genus, all of the species share that genus in common. Now, what about the multiplication of species into diverse individuals? It is not possible to multiply a species into individuals through a specific difference, i.e., a formal differentia, because all that will be accomplished is a generation of a new species. If not a formal differentia, what kind of differentia could do the job? The Thomist answer is to say that a species is multiplied into a multitude of individuals through a material differentia, i.e., by the diversity of secondary matter that is brought about by the diverse informings of prime matter. Thus, John and Jane, both humans, share a common species, but are numerically distinct in virtue of the division by matter under different quantities. But, if no human being has a composite essence of matter and form but only a simple essence of form, and if there is nothing inferior to species by which the form is received and multiplied into a diversity of subjects, then just like Aquinas' angels, human beings do not share the same species; rather, each human has his own species! For Pruss, there is form with accidents, but accidents cannot multiply form into numerically distinct substances, because accidents are modifications of an already existing substance and as such are posterior to the individuation of substances, so Pruss seems to be at a loss for a principle which multiplies species, and so, "there are as many species as there are individuals" (Aquinas).

    Clearly though, this cannot be the case, for we see that form is communicated in the generation of natural substances. When a human child is generated, he bears a formal likeness to his parents, which is precisely why the term generation is used, since it signifies procession by way of a formal similitude. Under Pruss's view, any formal likeness would not be in reality (since no form is communicated) but merely artificial, as a hyper-realistic wax statue formally resembles who it is modeled after. Calling the statue and model a "human" or "man" or "person" would be equivocation. But why isn't it the case that the generation of a child is like the molding of a wax statue? Well, the most glaring reason is that a case of generation would be a case of like producing like, and while a begotten human has the same kind of organs, bodily functions, causal powers and capacities, etc., as his parents, the statue has none of these. All of those features mentioned are had by a thing in virtue of its form, since it is a thing's principle of actuality, which again points to a communication of form and species. Plus, it is simply common sense to say that John and Jane are the same kind of thing, viz. humans, and that calling Jane and John humans is not equivocation.

    In summary, given that it seems like the only plausible differentia for the multiplication of species into individuals is matter, and that the differentia cannot be accidental nor formal as has been shown, then matter must be something essential, and as something distinct from form, it is entailed that both form and matter are two distinct constituents of the essence of material substance.

    As an aside, the failure to posit the commonality of species in human beings could also have horrendous implications for the Incarnation and Christ's relation to other humans, since Christ's salvific sacrifice is predicated on the fact that He shares a human nature with all mankind, and as a Catholic, that would surely be something Dr. Pruss would want to retain.

    Lastly, since I believe the most pressing issues have been handled, allow me to comment on some of Dr. Pruss criticisms of the application of matter to philosophical scenarios. It will be the easiest to quote this objection directly:

The persistence of matter through substantial change is said to do justice to the intuition that the corpse is the remains of the living creature: that there is something in the corpse that was in the living creature. But it is notoriously difficult to remain faithful to the Aristotelian emphasis that identity always comes from form and allow that anything in the corpse is identical to anything in the prior living body. Absent a solution to this, the Aristotelian has to say that there is one bunch of matter prior to death, a bunch of matter informed by the form of the living body, and a different bunch of matter after death, informed by the forms of the substances making up the corpse. But that does not do justice to the common-sense intuition.

    The notion of something being "in" the corpse is a bit ambiguous, but given subsequent context, it seems Pruss is implying that the intuition demands that there is something formally in the corpse that was formally in the living creature, but not only do I think that that is not the way one should understand the intuition, I also think that that position is very unintuitive itself. Whether a body is living or non-living is in virtue of a specific difference dividing living bodies (plants, animals, etc) from non-living bodies (stones, wood, etc), and since specific differences are formal differentiae, how could it be the case that there is an identical formality in the corpse that was in the creature? I believe it is much more intuitive to think that a creature's death is a change in the kind of thing it is and not merely any accidental or material change (especially given the fact that we undergo material and accidental change constantly without anything as drastic as death occurring), and if that is the case, there will not be any formal identity between corpse and creature.

    When he refers to the position that there are different bunches of matter prior to and posterior to death with the latter being informed by the substances making up the corpse, it is reminiscent of Aquinas' position that the death of the body consists in the resolution to its primary elements, yet Pruss says that this does not do justice to the intuition. Given that there seems to be good reason not to think that the intuition should be cashed out in terms of a formal identity, how should it be understood, and does Thomas' account of resolution fail to do justice to it? 

    Coupled with the very intuitive view that death is a formal change, the intuition that the corpse is the remains of the creature should be understood in terms of prime matter, which is the datum that Pruss does not think does the job. We see that the corpse is the remains of the creature because the corpse remains under the same quantitative dimensions that the creature was individualized with, and this is because the indeterminate subject receiving the determinate substantial form (prime matter) remains the same, i.e., remains related to those dimensions, through the substantial change, and the resolution of the corpse into its primary elements (the lowest material constituents of the body, a.k.a. "the substances making up the corpse) not only explains why the corpse decomposes and the creature does not, but also explains the lack of substantial unity between all the parts of the body which was once had by the creature.

    Pruss's response to this would be to say that the physical similarity between creature and corpse is not to be accounted for by matter but by accidents of "shape, mass [sic] and color." However, what I will say here is similar to the above. Just as the determinable substratum that is prime matter remains related to the original dimensions of the substance as a whole through the transition of substantial form, so too does the determinable substratum that is secondary matter remain related to the original dimensions of the accidents through the transition of accidental forms. As there is a difference in substantial form between the corpse and creature, there is also a difference of accidental form, because substance individuates accidents, so precisely because the dimensions under which the substance was individualized remain through the change because of prime matter, the dimensions under which the accidents were individualized remain because of secondary matter. Because of this, just as the corpse is not the formally/numerically same substance as the creature, the accidents of the corpse are not the formally/numerically same accidents as in the creature, and Pruss seems to think this is to "bite the bullet" in some way. On the contrary, I think the explanation I have given here not only accounts for the intuition that Pruss wants to hold, but it does so in a better way than Pruss's account, so there is no need to bite any bullet for the Thomist.

    On the issue of diachronic identity, Aristotelians generally want to say that matter plays some role. However, immaterial substances that are composite persist through time, so matter is simply not needed to account for diachronic identity. I have a short response for this short objection. It is simply a kind of misuse of Occam's Razor that I see too often. Just because something is not needed in one case does not mean that it is not needed in another case, especially when the other case is a formally distinct case. Perhaps chalk is not needed for Chris Bumstead to lift a 25 kg dumbbell, but this does not mean that no one will need chalk to lift a 25 kg dumbbell. Why? Because it depends on the kind of being in question. One kind of being will not need the chalk to lift the weight, while some other kind of being might, i.e. strong kinds or weaker kinds. In the same way, while an immaterial substance may be the kind of being which does not need matter for diachronic identity, there may be some kinds of being, viz. material being, that in fact need it. Pruss may not want to concede that they are different kinds of being because, for him, materiality consists solely in what is accidental, but I would like to believe I have shown this to be false or at least have given those who lean toward that view some pause.

    Pruss's contention with matter playing into material composition, I have to confess, I do not really understand. Perhaps his confusion relies on mistaking a statue for a substance instead of as an artifact, as he calls the statue a substance. The statue would not be the substance, the bronze (or whatever) out of which the statue is made would be the substance, and the form of the statue would be an accidental form of the bronze substance. Beyond that, I do not know how much more commentary I can add to this point. If any reader would like to enlighten me in the comments as to what Pruss's point number three in his article is supposed be about, then I would appreciate that.

    In conclusion, I have addressed several critiques of the Aristotelian notion of matter to the best of my ability and have provided counter-arguments as to the consequences of rejecting an Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding of matter. My hope is for this post to stimulate conversation around the necessity of matter for the ends of sound ontology and directing many away from potentially heretical views. Thank you for reading!

Works Cited

Aquinas, T. (n.d.). On Being and Essence. Aquinas. Retrieved December 2022, from https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~DeEnte.C4.4

Pruss, A. (2017, May 8). Good-bye, (Aristotelian) matter. Alexander Pruss's Blog. Retrieved December 2022, from https://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2017/05/good-bye-aristotelian-matter.html

Bibliography

Aquinas, T. (n.d.). On Being and Essence. Aquinas. Retrieved December 2022, from https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~DeEnte

Grenier, Henri. “Principles of Mobile Being.” Thomistic Philosophy, 2013th ed., II, St. Dunstan's University, 1950, pp. 140–153.

Lang, David P. “The Thomistic Doctrine of Prime Matter.” Laval Théologique Et Philosophique, vol. 54, no. 2, June 1998, pp. 367–385., https://doi.org/10.7202/401163ar.

Pruss, A. (2017, May 8). Good-bye, (Aristotelian) matter. Alexander Pruss's Blog. Retrieved December 2022, from https://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2017/05/good-bye-aristotelian-matter.html