Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
Found this interesting:
"Now imagine some particular substance, say, me. Suppose I go from being pale to being tan. Now it is still I who exist both before and after the sun has had its characteristic effect on me. This illustrates an important feature of substances: they can successively have contrary accidents and yet retain their numerical identity. This sort of change is known, appropriately enough, as accidental change. In an accidental change, a substance persists through the change, having first one accident and then another. But clearly not all changes are accidental changes. There was once a time when I did not exist, and then I came into existence. We can't analyze this change as an accidental change, since there doesn't seem to be any substance that persists through the change. Instead, a substance is precisely what comes into being; this is not an accidental but a substantial change. And yet there must be something that persists even through substantial change, since otherwise we wouldn't have change at all; substances would come to exist from nothing and disappear into nothing. Scotus follows Aristotle in identifying matter as what persists through substantial change and substantial form as what makes a given parcel of matter the definite, unique, individual substance that it is. (There are also accidental forms, which are a substance's accidental qualities.)
Thus far Scotus is simply repeating Aristotelian orthodoxy, and none of his contemporaries or immediate predecessors would have found any of this at all strange. But as Scotus elaborates his views on form and matter, he espouses three important theses that mark him off from some other philosophers of his day: he holds that there exists matter that has no form whatsoever, that not all created substances are composites of form and matter, and that one and the same substance can have more than one substantial form. Let us examine each of these theses in turn.
First, Scotus argues that there is matter that is entirely devoid of form, or what is known as “prime matter” (Quaestiones in Metaphysicam 7, q. 5; Lectura 2, d. 12, q. un.). Scholars debate now (just as they debated in Scotus's day) whether Aristotle himself really believed that there is prime matter or merely introduced it as a theoretical substratum for substantial change, believing instead that in actual fact matter always has at least some minimal form (the form of the elements being the most minimal of all). Aquinas denied both that Aristotle intended to posit it and that it could exist on its own. For something totally devoid of form would be utterly featureless; it would be pure potentiality, but not actually anything. Scotus, by contrast, argues that prime matter not only can but does exist as such: “it is one and the same stuff that underlies every substantial change” (King [2002]).
Second, Scotus denies “universal hylomorphism,” the view that all created substances are composites of form and matter (Lectura 2, d. 12, q. un., n. 55). Universal hylomorphism (from the Greek hyle, meaning ‘matter’, and morphe, meaning ‘form’) had been the predominant view among Franciscans before Scotus. Saint Bonaventure, for example, had argued that even angels could not be altogether immaterial; they must be compounds of form and “spiritual matter.” For matter is potentiality and form is actuality, so if the angels were altogether immaterial, they would be pure actuality without any admixture of potentiality. But only God is pure actuality. But as we have already seen in his affirmation of the existence of prime matter, Scotus simply denies the unqualified equation of matter with potentiality and form with actuality. Prime matter, though entirely without form, is actual; and a purely immaterial being is not automatically bereft of potentiality."
"The problem of universals may be thought of as the question of what, if anything, is the metaphysical basis of our using the same predicate for more than one distinct individual. Socrates is human and Plato is human. Does this mean that there must be some one universal reality—humanity—that is somehow repeatable, in which Socrates and Plato both share? Or is there nothing metaphysically common to them at all? Those who think there is some actual universal existing outside the mind are called realists; those who deny extra-mental universals are called nominalists. Scotus was a realist about universals, and like all realists he had to give an account of what exactly those universals are: what their status is, what sort of existence they have outside the mind. So, in the case of Socrates and Plato, the question is “What sort of item is this humanity that both Socrates and Plato exemplify?” A related question that realists have to face is the problem of individuation. Given that there is some extra-mental reality common to Socrates and Plato, we also need to know what it is in each of them that makes them distinctexemplifications of that extra-mental reality.
Scotus calls the extra-mental universal the “common nature” (natura communis) and the principle of individuation the “haecceity” (haecceitas). The common nature is common in that it is “indifferent” to existing in any number of individuals. But it has extra-mental existence only inthe particular things in which it exists, and in them it is always “contracted” by the haecceity. So the common nature humanity exists in both Socrates and Plato, although in Socrates it is made individual by Socrates's haecceitas and in Plato by Plato's haecceitas. The humanity-of-Socrates is individual and non-repeatable, as is the humanity-of-Plato; yet humanity itself is common and repeatable, and it is ontologically prior to any particular exemplification of it (Ordinatio 2, d. 3, pars 1, qq. 1–6, translated in Spade [1994], 57–113)."
"Now imagine some particular substance, say, me. Suppose I go from being pale to being tan. Now it is still I who exist both before and after the sun has had its characteristic effect on me. This illustrates an important feature of substances: they can successively have contrary accidents and yet retain their numerical identity. This sort of change is known, appropriately enough, as accidental change. In an accidental change, a substance persists through the change, having first one accident and then another. But clearly not all changes are accidental changes. There was once a time when I did not exist, and then I came into existence. We can't analyze this change as an accidental change, since there doesn't seem to be any substance that persists through the change. Instead, a substance is precisely what comes into being; this is not an accidental but a substantial change. And yet there must be something that persists even through substantial change, since otherwise we wouldn't have change at all; substances would come to exist from nothing and disappear into nothing. Scotus follows Aristotle in identifying matter as what persists through substantial change and substantial form as what makes a given parcel of matter the definite, unique, individual substance that it is. (There are also accidental forms, which are a substance's accidental qualities.)
Thus far Scotus is simply repeating Aristotelian orthodoxy, and none of his contemporaries or immediate predecessors would have found any of this at all strange. But as Scotus elaborates his views on form and matter, he espouses three important theses that mark him off from some other philosophers of his day: he holds that there exists matter that has no form whatsoever, that not all created substances are composites of form and matter, and that one and the same substance can have more than one substantial form. Let us examine each of these theses in turn.
First, Scotus argues that there is matter that is entirely devoid of form, or what is known as “prime matter” (Quaestiones in Metaphysicam 7, q. 5; Lectura 2, d. 12, q. un.). Scholars debate now (just as they debated in Scotus's day) whether Aristotle himself really believed that there is prime matter or merely introduced it as a theoretical substratum for substantial change, believing instead that in actual fact matter always has at least some minimal form (the form of the elements being the most minimal of all). Aquinas denied both that Aristotle intended to posit it and that it could exist on its own. For something totally devoid of form would be utterly featureless; it would be pure potentiality, but not actually anything. Scotus, by contrast, argues that prime matter not only can but does exist as such: “it is one and the same stuff that underlies every substantial change” (King [2002]).
Second, Scotus denies “universal hylomorphism,” the view that all created substances are composites of form and matter (Lectura 2, d. 12, q. un., n. 55). Universal hylomorphism (from the Greek hyle, meaning ‘matter’, and morphe, meaning ‘form’) had been the predominant view among Franciscans before Scotus. Saint Bonaventure, for example, had argued that even angels could not be altogether immaterial; they must be compounds of form and “spiritual matter.” For matter is potentiality and form is actuality, so if the angels were altogether immaterial, they would be pure actuality without any admixture of potentiality. But only God is pure actuality. But as we have already seen in his affirmation of the existence of prime matter, Scotus simply denies the unqualified equation of matter with potentiality and form with actuality. Prime matter, though entirely without form, is actual; and a purely immaterial being is not automatically bereft of potentiality."
"The problem of universals may be thought of as the question of what, if anything, is the metaphysical basis of our using the same predicate for more than one distinct individual. Socrates is human and Plato is human. Does this mean that there must be some one universal reality—humanity—that is somehow repeatable, in which Socrates and Plato both share? Or is there nothing metaphysically common to them at all? Those who think there is some actual universal existing outside the mind are called realists; those who deny extra-mental universals are called nominalists. Scotus was a realist about universals, and like all realists he had to give an account of what exactly those universals are: what their status is, what sort of existence they have outside the mind. So, in the case of Socrates and Plato, the question is “What sort of item is this humanity that both Socrates and Plato exemplify?” A related question that realists have to face is the problem of individuation. Given that there is some extra-mental reality common to Socrates and Plato, we also need to know what it is in each of them that makes them distinctexemplifications of that extra-mental reality.
Scotus calls the extra-mental universal the “common nature” (natura communis) and the principle of individuation the “haecceity” (haecceitas). The common nature is common in that it is “indifferent” to existing in any number of individuals. But it has extra-mental existence only inthe particular things in which it exists, and in them it is always “contracted” by the haecceity. So the common nature humanity exists in both Socrates and Plato, although in Socrates it is made individual by Socrates's haecceitas and in Plato by Plato's haecceitas. The humanity-of-Socrates is individual and non-repeatable, as is the humanity-of-Plato; yet humanity itself is common and repeatable, and it is ontologically prior to any particular exemplification of it (Ordinatio 2, d. 3, pars 1, qq. 1–6, translated in Spade [1994], 57–113)."
