According to Aristotle, all particulars that present themselves to us in experience are substances; for example, a bird is a substance, a rock is a substance, a piece of wood is a substance, and a boat is a substance. Substances are composites of matter and form. Matter is that which accounts for the individuality of the substance. Form accounts for a substance’s “thingness” or “kind” and is immanent in the substance as opposed to existing in a disembodied or transcendent state (without its material correlative). The duality can be illustrated as “matter being the source of indeterminateness, potency, and imperfection, while form is the source of specific determination, actuality, and perfection.”[1] There is neither primal matter (matter without form), nor are there “things-in-themselves” (form without matter). Matter and form are two of the four essential causes of a substance that Aristotle lays out in his Physics.

These essential causes are: (i) the formal cause; (ii) the material cause; (iii) the efficient cause; and (iv) the final cause. The material cause is “that out of which being is made; bronze, for example, is the material cause of the statue…Matter is the substratum…It can neither exist nor be known without form. In a word, it is potency.”[2] Or, in Aristotle’s own words, “that out of which a thing comes to be and which persists.”[3] The formal cause is “that into which a thing is made...Without it matter cannot exist: it is actuality.”[4] Aristotle defines this as “the form or the archetype, i.e. the statement of its essence, and its genera.”[5] The efficient cause is that by which the effect is produced, it is “the principle of its action as well as of its being.”[6] Aristotle sees this as “the primary source of change or coming to rest.”[7] The final cause, according to Aristotle, is “the sense of end or that ‘for the sake of which’ a thing is done.”[8] Furthermore, “the final cause, like the efficient, is, in ultimate analysis, identical with form; it is the form of the effect, presented in intention and considered as a motive, inasmuch as by its desirability it impels the agent to act.”[9]

The unity of material potency and formal actuality is a substance. If we choose to uncouple matter and form in abstract reflection, we can’t seem to figure out how they fit back together again. I believe that such a task cannot be accomplished without falling into a vicious regress.[10] The being of matter is “nothing actually, but everything potentially; it has so strong an appetite for form that it is no sooner divested of one form than it is clothed with another, and it is equally susceptible of all forms successively.”[11] The form is the enforming cause which “gives the thing its specific nature and all its properties and powers.”[12] Since the substance’s matter is not the same as its the substance’s “enforming” form, and the two attributes harmonize in substance, there must be a relation holding the two terms together. If it were not the case that matter and form were diverse, then matter and form would be indistinguishable from each other; thus, rendering the notion of a hylomorphic substance unintelligible. Since we can abstract the matter and form from a substance, these two attributes must be distinguishable from the other. The question now is how substance, a unity, harmonizes the diversity of its material and formal attributes.

I will now move on to my argument. I would like to reiterate a point that will be basal and foundational to the overall argument: substance is a unity composed of diverse attributes: matter and form. Prime matter is neither form, nor substance; form is neither prime matter nor substance; substance is neither form, nor prime matter. Matter has no being apart from being “enformed” by a given form, nor does the “enforming” form have any being apart from the matter which it adheres to. This is the argument as it currently stands:

The material attribute of any substance has the property of being enformed. The property of being enformed is neither identical to the form itself, nor the matter exemplifying it. Furthermore, “the property of being enformed” must be distinct from that which exemplifies said property. A “thing” is not identical to one of its properties; for example, sugar is neither identical to mere sweetness, nor the property of being sweet. A property must adhere to something other than itself, otherwise it would be a “floating adjective.” Indeed, F.H. Bradley points out, that “if you predicate what is different, you ascribe to the subject what it is not; and if you predicate what is not different, you say nothing at all.”[13] If matter and form have no relation which relates them, then the hylomorphist's substance fails to live up to its own demands. However, if matter and form are related, there must be a relation which binds these two diverse attributes together. If the relation is nothing in-itself, we are stuck, because a “nothing” cannot be said to complete the task of relating. A relation is dependent upon the terms which enter into it; if not, then the relation is itself independent of the related, and this would be inconceivable. However, a relation is not merely its terms taken together, for it is something the terms enter into and thus relate.

To continue with my argument, “the property of being enformed” is neither identical to the form itself, nor the matter exemplifying it; therefore, “the property of being enformed” must be distinct from that which exemplifies the property (i.e. matter). If “the property of being enformed” is predicated of that which is not merely “the property of being enformed,” then there must be a relation that matter and “the property of being enformed” enter into. This relation can be described as relating “matter” to “the property of being enformed,” (i.e. it is “the property of the property of being enformed”). We now are left with matter having “the property of the property of being enformed.” As we have previously seen, matter is neither identical to “the property of being enformed,” nor the form itself; and we can add also add that matter is not the same as “the property of the property of being enformed.” We are now forced to insert another relation in hopes of uniting matter and form; this relation would be matter having “the property of the property of the property of being enformed.” Thus, as it stands, we are doomed to suffer an infinite vicious regress, for we cannot seem to figure out how to unite matter with form. Unfortunately, the same regress appears if we were to swap “matter” with “form,” and replace “being enformed” with “enforming matter.” If sound, this argument poses a problem for the hylomorphist’s account of “substance.” If nature is intelligible, as Aristotle affirms, surely the unity of matter and form in substance would be intelligible; however, as we have hitherto seen, it appears that we have fallen into a vicious infinite regress without any clear means of finding our way out.

[1] William Turner, “Aristotle,” in History of Philosophy (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1903).
[2] Turner, “Aristotle,” in History of Philosophy.
[3] Aristotle, Physics, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1947), 194b-24.
[4] Turner, “Aristotle,” in History of Philosophy.
[5] Aristotle, Physics, 194b-27.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Aristotle, Physics, 194b-32.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Turner, “Aristotle,” History of Philosophy.
[10] Katarina Perovic, “Bradley's Regress,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford University, November 1, 2017).
[11] Robert Stodart Wyld, The Physics and Philosophy of the Senses; or, The Mental and the Physical in Their Mutual Relation (London: H.S. King & Co., 1875), 371.
[12] Wyld, The Physics and Philosophy of the Senses, 371.
[13] Bradley, Francis Herbert. Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay. Kiribati: 1897, 17.