and as I've argued before, there is this confusion between prime matter and primary substance - between the primacy of whatever could constitute the material aspect of hylomorphically-emergent actuality, and primacy that is then the actualised or enformed being which is thus the substantial substrate of further change and development. — apokrisis
There is what I would consider to be prime matter as Peircean firstness or vagueness. — apokrisis
But when we talk of becoming preceeding being, we mean the Anaximander's apeiron or Peirce's tychism - potential as the pure spontaneity of unformed material fluctuation. If we had to describe such a general grounding to Being, it would be a materiality with the least possible substantiality. And even then, we should be imagining it as just naked "becoming" as "prime matter" with any materiality has already crossed that threshold into the realm of actualised Being. — apokrisis
This is what Aristotle claims to refute with the "cosmological argument", the idea of "emergent actuality". — Metaphysician Undercover
So Peircean firstness, and the metaphysics which follows from it, is not at all consistent with Aristotle's metaphysics, because it adopts the very principle which Aristotle claims to have refuted. — Metaphysician Undercover
You really can't just overlook the fact that Aristotle replaced the concept of "prime matter" with "prime mover", as the foundation of his ontology — Metaphysician Undercover
Another key passage where Aristotle has been thought to commit himself more decisively to prime matter is Metaphysics vii 3. Here we are told:
By “matter” I mean that which in itself is not called a substance nor a quantity nor anything else by which being is categorized. For it is something of which each of these things is predicated, whose being is different from each of its predicates (for the others are predicated of substance, and substance is predicated of matter). Therefore this last is in itself neither substance nor quantity nor anything else. Nor is it the denials of any of these; for even denials belong to things accidentally. (1029a20–26)
Although the word “prime” does not occur here, Aristotle is evidently talking about prime matter. A natural way to read this passage is that he is saying there is a wholly indeterminate underlying thing, which he calls “matter”, and it is not a substance. Those who wish to avoid attributing a doctrine of prime matter to Aristotle must offer a different interpretation: that if we were to make the mistake of regarding matter, as opposed to form, as substance, we would be committed (absurdly) to the existence of a wholly indeterminate underlying thing.
Surely what he wanted to refute was an efficient first cause to the Cosmos. And this led him to claim that the actuality of Being must therefore be eternal.
So he got something wrong. We now know our Universe started in a Big Bang. There is a data point to be dealt with. — apokrisis
But his own theory of substance include finality - a prime mover. And if you put aside the suggestions that “God did it”, then his contrast of immobile celestial spheres and an actuality that is thus driven in circular motion Is not too bad a stab at some kind of naturalistic resolution. It is a fact of quantum theory that spin exists as a fundamental degree of freedom because the classical spacetime universe provides the motionless reference frame that makes it so. — apokrisis
An efficient cause is only so if it is efficient. And a fluctuation is defined by being a difference that doesn’t make a difference. Or only the weakest imaginable difference. — apokrisis
So for example we have this in the Stanford article I cited... — apokrisis
That reply is odd only because we are not used to thinking of tangible Matter in terms of Qualia (properties, fields). Instead, we typically think of matter as Quanta (countable objects). We measure (compare) one thing to another (KG = a standard massive object), not the thing-in-itself (ding an sich).↪apokrisis
An odd reply. Mass is measured in kg. What do we use for the unit of substance? — Banno
What is going on? — Benj96
A more fruitful approach might be to look at mass rather than substance. — Banno
Then he demonstrated with the cosmological argument, that it is impossible for any potential to be eternal. — Metaphysician Undercover
In other passages too Aristotle seems to leave the question of whether or not there is prime matter deliberately open.
The issue with respect to "matter" is that matter is itself just an idea. This might be hard for you to grasp, because "matter" is exactly what we assign to the physical world as what is independent from us, and therefore not an idea. But as "matter", is simply how we represent the physical world. It is our idea of temporal continuity, what persists unchanged in time, represented in science as inertia, mass, energy, etc.. In reality, what exists independent from us is changing forms, and we represent the aspects which are consistent, constant, as "matter", and this is the basis of the temporal continuity which is called "Being", — Metaphysician Undercover
When he supposedly refuted idealism, by denying that potential could be eternal, he also refuted materialism, because materialism is actually just a twisted form of idealism, substantiated by the concept of "matter". — Metaphysician Undercover
you'll find a similar concept in the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary proposal. This eternal infinite regress is logically repugnant for a number of reasons, best demonstrated by the absurdities produced by the principle of plenitude which dictates that in an infinite amount of time, all possibilities have been actualized. — Metaphysician Undercover
Here we have divergent courses of study. You would say that we ought to put aside this notion "God did it", stick with the demonstrably deficient and faulty scientific conceptions of temporal continuity, and ignore the vast wealth of accumulated theological knowledge of this subject. Thus you adhere to that prejudice which assumes a "naturalistic resolution" is possible, regardless of the mounting evidence against this possibility. On the other hand, we can take Aristotle's lead and proceed toward understanding the teleological nature of the universe, discovering the completely different understanding of temporal continuity, Being, which is explored in Neo-Platonism and early Christian theology. — Metaphysician Undercover
The term 'inertia' is often used to describe a kind of irrational resistance to change in individuals or institutions.
http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/464/778
Do you have a source where it is clear that is the argument?
The Stanford article I cited on the prime matter issue fits with my view that Aristotle never fully worked it out, even if he left us with most of the essential tools. — apokrisis
I agree with the first part but not the second. In my semiotic view, time as a continuous thread of Being is also emergent. — apokrisis
But physics has kept marching on until matter and void, space and time, etc, are all unified as aspects of a universal substance - a theory of quantum gravity, if we can pull that off. — apokrisis
Is this your interpretation? I don’t think he had the mission of refuting idealism as even Plato is not really an idealist - especially by the Timaeus. — apokrisis
Instead I would say the issue was resolving the issue of hylomorphic substance - how substance could be the co-production of formal and material causality. Or as systems science would put it, bottom-up construction in interaction with top-down constraints. — apokrisis
Yes. That is why I wanted to check how much scholasticism you are projecting onto what Aristotle actually says (as much as we can rely on the curated version passed down by history). — apokrisis
Sorry you don't like my "style", but the links are intended to be the "explanation" of terminology in the post, for those who are interested in more detail. But, if that doesn't do it for you, I have lots of additional explanatory material that is too extensive for a forum post. The links also refer to other thinkers who share some of my unconventional views.Stylistically, tacking a list of links on the end of your posts without explanation doesn't work for me. Nor Qualia as properties and fields? Not following that. — Banno
The only way that the thing could come into existence as the thing it is, and not some random other thing, is that it's material existence is preceded by its form. — Metaphysician Undercover
Without accepting this principle, that form is prior in time to material existence (and this is the principle which necessitates the proposal of divinity), you cannot claim that your metaphysics is consistent with Aristotle's. — Metaphysician Undercover
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