Nancey Murphy explains the shift from hylomorphism to atomism in these words:
"In a world composed of atoms, sensation must result from the impinging of atoms on the sensory membranes, and then from coded information conveyed to the brain and thence to the mind. Ideas in the mind are no longer identical with forms inherent in things, but mere representations produced by a complicated process of transmission, encoding, and decoding. Thus arises modern skepticism with regard to sense perception" (Bodies and Souls, Or Spirited Bodies?, 47).
My comment: On the modern scientific view of the world, which rejects hylomorphism, treeness could be interpreted as a purely natural category: there is no need to invoke Platonic or Aristotelian Forms/forms. Chemically speaking, water is H2O and salt is NaCl. But "saltness" in the Platonic or Aristotelian sense does not exist; neither does waterness. So a natural kind like cathood can be interpreted as a biological class without being understood in terms of ontological structures, abstractions or formal quiddities. Nevertheless, Platonism and Aristotelian hylomorphism continue to subsist, despite the fact that both theories posit the existence of transcendent and absolute Forms/forms.
17 comments:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/suppl1.html
Ackrill raises questions that involve causation, and identity. Aquinas builds upon Aristotle's treatment, and hylomorphism has largely survived in that form. I once asked a Thomist:
"Therefore, the only thing I'll say in response to your treatment of the issues is that I have usually been concerned about how Thomas is able to contend that the resurrection (understood within a hylomorphic framework) preserves numerical identity of the person. Since the body decomposes and returns to dust, how can it be this body that is reunited with this soul in the resurrection? I guess Aquinas' answer is that since the soul is a subsistent thing (though less than complete in se) and the body's form, numerical identity [of the person] is preserved in the afterlife even though the body that obtained in this age is not quantitatively the same corpus but it's still qualitatively the same corpus when reunited with the soul (because of the soul being a configured configurer of the body). While I don't completely like this solution to the problem, I guess there's nothing logically impossible about the idea. I just wonder if it's not an ad hoc solution to the difficulty of numerical identity."
The response I was given? Hre it is:
"Well, someone recently said that all theological problems are, at bottom, philosophical problems, and so aren't all solutions to theological problems (not talking BIBLICAL theology here) really ad hoc solutions? =) But I think, by my lights, you've probably got the Thomism solution about right above.
Proto-matter is actually nothing, secondary matter is matter with some sort of form, like wood, iron, or flesh; but matter as a principle of potentiality is potentially anything that can be actualized by the act of existing of any particular form; so there you go."
Biologically speaking the body is changing from nanosecond to nanosecond, not only in function but to some extent composition. We are what we eat and to a lesser extent what we interact with (sunlight to D3 etc.) Thought processes are modulated through the gut brain connection. So should a person be resurrected in the exactly same state or in the ideal state for this new moment in time?
http://m.cpa.sagepub.com/content/61/4/201.long?view=long&pmid=27254411
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mbo3.266/pdf
Jehovah and Jesus will determine what body gets resurrected at the "last day," but it's doubtful that the same body will be reaised in the same state. Not only do our bodies perpetually change, but if some unfortunate end should overtake us, our bodies will then decompose. Barring some miracle, that which is raised from the dead will not identical with the corpus that preceded it.
"Barring some miracle" ? ;)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wHuECgAAQBAJ&pg=PA229&dq=Memory:+A+History&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=hylomorphism&f=false
I'd like to read the selections from the work on memory. That looks interesting. On the point concerning "some miracle," I was being somewhat whimsical, but Aquinas also does make that very suggestion in the Summa. :)
I've saved the passage somewhere on my computer.
Yes, memory is such an interesting point of inquiry. If a person has a mentally degenerative disease it would seem reasonable to hope that a Resurrection would restore all memories but the new work by Ehrman (not that I have read it) does raise some interesting general questions, as to what memory actually is and how it functions. Why we have to currently rely on collective memory & whether this is a human function or flaw?
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/individual-and-collective-memory-consolidation
https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/theseus.html
Is it just memory that persists.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-humans-carry-more-bacterial-cells-than-human-ones/
So what is the "I" ?
I would like to answer this question more fully next week, but my short answer is that no, it's not just memory that normally persists. We can make a distinction between personal and impersonal identity. The persistence conditions for something impersonal (X) are different for something/someone personal (call the personal entity, S).
Kevin Corcoran illustrates persistence conditions for X by using the examaple of a banana. X, in this case, may be green at one time, yellow at another, and brown or black at yet another. But it's still the same banana or the same X. Why?
Rene Descartes gives an example of wax in his work "Meditations." Even if we melt the wax (X), something remains that lets us know it's the same wax, even if melted wax does not have the same properties as non-melted wax. What are the persistence conditions for bananas and for wax?
However we answer that question, Corcoran reasons that persistence conditions for persons (S) evidently exists too. Some suggestions for what makes a person (S) the same at T1, T2 . . . Tn are the soul theory, memory theory, the body theory, and the illusion theory. All of these discussions are framed within the context of Leibniz's absolute identity theory. There is no unanimous answer on the persistence conditions for X or S.
I want to read the links a little more closely before going further, but the "I" usually is defined as the self or ego.
Body theory-the ego is identical with the body.
Soul theory-the ego is identicaql with the soul (Rene Descartes and Plato).
Memory theory-Authentic memories and the self remembering them constitutes one's identity (John Locke).
Illusion theory-there is no self or ego. The self is a fiction (Buddha and David Hume).
Neuroscience-The self is either fictive or it's neural/synaptic. Some also talk about a "narrative self."
Kant speaks of a transcendental self.
I do not think the s & x example answers the question. If we are born with firmware that has the ability to process the memories to control future decision making (this would be my definition of wisdom). But if memories are processed and stored are coloured and shaped by environmental conditions & how they affect the archival process (So even if two individuals have an identical experience the storage of it is affected by previous stored memories, environmental contaminations such as diet affecting the gut brain) then no two memories are the same even with identical experiences & contious decision making will carry unlimited variation. In the collective on average can be predicted but not for the individual.
Duncan,
My reply was addressing the question, is memory the only thing that persists? X is a variable that (in tis case) stands for any impersonal entity whatsoever (e.g., a banana, a table or a couch), whereas S represents any personal entity (i.e., a person or rational subject). I was just making the point that identity is normally framed in two ways: for impersonal and for personal things.
I was not saying that any two memories are identical. When I referred to the memory theory of John Locke, all I was saying is that Locke thought that memory secures the identity of a person (S). So, if I eat an apple at T1, then I authentically recall that event at T2, then I must be the same S at T2--that is, the one who ate the apple at T1. However, there might be another person (call him/her S2), who also eats an apple at T1 and remembers the event later at T2. However, we could not infer that S and S2 were identical persons based on this information, but one might argue that both persons maintained their respective identities over times T and T2, although Locke's theory is circular and therefore problematic.
Another way of making the same point is to assert that S and S2 experience differing qualia (raw feels or subjexctive sensations).
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