Medieval Architecture of Matter, Form, and Powers

Abstract

Medieval Aristotelianism placed the fundamental powers of created things in the context of a metaphysics of substance that was also metaphysics of matter and form. Chapter 1 explores that context, largely with reference to works of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham. Following Aristotle, Aquinas tries to preserve the fundamentality of primary substance by insisting that it is naturally prior to its parts or constitutive principles of prime matter and substantial form. Scotus and Ockham disagree with Aquinas about the implications of Aristotelianism. They argue that because prime matter can exist without any of the substantial forms that inhere in it, prime matter and substantial form must be really distinct things, and that because the newly dead body is materially the same as the living body, the forms that structure the prime matter into a body must be distinct from the soul form.