Summary of What is Matter? | Prof Edward Feser

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00:00:00 - 01:00:00

In this talk, Professor Edward Feser discusses three historically influential accounts of the nature of matter: the hilum orphism of Aristotle, the mechanical philosophy of the founders of modern philosophy and science, and quantum mechanics. He defends hila morphism, which occupies the middle ground between two extremes, and argues that its rival, the mechanical philosophy, is plagued by insuperable problems. Quantum mechanics, he argues, is compatible with hila morphism and if anything vindicates hila morphism in the direction of something like Aristotle's hilum morphism.

00:00:00 In this talk, Professor Edward Feser discusses three historically influential accounts of the nature of matter: the hilum orphism of Aristotle, the mechanical philosophy of the founders of modern philosophy and science, and quantum mechanics. He defends hila morphism, which occupies the middle ground between two extremes, and argues that its rival, the mechanical philosophy, is plagued by insuperable problems. Quantum mechanics, he argues, is compatible with hila morphism and if anything vindicates hila morphism in the direction of something like Aristotle's hilum morphism.
00:05:00 In this lecture, physicist Richard Fineman discusses the evaporation of water. He explains that what appears to be a dead, uninteresting object is in fact a dynamic and interesting phenomenon that is happening all the time to our eyes. Parmenides argues that for change to occur, there must be something that comes from nothing. This impossibility leads Parmenides to conclude that reality is impossible and that there are no separate objects in the world. Aristotle, in his response to Parmenides, argues that empirical considerations do not support Heraclitus's claim that reality is in flux.
00:10:00 In this video, Professor Edward Feser discusses Parmenides' static monism and Zeno's paradoxes in order to argue against change and multiplicity. Parmenides' arguments against change and multiplicity collapse because they assume that being cannot arise from non-being, which is false. Zeno's paradoxes show that motion is an illusion. Aristotle argues that while Parmenides is correct to hold that being cannot arise from non-being, his heirs to this view mistakenly believe that change would involve the actualization of a potential, which is true but not what change really involves.
00:15:00 In this video, Professor Edward Feser discusses how matter has potentialities that can be actualized, and how this applies to physical things like ink and a marker. He also discusses how potentiality and actuality are general concepts that apply to all possible substances.
00:20:00 In this video, Professor Edward Feser discusses what matter is and how it relates to form. He argues that matter is the determinable substratum of potentiality, and that form is that which results from the actualization of potentiality. He also notes that any determining actualizing pattern counts as a form in this sense. He concludes by discussing the two main lines of argument for the existence of hila morphism, which he calls the argument from change and the argument from limitation.
00:25:00 In this video, Professor Edward Feser discusses the concept of matter, which he defines as the "side of reality without form." Matter is passive and indeterminate, and form is active and determining. Matter and form are as distinct as potentiality and actuality, and matter always has some form or other. Prime matter and secondary matter are the traditional Aristotelian distinctions between kinds of form. Substantive form is what makes something matter into a substance, and it is what makes something actual.
00:30:00 Edward Feser discusses the difference between substantial form and accidental form in relation to Aristotelian distinctions between nature and art, between natural kinds and mere human artifacts, and between intrinsic and extrinsic functions. He explains that true substances are typically natural objects, while artifacts are typically not true substances. He also discusses the correlation between what occurs in the wild and what has a substantial form. Finally, he explains that there are man-made objects that have substantial form, and that babies are natural objects.
00:35:00 In this video, Edward Feser discusses what matter is and what are the marks of a substance having a substantial form. He argues that water, for example, has a substantial form and is a true substance because it has properties and causal powers that are irreducible to those of its parts. Aquinas' interpretation of Aristotle's hila morphism insists that a substance has only a single substantial form.
00:40:00 Aquinas argues that substances only have one substantial form--the form of a which informs the prime matter of a. This form can only be actualized by the parts hydrogen and oxygen in water. These parts don't have their own substantial forms and so don't exist in that way.
00:45:00 In this video, Professor Edward Feser discusses the concept of matter in high/low morphism, which he defines as that which limits formed a particular thing time and place and persists when an attribute is gained or lost. He also discusses the older usage of the term "matter" which goes back to the ancient Greeks and Aristotle. He notes that while the concept of matter in the modern sense is still a matter of debate, high/low morphism is using the term in a specific, Aristotelian sense.
00:50:00 In this video, Professor Edward Feser explains the three types of change that Aristotle identified: qualitative, quantitative, and local motion. He goes on to explain that prime matter is the pure potentiality to take on form or to lose form, and that it does not itself have a substantial form. He argues that since prime matter is that which underlies the loss of one substantial form and the gain of another, it does not of itself have any substantial form, and is therefore not of itself any kind of substance. He also argues that since the having of accidental forms and attributes in general presupposes being a substance, prime matter does not possess any attributes or accidental forms.
00:55:00 The mechanical philosophy is a set of views about the nature of matter that began to replace the hila morphism view in the 17th century. Atomism is the paradigmatic version of the mechanical philosophy, in which all observable physical objects can be broken down into unobservable particles. Differences between observable objects according to atomism are just differences in the configurations of the atoms. All changes to an object and changes of one object into another can be accounted for in terms of changes in the configurations of atoms as they move through space. The particles on this view are the unchanging substrate of all change.

01:00:00 - 01:20:00

Professor Edward Feser discusses what matter is and how it relates to quantum mechanics in this video. He argues that matter is a pure potentiality that only exists in actuality through its form. He also discusses how the paradoxes of quantum mechanics can be explained by the fact that the parts of an object are all actual, not just virtual potential.