Concept of Matter
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^he Qoncept
of
Meaner
CONTRIBUTORS JOSEPH BOBIK A. R.
CAPONIGRI
V. C.
CHAPPELL
LEONARD
J.
ESLICK
HERBERT FEIGL
MILTON FISK ,
JOHN
J.
FITZGERALD
MARIE BOAS HALL
HANSON
N. R.
MARY
B.
ROBERT
HESSE
JOHANN,
O.
S.J.
CZESLAW LEJEWSKI N.
LOBKOWICZ
NORBERT M. LUYTEN, RICHARD
P.
O.P.
MCKEON
ERNAN MC MULLIN EDWARD MANIER CECIL
B.
MAST
CHARLES W. MISNER JOSEPH OWENS,
HARRY
A.
C.SS.R.
NIELSEN
RICHARD RORTY
KENNETH SAYRE WILFRID SELLARS
JOHN
E.
SMITH
JAMES
A.
WEISHEIPL,
ALLAN
B.
WOLTER, O.F.M.
A. E.
WOODRUFF
O.P.
Th
Concept of Nlatter EDITED BY
ERNAN McMULLIN
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
Copyright 1963 by University of Notre
Dame
Press
Notre Dame, Indiana Library of Congress Catalog Card
Manufactured
in the
Number
63-13472
United States of America
Designed by John B. Goetz
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book
is
a record of a
conference on
"The concept
Dame from September
the University of Notre
5 to
of matter" held at
September
papers for the conference were contributed in advance and
The among
9, 1961.
circulated
those invited to participate. Written criticisms and suggestions were solicited,
and
several of the papers
were modified by
their authors in the light of
At the conference itself, the papers were presented only in summary and a formal comment on each was read by one of the participants. Each paper was then discussed in detail by the group as a whole (numbering thirty people), and the proceedings were audio-taped. After the conference, most of the essayists rewrote their papers in the these advance discussions.
light of the points raised at the conference.
The
papers, as
we have
tiiem
Two
extra
here, are thus the final product of a long process of dialogue.
papers (those by Drs. Hesse and Woodruff) were added subsequently, as well as the
comment by Dr.
ence. In addition,
some
from The Philosophy of Scicomments given at the conference of space unfortunately made it im-
Feigl, reprinted
of the formal
have been included, though limitations possible to reproduce all of them.
Finally, sections of the conference discussion were transcribed from tape, and some edited excerpts are reproduced here in order to give the reader some idea of what went on. Choice of the excerpts was necessarily a very subjective matter on the part of the editor; almost any section could have been chosen. The aim was to find the pieces that would best illuminate the papers, or present some point not raised in the papers, or illustrate a fundamental disagreement between the participants. For, as the reader will soon note, there tve^-e disagreements of a deep-rooted philosophical sort, as well as differences
But
it
was
on many
on questions of
issues that at the outset
that the reader
ever
historical, philosophical
many
and
scientific detail.
interesting to notice at the conference itself a consensus develop
may,
as
We
hope
to share, at
how-
seemed hopelessly controverted.
he works through the book, come
removes, in the excitement and tension of the original dialogue.
In addition to the essayists and commentators whose
work
is
reproduced
below, the following also took part in the conference discussions: Robert
Acknowledgments
Cohen (Physics, Boston University); Catesby Taliaferro (Mathematics, Notre Dame) Drs. John Oesterle and Ralph Mclnerny (Philosophy, University of Notre Dame) Father Edward O'Connor, C.S.C. (Theology, Notre Dame). Three of the essayists were unable to attend the conference: ;
;
Drs. Lejewski and Hall, and Father Luyten, O.P.
Two
may
points of editorial usage
The
be noted.
phrase, 'primary mat-
was agreed upon as the best contemporary rendering of the Greek prote hyle, and this has been made uniform throughout the papers. Secter',
ondly, typography has been pressed into the service of semantics in a
way
which readers of American philosophy are becoming accustomed. Single quotes are used for mention only, i.e. in order to name the expression they enclose. Double quotes are used not only for quoting material, but also (in the case of words or phrases) to indicate a special sense of the expression to
they enclose.
Italics are
used either for emphasis, or to indicate the foreign
character of the expression italicized, or
term
to
is
Our tion, sible.
that the italicized it,
in-
its
thanks must go
first
and foremost
without whose aid the publication of
to the
this
National Science Founda-
book would have been impos-
Their grant of a substantial portion of the printing cost encouraged us
to proceed. Secondly, to the University of
original conference, this
warn
normal concrete referent. (Thus, for example, one would use say that matter underwent an evolution in the seventeenth century.)
stead of to italics to
lastly, to
be understood as referring to the concept associated with
and made
manuscript. Lastly, to the
its
Notre
Dame which
many who
aid^d so generously along the way:
Paul Schrantz, Janice Coffield, Ruth Hagerty, Mary Mast, I.H.M., Sr.
M.
Petrus, R.S.M.,
mimeographing; Joseph Patricia Crosson
who
Bellina,
who compiled
Press, especially Charles
Mc
supported the
resources available for the preparation of
Sr.
M. Jeremiah,
helped with the large task of typing and
who
took charge of the audio-taping;
the Index; and the staff of the University
Collester,
for their patience,
planning and
perseverance. E.
VI
Mc M.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
v
Introduction
1
Ernan
Mc Mullin
PART ONE MATTER
IN GREEK
The Concept
AND MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
of Matter in Presocratic Philosophy
45
Czeslaw LeJ€ws\i
Comment The
Joseph Owens, C.Ss.R.
Material Substrate in Plato
Leonard
J.
57 59
Eslicf^
75
Discussion "Matter" in Nature and the Knowledge of Nature: Aristotle
and the Aristotelian Tradition John
J.
79
Fitz Gerald
Matter and Predication in Aristotle
99
Joseph Owens, CSs.R.
Matter
Comment N. Lobkowicz
116
Discussion
120
Potency
122
as
Norbert Luyten, O.P.
Comment Ernan Mc Mullin Response Discussion
Norbert Luyten, O.P.
134 136 140
Contents
The Ockhamist
144
Critique
Allan B. Walter, O.F.M.
PART
TWO
REFLECTIONS ON THE GREEK AND MEDIEVAL
PROBLEMATIC Matter
169
as a Principle
Ernan
Mc Mullin
Comment
209
Wilfrid Sellars
Primary Matter and Unqualified Change Milton Fis\
Comment
Joseph Bobi\
238 241
Discussion
The
214
244
Referent of 'Primary Matter'
Harry A. Nielsen
Comment John
Raw
J.
FitzGerald
Materials, Subjects
253
and Substrata
255
Wilfrid Sellars
Comment
Milton
269
Fisf{
272
Discussion
277
Matter and Individuation Joseph Bobi/{
Comment
Milton
289
Fisf^
292
Discussion
295
Four Senses of 'Potency' Ernan Mc Mullin
PART THREE FROM MATTER TO MASS The Concept
of Matter in Fourteenth
James A. Weisheipl, O.P.
viu
Century Science
319
Contents
Comment
Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M.
342
Matter in Seventeenth Century Science
344
Marie Boas Hall
Comment fames Action
at a
Mary
A. Weisheipl, O.I\
368
Distance
372
B. Hesse
PART FOUR THE CONCEPT OF MATTER IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY Matter and Individuation in Leibniz
393
Edward Manier Kant's Doctrine of Matter
399
]ohn E. Smith Matter in the IdeaUst Tradition
412
A.R. Caponigri
Comment
Richard P.
McKeon
421
Discussion
426
MateriaUsm and Matter
in
Marxism-Leninism
430
N. Lobkowicz
PhenomenaHsm without Paradox
465
Kenneth Say re
Comment
Richard Rorty
488
Discussion
491
Matter and Event
497
Richard Rorty
Comment Matter
as
V
.
C. Chappell
Act
Robert O. Johann,
-
525 528
S.J.
Comment Leonard J.
Eslicl^
544
IX
PART FIVE MODERN science: THE "dEMATERIALIZATIOn" OF MATTER The
Dematerialization o£ Matter
549
N. R. Hanson
Comment Herbert
Feigl
Discussion
A Note on Three Cecil B.
562 570
Concepts of Mass
574
Mast
The Elementary
Particles of
Matter
578
A. E. Woodruff Matter and Energy in Scientific Theory Cecil B.
Mass
as a
Form
Charles
W
.
of
Vacuum
596
Misner
Discussion Biographical Notes on the Authors
Index of
585
Mast
Names
609 613
619
would be
//
that
difficult to find a greater distance
nical signification
,
between any two terms than
and the
tech-
suitably expressed in mathematical symbols, that the
word
which separates 'matter'
in the Greeks-medieval tradition
bears in science today.
John Dewey
in
"Antinaturalism in extremis", Naturalism and the
Human
Spirit, ed. Y.
Krikorian,
New
York, 1944,
p. 3.
This concept (matter) has hardly changed from the times of Leucippus
to
the beginning of the twentieth century: an impenetrable something, which fills completely certain regions of space and which persists through time even
when
it
changes
its
location.
Capek in The Philosophical Impact of Modern Physics, New York, 1961, p. 54.
Milic
XI
INTRODUCTION: THE CONCEPT OF MATTER Ernan
§1
Mc Mullin
Foreword
The
notion of a "matter" that underlies can reasonably be said to be the
oldest conceptual tool in the
Western speculative
tradition. Scarcely a single
major philosopher in the short but incredibly fertile period that separates Thales from Whitehead has omitted it from the handful of basic ideas with
make Nature more intelligible to man. In many inmodern, an initial judgement about the role to be attribstances, ancient and decisive in orienting a philosophic system as a whole. uted to matter has been which he
So
set
out to
that to trace the story of the concept of matter
of philosophy
itself.
is
almost to trace the story
In addition, this concept played a central part in the
complex
story of the dissociation of
what we today
from
parent, natural philosophy.
The new
its
concerned with motion, but
its
practitioners
call
"natural science"
physics (like the old)
were
less
was
interested in defini-
motion than in the charting of the motions of different bodies and few abstract quantitative formulae of great predictive power. The optimistic belief that such a reduction could be brought about depended on the existence of an intrinsic "motion-factor" peculiar to each body, one that could somehow be operationally defined just as volume and tions of
their reduction to a
—a search which, —one older concept played an indispensable
velocity could. In the long search for this factor see, is
not yet at an end
(as the motion-factor
matter".
came
to be called)
The subsequent history it
first
shall
Mass
grasped as "the quantity of
and of the gradual sunderenormously significant because of
of this definition
ing of the concepts of matter and mass the light
was
we
role.
as
is
can throw on the relationship between philosophic and
scientific
concepts generally.
For both of these reasons, an extensive analysis of the concept of matter be expected to yield much fruit. In the essays, comments and discus-
may
and historians complex and detailed picture.
sions gathered together in this book, philosophers, physicists
of science have collaborated in presenting a
Their concern on the whole was not so
much with
the history of ideas as
with substantive questions of present philosophic and
scientific concern.
To 1
— The Concept
of Matter
attack these questions through analytic case-studies of historical examples
seems by
far the best
approach in
much what
What we
this instance.
are interested in,
— —
though an knowledge of that will be indispensable to our quest but rather whether the reasons he gives for invoking his particular sort of "material principle", in the attempt to relate the worlds of mind and sense, retain their validity for us today. Each philosophical essay in this collection is centered around the work of a particular philosopher or school each attempts to find the sort of question to which the notion (or notions) of matter responded in this work, and to assess the meaningfulness of the question asked as well as the value of the answer given. The writers themselves represent very different schools of thought. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this book is the enormous variation it displays in the sheer doing of philosophy. The manifest differences in idiom and approach between the different philosophical articles mirror some fundamental disagreements as to what the task of philosophy itself is. The essays touching on modern science here, on the other hand, have a more negative and more easily-accompHshed task: to show how and why the concept of matter faded out of science, leaving only then,
not so
is
Plato, for instance, said about matter
exact
;
its
grin, so to speak, behind.
This glance
question about the over-all balance of the essays.
raises a
pected in a book under this
title.
the preponderance of the topics
The is
philosophical essays, the emphasis the
first
A
quick
Table of Contents will show two things, both perhaps unex-
at the
of these
first is
that
among the
philosophical, is
essays as a
and second,
whole
among the The reason for
that
upon Greek philosophy.
not just the well-known reluctance of scientists to write
is
about science instead of doing science, nor even the fact that the career of the concept of matter in philosophy has been so
more
diverse.
The
shall see, plays part, albeit a its
no
reason
is
longer and so
much we
direct part in the
doing of science today.
It still
plays a
tenuous and difficult-to-define one, in talking about science and
implications.
a simple one.
As
One
for the
emphasis on Greek origins, the reason here too
is
can distinguish more easily between the diverse themes
associated with the notion of matter in these themes
much
very simply that the concept of matter, as
came
except one, perhaps
to
modern philosophy
be enunciated in the
—were
first
first
place.
if
And
one
sees
how
them
all
of
we
will try to
enunciated by the Greeks.
In this introductory essay, our task will be two-fold. First,
gather together some of the threads of the philosophical discussions that
fol-
low to see what sort of pattern, if any, they make. Second, we shall review in somewhat more detail the relationship between the concepts of matter and of mass and the elimination from science of the concept of matter, thus bringing together in one place explicit conclusions and implicit suggestions
Introduction
scattered throughout the essays in the latter part of the bf;ok.
begin
enquiry: 'The concept of matter', must be cleared out of the
"The" concept the 'the'
title
way
of our
first.
of matter: First, one might well ask about the propriety of
many concepts of matter, some of them What is the common bond to be? There
here. Surely there have been
scarcely connected with the others? is
no word
as
we can
accepted
But before we
couple of troublesome questions ajnccrning the
this, a
that
we can
trace etymologically
through an evolution of senses,
was not even an what do we mean
in the case of 'mass'. Before Aristotle's time, there
word
for the philosophical concept of matter, so
here by talking of "the concept of matter" in Thales or Plato? In the case of
we can agree on the class of entities to which what Thales meant by 'man' (in the sense of: what referents the term designated) is the same as what any other philosopher has meant. So that to trace the concept of man is much simpler, because one has
many
other terms, like 'man',
the term applies;
only to ask
how
this
hjiown reference-class has been understood by different
what basic properties are the entities called 'man' said to have in common ? But in the case of the concept of matter, there is no agreed reference-class of this sort; not only is there not agreement as to which enphilosophers,
i.e.
ought to be called "material", but the term, 'matter', itself is frequently assumed not to be the name of a designatable entity. In these circumstances, the criteria of continuity must needs be much tities
looser.
The
continuity
is
one of problem, not of word nor of
concept of matter responds in the
first
instance to a rather
more
referent.
The
sophisticated
need than does the average non-philosophical concept. It has a descriptive or an explanatory role of a very general sort; it may be predicated of an entity not on the basis of some intrinsic property the entity possesses but rather because of the role the entity plays e.g. in a specific change. The mattercategory appears
first
in the context of the discussions of
change and the
constitution of things, then in the related question of individuation, then in
making
a distinction
between two orders of being, then in constructing a
theory of knowledge connecting the two orders. related,
and
it is
.
.
.
All of these are inter-
plausible to suppose that a similar ontological factor
play connected roles in each case. Yet this assumption, as
we
shall see,
may
can be
and it is all too easy to assume that simply because one uses same term, 'matter', in a myriad different philosophical contexts, the same factor is designated in each instance. The concept is defined by the problem to which it initially responds, by its specified interrelations with a large number of other very general concepts used in the context of the same problem. Thus it is a matter of no small difficulty to establish that the "same" a mistaken one,
the
concept of matter answers to two different philosophical needs,
e.g. that
a
:
The Concept
of Matter
as a substratum of change could also be the "matter" which individuates. This is a problem underlying the whole enquiry of this book, and it is one of which the reader ought constantly be aware.
"matter" which acts
Matter and the concept of matter: The second preliminary question could be put this way: what is the difference between discussing matter and discussing the concept of matter?
if
the latter signifies the former, could
be said that our study reduces to a study of matter? and a history of physics that
study of matter, in
is
called for, since physics
is,
it
not
if this is so, is it
not
after
all,
the systematic
one sense of that term ? There
at least
understanding here. Even
if
is an important misone ignores the other senses of the term, assum-
ing that 'matter' designates in some fashion the objects which study,
it is
by no means true that the study of matter
study of the concept of matter, or that some necessarily affect the latter. Matter
are prescinding for the
ontological status
moment from
entities the
new advance
scientists
equivalent to the in the
former will
an autonomous concrete entity the various questions about
—whereas the concept of matter
ceptual-linguistic system.
what
is
is
To discover more
is
its
—we
precise
relative to a specific con-
about matter, one finds out
term designates and then proceeds
first
to analyze these entities
(e.g. physics and chemistry). To dismore about the concept of matter, one turns rather towards some particular language and perhaps towards some particular user of it, and asks given the total context of this system and the concrete situations it was intended to describe or explain, what could he have meant by 'matter'? The term, 'meant', here has its usual ambiguity as between sense and reference. But the question is not: what entities did he designate by the term 'matter'? rather it is what did the term convey to his mind ? or more concretely what minimal properties did he suppose anything qualifying as "matter" to have? The two quests are connected in this way, and in this way only. A user
by the appropriate empirical methods cover
:
:
of the term, 'matter', by an empirical study of the entities he calls "matter",
might conceivably be led
to
modify
his original
nominal definition of the
if 'matter' has meant for him: something impenetrable and capable of affecting the senses, and he discovers that what he calls "matter" is not really impenetrable or that in
term in the
light of his discoveries.
certain circumstances
modify
it is
For instance,
not perceptible, he has an option. Either he will
his original definition in order to retain the
same
referents
under the
term, by finding some other defining property for them, or else he will retain
and concede that it does not apply to the class of enwhich he formerly supposed it to apply. In the former instance, the study of matter has affected the concept of matter, so to speak. But such instances are rarer than they might seem to be. his original definition
tities to
Introduction
When
when Boyle discovwe assume that "the concept of By no means. Our understanding of matter
Descartes discovered his law of refraction or
ered his laws of chemical combination, do
matter" was altered thereby?
was
the material world)
(i.e.
But
this gives
no reason
to
deepened by these discoveries.
substantially
suppose that the
on the
criteria
which
basis of
Descartes or Boyle recognized an object as "material" were affected too.
one could show, however, that on the
Descartes was led to postulate that "matter
extension",
is
for the "materiality" of an entity will simply be
of course, it
was
would follow
it
again,
that the criterion
i.e.
extended character, then,
as a material entity, has
one could show that recent
if
its
If
discoveries
that Descartes' concept of matter, his idea of
an entity
that qualified
and similar
basis of this
been affected
results in field theory
what
also.
Or
have led
to a cer-
one
relating
tain scepticism about the notion of a "material substratum",
is
empirical results to implications for the general concept in a proper manner.
But
mutual relevance cannot be assumed;
this
we were
instance. If
to take "the
make
prehensive" sense that would to the concept of matter,
it
must be shown
in each
concept of matter" in the so-called "comevery discovery about matter relevant
our enquiry would become completely unmanage-
able.
To
ask about the concept of matter, then,
is
to ask
how
the term
is
(or
was) used in some specified context, either "ordinary-language" or technical.
The
uses of 'matter' in ordinary language are not very informative, because
the term
is
a quasi-transcendental
in sharpness.
put in various philosophies. science,
one in modern usage and
and although
It
quite lacking it
has been
has long since ceased to have a technical use in
it is still
commonly
availed of by scientists in talking
about what they do (and especially what they do either
is
We are interested here in the technical uses to which
an ordinary-language one or
it
to), their usage here
else a quasi-technical
is
one borrowed from
some philosophy.
The ambiguity we have
been discussing
only
when
'matter'
is
used as a cover-term for the objects studied by physics and chemistry. This
is
the
commonest use
gives is
is
just
of the term today, but
arises
should be noted that the sense
it
not equivalent to any of the senses of 'matter' in Greek philosophy.
It
not an explanatory use;
it is
it
scarcely even a descriptive use, as a rule.
The
term, 'hyle, was taken over by Aristotle from ordinary language (where
meant
'timber')
and was made
analysis of change. In all of the
one),
it
was
in virtue of
would.
It
to serve as
many
a "second-level" term,
some
senses Aristotle gave
i.e. it
it
(except perhaps
did not designate a concrete entity
intrinsic property, as, for
might designate
it
anchor in a complex conceptual
example, 'man' or 'musical'
a concrete entity relative to a specific
change
("matter of this change"), or to a specific predication ("matter of this
The Concept
of Matter
predication"), or to a specific explanation ("matter-cause of this particular
explanation").
Or
else,
so to speak, but rather,
it
might not designate a concrete
an
entity as a "whole",
intrinsic "principle" of that entity.
Such "second-level" terms
are notoriously difficult to define; instead of
seeking a simple definition in terms of intrinsic behaviorally-related prop-
and animality, one
erties like rationality
forced to introduce the entire
is
conceptual system of which the definiendum
a part. Aristotle's notion of
is
"matter" as a substratum of change, for instance, can be understood only in terms of his ideas of substance, of predication, of form, and so forth.
It
can-
not be "abstracted" from a few concrete instances of change in some absolute
way, and then contrasted with form, "abstracted" in an equally absolute way. To know precisely what is meant by 'matter' here, one has to have recourse to the total context of Aristotle's philosophy, because to state is
meant
will involve
complex terms
tinuance', themselves incapable of
fundamental point be ignored
this
what
like 'real', 'distinct', 'substance', 'con-
any other than a systemic definition.
—
as
it
often
is
—our quest in
this
If
book
can easily be misconstrued. not as though there
is an absolute constituent or aspect of the world which different philosophers have described in ways more or less apposite. This would do if we were talking of hydrogen or nebulae. But for a "second-level" notion, a somewhat different account is required.
It is
called 'matter',
The
"matter" the philosopher singles out
is
constituted (not ontologically,
of course, but epistemologically) by the conceptual system that defines
Does
this
mean
that there are as
many
tems? This would be the opposite ophies to focus
upon
it.
"matters" as there are different sys-
error. It
is
possible for different philos-
the "same" principle. But this identity
is
something
to
be carefully established, not casually assumed on the basis of an accidental similarity of
term or of problem.
§2 Matter in Greef{ Philosophy
An
underlying stuff?:
From
Greek cosmologists sought would give the human mind some sort of purchase in the slippery world of sense. One plausible assumption was that the multiplicity of things originated from a single simple stuff with familiar sense-properties, or from a few such stuffs. A further assumption might then be that this stuff is constitutive of things; changes could then be to find
permanent physical
the beginning, the
factors that
understood as being from one form or configuration of the stuff to another.
The
in the underlying material;
so
biological generation)
intelligibility here would reside primarily few changes (apart from seasonal ones and
were
recognized as having structural similarities that the emphasis in physical
Introduction explanation would easily tend to be placed on the permanence and omnipresence of the
mind could
default of other aspects where the
stuff, in
take
hold.
This may have been what Aristotle meant when he said that
his early
He
must have been well Anaximenes' rarefaction and Empedocles' Love and Strife
predecessors reduced things to their material cause.
aware that they invoked formal factors (like condensation) and quasi-efficient causes (like or Anaxagoras' Nous). In addition, the lonians could hardly have been said to exclude final causality, because physis for
them
retained
still
connota-
its
tion of a living principle. Nevertheless, the emphasis can fairly be said to
have been on an underlying nature of some
ments
.
.)
.
Now a it
primary source of
as the
world composed of water
would seem. But
reason above
all
in
different forms
its
mind,
to Aristotle's
sort (stuff, seeds, atoms, ele-
intelligibility in natural things
it
is
.
not impossible,
could not be our world, for one
others: in such a world unqualified changes could not occur,
since everything
would then
consist of the
same
And
sort of substance.
the
and of a multiplicity of totally different Aristotle a primary fact of our experience. If one
existence of unqualified changes,
was
sorts of substances, is
for
to explain this fact, the sort of
"underlying nature" required will not be a
substantial stuff with recognizable properties, but rather an indefinite sub-
The
stratum, the featureless correlate of substantial form.^
might now seem Anaximenes' air
to
become
that
in explanation; this
it is
tells
underlying nature that substantial predicates.
descriptive, in a negative
"matter" merely means that
us nothing of
it is
its
properties.
There
is
term, 'matter',
at least.
To
plays a certain role
But
to say of Aristotle's it is
lacking in
thus the tendency to assume that all
The "sameness"
say of
it
"matter" appears to convey that
"same" constituent that underlies corruptible being.
way,
it is
the
substantial changes, and, eventually,
here
is
of a very curious sort
:
constituent called primary matter plays a role in all substantial changes
"same"
not' to say that the
is
is
in the normal sense of something sharing a
found in each instance. Rather it seems to mean that an ontological constituent here which plays a similar role in each
common there
stuff,
all
to say that a
property,
is
instance vis-a-vis substantial change.
In other words, the "sameness" of the primary matter in different concrete instances of
change
is
not an ontological similarity of property (as of
different instances of water), but rather a similarity of the roles played by the
different instances of primary matter. It
tion ^
(i.e.
The
as "material" cause)
is still
because of
its
legitimacy of taking Aristotle's primary matter to be in
stituent" of things
is
role in explana-
and not because of some properties some
challenged in the essays by Sellars and Fisk bek^w.
(in three rather different ways) in the essays by
Owens, Weisheipl,
it
has or
sense a "conIt is
defended
Mc MulUn. 7
The Concept
of Matter
lacks that
called "matter" here. It
it is
overtone of
common
constituent, any
is
not a "stuff", therefore, despite
more than
a
in the light of his being the "matter" for a change analysis,
from
primary matter-substratum
Aristotle's
man
to well. In the last
ill
generalized matter-
a
is
its
said to be "stuff"
is
cause; to find a prolongation of the "stuff" analysis of the lonians, one has to
turn away from matter to the elements, which are kinds of
stuff, identifiable
in terms of definite properties. If these elements can change into one another,
however, a more fundamental analysis of their substratum seems quired. This analysis will not
make
be
to
re-
use of the stuff-metaphor, though be-
cause of the inherent limitations of language in describing such an odd entity,
may seem
it
at
times as though
tinuities, especially of quantity.
does.
it
In any instance of change, no matter
how
of the change
sense be the bearer of these continuities, since there
tween the
initial
and
misleading because
change is
is
it
final forms.
may
it
is
must
in
If
must be admitted
"indeterminate", then, can be
call it
suggest that the substratum of one substantial
the notion of a "substratum"
that
certain things that a caterpillar can
for instance,
not one of them.
If
here, these ontological restrictions
transmitted through
is
going
which
to be
used
the carrier of a certain determinateness.
it is
There are only is
some
a discontinuity be-
ontologically equivalent (so to speak) to that of any other,
manifestly not the case.
at all,
To
obvious con-
radical, there are
The substratum
change
one can speak of
into;
an elephant
a "substratum" at all
on future becoming must somehow be
it.^
Total indefiniteness or indeterminacy can be predicated of the substratum of substantial changes in abstracts
from
all
two
senses only. First, the notion of primary matter
the determinate elements that
it
no matter what
sorts of
determinateness
mark
applied in virtue of any determinateness, fication; in a similar
it is
way, the notion, animal,
kinds of determinateness that
Animal
would occur
in individual
can be applied to the substratum of any substantial change,
instances. Since
mark
it
off,
and
since
indifferent to
is
it is
not
itself
any such quali-
indeterminate relative to the
off the species to
which
it
appHes.
however, predicated on the basis of a certain formal property, whereas primary matter is not, so that the indefiniteness of the genus-concept is
is,
carried to a limit in the latter case.
here
is
It
will be noted that the "indeterminacy"
the indeterminacy of the concept of primary matter, not of the con-
crete instance of
primary
way
Secondly, a
matter.'^
of affirming the unity
-
This point
^
See the essays by Weisheipl,
is
and primacy of
substantial
Mc Mullln below. Mc Mullin; this is rejected by Owens,
discussed by Luyten and
Luyten.
form
is
Introduction
and determinacy of the being resides in it. If it and a new form begins to be, a plausible way of expressing this say that no actuality, no predicable determinacy, survives the change.
to say that all the "actuality"
ceases to be is
to
To
say of the substratum that
way
which of
its
"indeterminate" in this sense
it is
is
simply a
of emphasizing that in a single substance there can be no actuality is
sufficiently
independent of the central form
one
to allow
to speak
surviving the passing of this form unchanged. But this does not
that the substratum
presence in (as the
it
ontologically entirely indefinite.
is
of "virtual" forms (as
One may
mean
talk of the
Aquinas did) or of "subsidiary" forms
medieval "pluralists" did) some way of introducing the determinacy ;
requisite for the substratum of Aristotle's doctrine of
any actual substantial change
"primary matter"
rests
cannot both defend the substantial unities of
needed.
is
on the principle
common
that
one
experience and em-
ploy an analysis in terms of a universal "stuff". But the character of sub-
stratum-matter
not as clearly prescribed by this starting-point as
is
Much
is
often
depend on the precise notion of substance employed. For Aristotle, this notion was derived from living unities, especially man; the criteria of its application to the inanimate world were much less definite. Primary matter would, then, be the substratum of the coming-to-be of such supposed.
a living entity.
will
A scientist could discuss this substratum in terms of the per-
severance of chemical structures and physical properties, and would be
tempted
to
regard
this analysis as, in principle, exhaustive.
The
Aristotelian
answer that the relationship between these structures and the central form cannot be reduced in this way. The living form has a sort of "domwill
inance" over the subsidiary structures, which means that
it
cannot be ex-
plained simply in terms of these structures. If the its
primary matter-substratum
existence
and nature are
to be
is
to retain its
metaphysical flavor,
if
regarded as questions for the philosopher
rather than the empirical scientist, one seems forced to assign to the philos-
opher a special role in the discerning and defining of substantial unities in the physical world. living
form
The
directs the
the biologist. This
is
a
suggestion
body
is
may even
be that the
way
in
which the
not fully open to the quantitative methods of
dangerous tack, one that can readily make hylomorph-
ism dependent upon vitalism.
If the
question of a matter-substratum
is
to
be
posed in contemporary terms, one will have to take account of alternative
ways of describing living unities (e.g. those of Leibniz and Whitehead) which would not involve any correlative notion of a substratum-principle.
And
the transitions that are to qualify as "substantial" changes have to be
decided upon: must they be from one "level" to another
(e.g.
from the living
to the non-living) in order to give the philosopher a sufficient claim to a
The Concept
form
privileged will not
of Matter
do
of analysis, quite different
to allege the
from
that of the bio-chemist? It
"indeterminacy" of the substratum in support of this
claim either, on the assumption that such a characteristic would render inaccessible to science.
is
him. In the
living unities
and
and of the
their changes,
is
is
likely to
sound odd
very searching examination of the nature of
final analysis, a
inanimate bodies,
it
not indeterminate from the scien-
point of view, so that the primary-matter claim
tist's
to
The substratum
needed in order
relations
between them and
to re-evaluate the far-reaching ontologi-
matter-form scheme that dominates Aristotle's philosophy of nature.
cal
and deject: For Socrates and Plato, true knowledge resides in immutable domain of idea, not in the myriad becomings of the world of sense. The mind rests in Unity and Good, but sense has to cope with images and multiplicities. To explain how this image-world falls short of the reality of the One and the Good, Plato must invoke something outside the realm of idea, something itself not an image, something permanent yet natureless, a Receptacle or container in which an image-mode of existence may be reahzed by means of negations which define and set off image-beings
Multiplicity the
in a net of relations.
The
not proceed from Unity;
Receptacle
it
has
its
is
own
underived, so that multiplicity does
independent source, a source which
is
capable of "overcoming" Unity, so to speak, in order to produce the imagebeing.'*
The
material principle here
is
responsible
first
for the multiplicity of
and hence also serves as a principle of individuation. It is in itself neither one nor many, but is the ground for many individuals, each of which simulates in a partial way the One. That which marks off each individual is unique to it, and is made possible by the negation-relations within the Receptacle. But this uniqueness cannot be grasped; it eludes the idea, so individuals,
that the material principle
is
also a positive source of irrationality , not just of
away from the means Forms, the image-principle the One responsible for deject and for evil also. Falling away from falling away from the Good. Matter itself is without finality; the
incompleteness or potency. Insofar as the world of sense intelligibility of the
that is
it is
also a
images
it
its
own
that matter
is
dynamism proper also the source of
between
principle.
10
to the
image, the being which
essence yet striving to be united in
tight interconnection
*
falls
responsible. This
contains manifest a finality, but a wavering one. This finality
the finality or
from
is
See the essay by Eslick below.
is
some fashion with
it.
becoming, jointly with Form. There
all
is
separated
So
is
a
of these roles assigned to the material
Introduction
Plato calls this principle a Receptacle or matrix, and thus relates space. Space
is
non-being, a ground for quantitative and ultimately tions.
now
But
it
to
not regarded here as stuff or plenum, but rather as relative all
other sorts of rela-
question arises: from where does the multiplicity of the
a
Forms themselves
Why
originate?
do they depart from Unity? Are we to If we are not (and in the later
take their multiplicity as a sort of "given"? dialogues, Plato strongly suggests that cle will in
new
some way generate
source of multiplicity
esis will
is
we
are not), then either the Recepta-
Forms
the multiplicity of the
required
at a
higher
level.
also,
or else a
The former hypoth-
not do because the Receptacle seems capable of explaining only the
multiplicities of individuals within species,
of the world of sense. level of the
Forms,
to
A
and the imaging and becoming
different source of negation
is
thus necessary
at
the
keep them on the one hand from collapsing into the
One, and on the other from becoming
infinite in
number and
thus
unknow-
able. If multiplicity
and materiality are
to be linked, there will then be a
tation to see a certain "materiality" at the level of the
Forms
temp-
themselves,
not involving the becoming which
though of an "attenuated"
sort,
acteristic of the Receptacle.
This conclusion was to become more
is
char-
explicit in
neo-Platonism, where matter would appear as the principle of multi-
later
plicity, tout court. It led to the
"universal hylemorphism" of the later
tinian school: Gundissalinus, relying
on Avicebron, suggested
matter", a "principle of receptivity"
itual
possibihty of being"
Aquinas disliked
(Bona venture),
this
is
Augus-
that a "spir-
(R. Bacon), a "principle of
constitutive of all contingent being.^
broad use of 'matter' and was able
to
make
his essence-
existence composition explain multiplicity at the level of the angels, thus
him
enabling
to restrict the terms 'matter'
physical becoming, Aristotle's Plato's.
The
i.e.
and
'material' to the order of
of corruptible (not merely changeable) being.
somewhat
different to
differentiae of individuals within a species escape
knowledge,
handling of the
fact of multiplicity
is
knowledge is in terms of universals. In arriving at the universal, one from" the singular, from the individual "matter", Aristotle says. Matter is thus what is left out of account in abstraction. The material factor
since
"abstracts
enters into the essence of sensible bodies, while the formal or intelligible factor
is
not just imaged but
is
actually present in the body.
between the material factor and quantity certainly not a
kind of container;
it
is
The
relationship
not quite clear; the former
is
cannot be specified simply in terms of
quantitative relations. Aristotle attempts to distinguish between physics and
mathematics on the grounds of the types of "matter" ("sensible" and ^
"intel-
See O. Lottin, "La composition des substances spirituelles", Rev. Neoscholas.
Philos.,34, 1932,21-41.
11
The Concept
of Matter
ligible", respectively) that they study.*^
mode
this
of distinction raises/
Leaving aside the many
may
it
difficulties
be noted that "matter" here
is
no
longer the concrete individualizing factor but a sort of surrogate in terms of quality or quantity.
The
place of a science in the hierarchy of
estimated in Platonic fashion by the degree of
knowledge
is
"removal from matter",
its
matter here being taken to be the mutable, rather than the individual, surprisingly enough.
The assumption
the Platonic one that mutability
is
is
per
se a barrier to intelligibility.
But Aristotle so that
it is
with potency rather than with privation,
associates matter
a principle of defect in a different
way
for him.
When
formal
when, for instance, an animal gives rise to a monstrous offspring, both Plato and Aristotle will attribute this to the material factor. But whereas Plato will make of this factor an autonomous source of indeterminacy, and will see the image-being as a product of the tensions between it and Form (so that a true science of such beings is impossible), Aristotle sees causality
in
it
fails,
a source of potency,
the normal run.
The
i.e.
of capacity to be acted
monstrosity
event lacking in formaUty;
is
upon by causes outside
not in his eyes an uncaused event, or an
rather the rare instance
it is
of the seed to be interfered with by outside agencies
which has broken down
finality
here,
due
where the potential is
actualized. It
is
to the passive potential aspect of
the material factor, not to the efficient nor the formal factors.
A crucial question must be asked at this point. How do we know that the "matter" of individuation
is
the
same
as the
"matter" of substantial change?^
same word for each, and apparobvious. But is it? It might seem that the
Aristotle never discusses this; he uses the
ently assumes that their identity
is
relation of each to time, for instance, is
is
rather different. Matter-substratum
a principle of continuity through time; matter-individuation
is
a principle
of differentiation in space (or in space-time). But these are not far apart, especially
if
more
recent views
on the
relations
between space and time be
taken into account. Again, the matter-substratum of any given body contains all sorts
we have
of determinate virtualities, as
to be just a question of space-time location. '°
ter"
"Intelligible matter" corresponds is
seen.
member
else the perceptual
of a species {materia
that could serve as sub-
roughly with geometrical space; "sensible mat-
the perceptual aspect of a concrete individual
Aquinas) or
But individuation seems
A factor
(the materia individualis of
aspect of an individual considered abstractly as a
communis) Neither .
of these
is
related directly to matter
substratum or to matter as individuating. See the essay by FitzGerald below, and C. deKoninck, "Abstraction from matter", (Laval Theologique et Philosophique, 13, 1957, 133-96; 16, 1960, 53-69; 169-88). as
'
^
See A. Mansion, Introduction a la physique aristolelicienne, Louvain, 1945, chap.
Whether one
takes the "matter" here as a constituent or simply as
distinguishing aspect.
12
some
5.
sort of
Introduction stratum of a concrete body could also
(it
would seem)
serve to individuate
it,
but the opposite does not seem to be the case.
That which
body
the
sets
off
from
other bodies could very well serve
all
as a principle of continuity (or individuality)
change simply
analysis of
says: there
through change too;
must be some
if
the
basis for calling this the
"same" being before and after the change, the individuating factor could account for it. But if this principle of continuity be understood as a substratum, this it
must have
is
not true.
To
function as a substratum of this particular body,
beyond the simple
a sort of "ontological density" that goes far
provision of a location. This can easily be overlooked
and "non-formal" aspect of the substratum be
if
stressed;
the "indeterminate" it
non-intelligible factor or aspect of the singular being that
individual could also tag
marks
off
X
indiscernible tion,
and
in a nonpredicable
from Y are, first, their from one another on
third, their
No
verse.
it
thing intrinsic to
off as
it
a change.
intrinsic properties (but they
an
What
might be
belonging to a particular existentially-designated uni-
X for the
in
marks
way through
that score), second, their relative loca-
hint here of substratum or stuff.
permanent base
can seem that the
acquisition of
Whereas what
new
constitutes a
substantial forms
is
some-
X and definite, though not possessing of itself any predica-
ble properties. If
one
is
to speak in terms of substratum, then, there
is
some reason
to
question whether such a concrete matter-factor can be simply identified with
an individuating-factor. The equivalence needs
much
role of quantity
further scrutiny.
on both
sides of this alleged
The medievals
associated quantity
and matter with individuation.^ The potency and the dynamism of the matter-substratum seem, however, to involve quantity in a rather different way.
The two
"material" factors are clearly connected;
importance and some
however,
difficulty,
it is
a matter of
to trace their connections
some more
clearly.
Matter and
He
Was Parmenides
a materialist, as
Burnet once argued ?^°
described Being as a sphere, extended, limited, corporeal, and said that
Being
is all
course, it
spirit:
is:
happens
there
is.
Does
this
no. Parmenides'
—of the
amount
argument
notion of
W
to a denial of Spirit? is
hat-Is,
The
answer, of
—incorrect,
based on an analysis
not of the notion of matter.
as
Even
though What-Is, as he describes it, possesses some of the characteristics we would associate with matter, these characteristics occur in a purely descriptive
^
way
in the
argument; the argument in no way
See Bobik's essay below, and the
10
comments on
it
rests on, or
terminates
in.
by Fisk and Weisheipl.
Early Greek Philosophy, 4th ed., London, 1930, pp. 178-82.
13
The Concept
of Matter
One could deny any one of these charand the main point of Parmenides' contrast between What-Is and What-Is-Not would be unaffected. As for the other pre-Socratics, though the sphericity of Being, for instance. acteristics
they analyzed in terms of a "material", they frequently attributed initiative to
so that
it,
to their thought. is
here a
first
would be misleading
it
The Nous
of Anaxagoras
is
life
or
to attach the materialist label
material in character but there
attempt to separate off an activity proper to
man
The
alone.
Atomists could in a sense be described as materialists, because their system implicitly excludes the category of Spirit
by
its
The
very logical structure.
between the ways of Truth and Opinion in Parmenides presages a more fundamental dualism, not only between reason and sense, but between the split
and the objects of sense. Plato's ontology rests not so much on Matter and the Forms. The status of the human mind, the faculty for raising man out of the images into the truth, is becoming clearer it is held to be a separable entity whose nature and destiny raises objects of reason
on Matter and
Spirit as
:
it
above the sensible world. In the Platonic tradition, therefore,
"matter". Here, for the scriptive
noun
comes
spirit
is
being used
as a de-
and 'material' can connote certain propand imperceptible, matter will come
incorruptible
is
be regarded as the corruptible or the perceptible, indifferently.
now
with
to be contrasted
time, the term, 'matter',
for a class of things,
erties. Since the soul
to
first
One
speak of the "material world", a "piece of matter", and so forth,
though these
usages would not come
can al-
Greek period. ^^ (It is dominate ordinary English
in until after the
this sense of 'matter', incidentally, that
seems
to
usage today.) In Aristotle, the contrast between 'immaterial' and 'material' would not
would at times be somewhat ambiguous. There is a trivial sense in which every form is "non-material"; there is also a sense in which a concept can be called "immaterial" because it prescinds from the
be quite so sharp, in
fact,
But
singularities of matter.
to call a substance
something much stronger than can abstract from matter and
this. is
"immaterial" ought to
The human
soul,
mean
according to Aristotle,
thus "immaterial";
it
is
separable, even
though not a substance, properly speaking. Man, though material, thus has an immaterial principle guiding him; it informs him as the form does matter. But the relation of soul to body is not the same as that of form to primary matter, because the body is already a highly determinate material ^^
"The word
'matter'
.
.
.
designates (in
modern usage)
bodies, objects of our im-
mediate experience, with the determinations that make them perceptible. But this sense is foreign to all the usages of 'hyle found in Aristotle; this term for him never corresponds to a total "datum", but always signifies a part, a constitutive element of a
whole
14
in
which the
correlative element
is
always form." Mansion, op.
cit., p.
155.
Introduction
entity. is
Soul
is
the total form;
mind
is
one of
between the immateriality of the separable not simply between
bility of matter,
its
faculties.
human
mind and
soul
The
contrast here
and the corrupti-
matter.
A contrast of this sort long before
this
from the body sort of
had been implicit in religious beliefs and time. The human spirit was regarded as somehow
it
practices different
some
inhabits; belief in survival after death often involved
dualism of the kind. But categories for describing
this contrast
lacking; the spirit was taken to be a sort of finer material, no more.
were
The
Platonic and Aristotelian separations of soul and matter furnished basic insights for later theology, especially Christian theology. Consequently, the
concept of matter has played an important role in practically
all
theologies
Greek period. 'Material' is taken as a substantial predicate, denoting an order of being which is sharply contrasted with the immaterial, spiritual, incorruptible order. The latter order is assumed to be the one of ultimate concern, that towards which man's eyes should be turned. The attitude towards the non-spiritual order ('material 'comes to take on
since the
an almost negative meaning when the positive term, for 'immaterial') varied greatly from one theology
'spiritual', is substituted
to another. In the neo-
was seen as the imperfect, the diffracted image of the One-Good though in some sense the product of its superabundance too. For the Manichaeans, matter became a positive autonomous principle of evil and corruption; the material world was not only a prison of the soul but a Platonic tradition,
it
positive source of spiritual decay. In Augustine, the doctrine of original sin
Adam's sin, even matter is somehow disoriented and turned away from God. In the Augustinian tradition which dominated early medieval and much early modern theology, linked the material order with the
man's
life
was pictured
as a
fall
of
man;
in
warfare between the spiritual and the material,
with the "material" connoting passion, unreason, nature generally. In the Thomist tradition, the
inertia,
man's "lower"
duahsm was much
less
sharp;
no longer an immaterial substance only extrinsically related with body by the "accident" of Divine infusion. It is the proper form of the body, and this body is man's indispensable instrument in attaining salvation. Matthe soul
ter
is
is
not regarded as corrupt; the source of
spirit as
much
demption and
as (or
more than)
grace, the categories of natural
ferred to those of material It
human
and
depravity
is
seen to be in
in matter. In describing the
and supernatural
work
of re-
will be pre-
spiritual.
was, perhaps, in Oriental theologies that the category of the "material"
(i.e. the perceptible, the temporal, the corruptible) came most fully into its own. The dualism here is even more prominent than in Augustine, and the temporal is now something to be entirely transcended, escaped from, obliterated, rather than something to be put to use, transformed, raised up. The
15
The Concept bond rial',
of Matter
myriad theological uses of the terms, 'mate-
that links together these
and
being.
'matter'
The
is
spiritual
discovered in a basic contrast between is
two orders of for what is
man
discovered either by looking within
most properly man, or by looking above man for a higher order of being whose norms will be creativity, love and intelligence, instead of the physical
norms of the corruptible sensible order. Then the "material" is understood some way the negation of the spiritual (Plotinus to Hegel), or, at least, as a falling-away in some sense from the perfections of the spiritual order. Much of the tension in Western theology has come from the effort to see the material order in its own terms and not as a broken mirror, to achieve a theology of the temporal in which the human transformation of the material order takes on sense and urgency. as in
Predication
and explanation: So
far, 'matter'
has denoted either an absolutely
constitutive factor or aspect (as substratum or as individuating), or else a
certain sort of entity. theoretic uses for the
For
But Aristotle introduced a wide range of metain the contexts of predication and explanation.
term too
instance, he will call the subject of predication the "matter" of the
some property
predication. 'Matter' here does not connote
of the refer-
ent but rather the semantic role played by the referent relative to cific
predication.
Thus
the sun
is
(The metaphor underlying this usage is that of applied to subject as form to matter; this metaphor can lead
spe-
to the notorious
the "bare-substratum" theory of predication
hard.) Closely connected with this
is
'matter' as a
change, that-to-which-the-change -happens.
Thus
name
if
is
predicate being
shining".
difficulties of
some
the "matter" of the predication: "the sun
for
if
pressed too
any subject of
a non-musical
man
be-
comes musical, the "matter" of the change is the man, i.e. the referent of that subject-term which is predicable both before and after the change. This "matter" is discovered in any given instance, not so much by an analysis of the change as by looking at a specific predication about the change. That in a
from the non-Y and privation and the form
qualified change there should be a matter-subject follows simply fact that is
any such change can be described symboUcally by 'X :
later Y'.
X
is
the matter-subject,
Y
non-Y and
the
is
But if the change is "unqualified", it cannot be so described. no X-term for the subject of the change, dog-becomes-corpse. So analysis of predication about change will not suffice to produce
respectively.
There
is
that this
a
subject in such cases. ^~ Aristotle calls
general notion of change here; ^2 Fisk
ent points of view.
upon
an event
argues below that no analysis will
totle essays in the first
16
if
is
a conceptual analysis of the
to
be change and not just
suffice for this
and second parts of the book touch on
re-
purpose. All of the Aristhis
question from differ-
Introduction
placement, there must be something in a substratum.
common
after,
even though the use of the term,
as the "subject" of unqualified changes,
now
'subject', is
between before and
This substratum can by extension (he argues) be regarded way.
justified in a rather different
matter" here to distinguish
it
It
called
is
"primary
from an ordinary matter-subject of
a quali-
fied change.
Lastly, there
is
the so-called "material cause". Aristotle analyzes dif-
ferent types of explanation of physical change,
four necessary and sufficient factors in factor
"that out of
is
which
From
a thing
all
and claims that there are
such explanations.
comes
to
be and which
The
"material"
persists, e.g. the
might seem that matter-cause and matterBut this is an error, induced by Aristotle's reliance on examples from art (instead of nature) in discussing causality. Suppose we take instead of the statue the example of a darkhaired man who becomes grey. The formal cause of this change cannot bronze of the statue".
subject (or substratum)
this
it
are the same.
plausibly be said to be grey-hairedness (the
form which
have
invoke the reasons in the essence of
to
why
here)
man
a simple subject-
The formal
form-privation type of analysis would point to).
cause will
himself (the substratum
such a change should take place. In general, then, the formal
cause of most changes will involve features from what
would
ordinarily
be called the substratum (or subject) of the change. So that the material factor
pushed further back, so
is
to speak.
The formal
factor
is
what must
be called upon formally in order to explain the sort of change that occurs.
(Thus the
if
wood
What,
the grain of the is
wood
be alluded to in explaining the statue's
lines,
being introduced as formal not as material factor.)
then,
is
the material
factor.''
In
making
'matter' relative to ex-
planation here, and to a specific explanation of a specific change at that, its
whole conceptual base has been subtly
open.
If the
altered.
Two
formal factor be defined as that which gives
possibilities
are
intelligibility to
the change (or to the substance, considered as a product of
some
specific
change), then the material factor appears as the irreducible, the simple, the qualityless, etc.,
depending on what notion of form
is
being stressed.
It
almost inevitably comes out, then, either as primary matter or individuating matter, or else as that
which
is
omitted, or prescinded from, in the explana-
would be both a sort of "constant" and a sort of "zero" in all physical explanations it would be invoked in the same way in all and would contribute nothing special to any. For this reason, it seems preferable to say first that the formal factor is that which
tion. In this event, the material factor
:
is
taken as the source of
change.
It is
intelligibility in
this particular explanation of
relative thus to a specific explanation
which may be profound
or superficial. In this case, the "material cause" in a particular explanation
17
The Concept will be that
of Matter
which
"bracketed" or
is
left
out of explicit account in
it,
that
whose nature is not up for discussion but is only mentioned, that factor whose own nature leaves problems for future exploration. We shall return to this in the context of
§3
From Matter
to
itself,
§4,
Mass
The development of mechanics
contemporary science in
of the notion of mass since
is
the development of the science
mass ultimately appears
as
variant measure of the response of any given body to
out such a notion, dynamics Aristotle
had much
to say
is
an
intrinsic
moving
impossible and kinematics
is
and inWith-
causes.
very restricted.
about mechanics, and even cast some of
quasi-mathematical form. But he was blocked in a
number
it
into
ways from developing an exact science of mechanics.^^ He could not fully admit the notion of velocity, for instance, on the score that it was a ratio of unlike magnitudes. Nevertheless, he formulated a number of laws in which velocity implicitly
of
appears as a ratio of distance to time. In "violent" motion,
he equivalently made the velocity of the moving body proportional to the
motive power {dunamis) of the extrinsic cause and inversely proportional
medium and the weight of the body.^* For the same motive power, a body of double the weight will travel only half the distance in the same time. The notion of "motive power" was, however, left very vague, and no indication was given of a quantitative operational way of defining it, even though phrases like 'twice the motive power' are common in the text.^^ In natural motion (free fall), the velocity was directly proportional to the weight. So that in both types of motion, weight was recognized as a decisive factor in establishing a particular velocity. Nevertheless, the connection between weight and motion was not pursued in later Aristotelian physics; modifications in the Aristotelian laws came through the study of the relationship between resistance, power and velocity, without explicit attention to the factor of weight. Weight seemed a to the resistance of the
^^
chap.
See
M.
Clagett,
The Science
of
Mechanics
in the
Middle Ages, Madison, 1959,
7.
^^ Physics, VII,
chap.
5.
The dunamis
here
is
a cause of velocity, so to speak, not of
though he does talk of the increasing speed of free fall), and it is a constant factor throughout the motion. ^^ To say that according to Aristotelian principles, "motive power was measured by the product of the weight of the body moved multiplied by the velocity impressed on it" (A. C. Crombie, Medieval and Early Modern Science, New York, 1959, vol. 1, p. 1 16) seems too explicit. It would not have occurred to Aristotle to measure the extrinsic power by looking at its effect, nor would he have given it as a product had he done so. acceleration (a concept he does not analyze,
18
Introduction
much more
"accidental" feature than density did, especially in a
"plenum"
universe.
Quantity of matter: If physicists needed a quantitative mass-factor for their mechanics, none of the concepts of matter so far studied seemed to give much assistance. Matter as the individuating or as the non-spiritual have was no help at all. Nor was matter as substratum much better.
We
seen that the substratum-analysis ended with a primary matter
itself
un-
being eternal and
So that though "same" through changes, the notion of quantitative conservation simply could not be applied to it. He had already rejected the Ionian idea of an underlying stuff; the conservation of some sort of quantified maAristotle could talk of
quantified.
its
the
terial
through
all
that despite the
changes would run into precisely the same
commonsense
that remains invariant through change,
authority was solidly against
difficulties.
So
appeal of a qualityless quantified material it
must be
said that Aristotle's
it.
Nevertheless, the metaphor conveyed by the word, 'materia, exerted a
constant pressure in the direction of quantification. In the thirteenth century, discussion of
two very
different problems led to the formulation of
the notion of a "quantity of matter"
which was conserved
in change.^^
The
was the question of the Eucharist: how can the accidents of bread and wine remain in the Eucharist since the substance does not? Many answers were given. Aquinas suggested that the quantity here could first
of these
act as a sort of pseudo-subject in lieu of substance, since
A
it
is
the "first acci-
Rome, pointed out an ambiguity in this solution: if quantity be taken as volume here, the volume is not the "first" accident since it is not an invariant (when water changes into vapor, the quantity increases). So he proposed "quantity of matter" instead. The motive inspiring this was to find an invariant that would be ontologically dent".
disciple of his, Giles of
"firm" enough to act as subject in Transubstantiation. Giles' suggestion
no followers at the time. The other problem that focussed attention on "quantity of matter" was that of condensation and rarefaction, two phenomena which held a deep interest for the Aristotelian physicists, partly because they were so prominent
attracted
one "element" to another. It seemed clear that in such changes some sort of quantity remained constant. Roger Swineshead spoke of this quantity rather vaguely as a constant "massa elementaris". Richard Swinesin changes of
^^ See the essay by Weisheipl below. Max Jammer's recently published Concepts of Mass (Cambridge, Mass., 1961) documents the origins of the varied mass-concepts. We have found it very helpful.
19
The Concept head
of Matter
saying that the "quantity of matter"
later clarified this suggestion,
was conserved in a process of condensation depends on the density and the volume of the body. This was the definition Newton was later to that
but the trouble then (as
use,
Swineshead,
was:
later)
like all the others
who were
how
could density be estimated?
time of Galileo, took density to be an irreducible quality, like
need of further
in
up
to discuss this question
to the
color, not
analysis.
But density could not be known through sense-experience in the way that color or volume is, although it might seem at first sight that it could.
The density of a body ing
it
or by observing
could be estimated in two ways only either by weigh:
motion through
resistance to
its
it.
The
first
of these
would make quantity of matter directly proportional to weight; the second was intuitively appealing but operationally impractical. What Swineshead may have had in mind (besides a vague idea of a compressed or less compressed "stuff") were the notions of specific gravity and specific weight.^^ The specific gravity of a body measured hydrostatically, gave its density comparison
in terms of water as a
back
to
factor. But, of course, this brings us
weight again; quantity of matter would, then,
to weight, or at least
have
to
still
be equivalent
be estimated in proportion to weight.
It
would
seem, then, that Swineshead's attempt to define quantitas materiae as a
product of density and volume,
have to
on
rely
if it
were
to be
made
would was the
operational,
a weight measurement. Yet, significantly, such
separation between the notions of materia (according to Aristotle, part of the essence) and of weight (g purely contingent factor depending on position) that
no one seems
measurements
matter". Density
is
A
have thought of suggesting comparative weight
way
of estimating comparative "quantities of
regarded here as an irreducible given; neither
still
weight nor resistance plain
to
as a direct
impressed motion are explicitly called on to ex-
to
it.
very different use of the notion of "quantity of matter" can be noted
in the area of dynamics. (Swineshead's analysis
problems of motion
entirely.)
The problem
seemed
from
to prescind
of projectile motion had pre-
occupied Aristotelian physicists from the beginning, since Aristotle's postulation of continuing extrinsic causes for such ficulties.
As
early as Philoponus
motion
(sixth century),
it
led to so
many
was suggested
dif-
that
is communicated by the moving cause to such Avicenna made this impulse ("mail") proportional to the weight of the moving body. Buridan suggested that an "impetus" is communicated
some
intrinsic "energeia"
bodies.
^" Implicitly
Arab
writers
sidentibus in
20
defined by Archimedes in his
and analyzed
humidum
On
floating bodies;
much
discussed by
in detail in a popular thirteenth-century treatise,
(author unknown).
De
in-
Introduction
which stays
proportional to the "quantity of matter" of the body, and which
is
with the body indefinitely unless
sistance.
A
large mill-wheel
is
The impetus
is
harder to stop. tionate to
be dissipated by a contrary
it
harder to
start
re-
than a small one, and also
here considered as a form which
is
propor-
matter. Buridan will speak of the latter as the "primary mat-
its
ter" of the body, totelian rule.
even though
it is
quantified, thus breaking a basic Aris-
His "impetus" here has
clear analogies
with the
momentum
of seventeenth-century physics, and the conservation of this impetus in the
absence of resistance strongly suggests the again,
no hint
is
given as to
how
But once
later idea of inertia.^**
"quantity of matter"
to be
is
measured,
and volume. makes materia for the first time something that resists change of state (whether of motion or of rest). In the Aristotelian tradition, materia had been linked with motion only in a very general way (as the source of potency). But here it is given a specific role in resisting change of motion. And this role now suggests, again for the first time, that through the concept of inertial mass a way of quantifying matter that does not depend on weight measurement other than a passing suggestion that
The overwhelming importance
may be found. Jammer suggests
it
is
related to density
of Buridan's idea
is
that
part of the nature of a thing as
The
Of
form was, and
course, the "inertia" here
is
was
just as
foreign to Plotinus just as
much
so could not be characterized
that of passivity, not of resistance.
idea of matter's playing an active negative role in motion
last analysis
view
that the neo-Platonic tradition encouraged the
of matter as inert and passive. ^^ (For Aristotle, matter
as inert.)
it
much
is
in the
as to Aristotle. Nevertheless,
Kepler was undoubtedly influenced by neo-Platonism in his formulation
The anima matrix, or form, which moves the overcome not only an "impotence" of their matter but also which "works against" the impressed force. If the planets
of the notion of inertia. planets, has to
an "inertia"
had no such "inertia", the smallest force would make them move infinitely fast. His key point is that this inertia is proportional to "quantity of mat(understood as the product of volume and density), thus bringing
ter"
the
two notions
an
inertial one, then, since
together, as
Buridan had done. Kepler's mass is specifically it is a measure of resistance, whether of the
planet to the potentia of the sun or of the ball to the push that sets 1^
The
old debate about the closeness of impetus to later ideas
pro; Maier, Jammer, contra) Aristotelian notion, later context.
and had
But that
it
still
goes on.
It is
clear that
(Duhem,
impetus was
still
to be modified ontologically, so to speak, to
it
in
Clagett,
a basically fit
into the
provided a key to inertial motion for Galileo and Descartes can
hardly be denied. ^^
Op.
cit.,
chap.
3.
21
The Concept
of Matter
motion. Until there
is
some
sort of
law of gravitation, there cannot be any Kepler does not specify
explicit notion of gravitational mass. But, of course,
how
matter"
his "quantity of
measured, and
to be
is
this leaves the sus-
picion that a weight-measurement might be required, in
would be
which
case there
recourse to a measure (even though not an explicit idea) of
gravitational mass.^**
Descartes:
The
identification of matter with extension
stituted a sharp break
with
by Descartes con-
previous philosophic tradition as well as
all
There
no longer anything opposed to idea here: only thought and extension exist, and extension can be fully grasped by thought. To achieve this confident rationalism, matter in both the Platonic and the Aristotelian senses had to be eliminated as the principal with nascent
scientific views.
is
and since the model for was geometry, matter not surprisingly was replaced by space. This, he hoped, would allow the deduction of the laws of motion in a geometrical fashion from a few simple axioms about figure, motion and rest. He managed to formulate a clear principle of inertia that went beyond Kepler by assigning inertia as a sufficient cause for the uniform continuance of unresisted motion, and this led him to a basic law of conservation of "motion", where the quantity was given by the product of volume and obstacle to a total intelligible analysis of the world; this analysis
velocity.
But the
difficulties in the
His universe had in
some
places
to
way
be a plenum,
and not
of this geometrical reduction filled
with a "matter" that
is
were
plain.
perceptible
in others. Variations in density of this "matter" (as
between a stone and a corresponding volume of "empty space",
for instance)
could not be explained, in fact in a sense had to be explained away. All
motion had
to take place
by percussion, but the laws of percussion he
formulated (utiUzing volume instead of an independent "quantity of matter") were quite obviously inadequate, giving in the opposite results to those perceived even at
Descartes
do not
knew
act in the
Indeed,
forces. To get around this, he medium upon the body, percussions
were not observable nor amenable
inertial as
level.
same way under impressed
^^ In the early chapters of his book,
be
instances exactly
quite well that, in general, geometrically similar bodies
invoked "hidden percussions" of the that
many
common-sense
to
mathematical treatment. Further-
Jammer assumes
long as no explicit law of gravitation
considerable ambiguity.
The
earliest
is
that the masses spoken of
invoked
(p. 122).
must
This leads to
treatments of "quantity of matter" took
it
to be
measure of "stuff" and later of inertia, it is true, but to the extent that they implicitly relied on weight-measurement, their mass-concept was operationally gravitational, even though by its intent, so to speak, inertial. a
22
Introduction more, the whole phenomenon of weight entirely defied analysis in his
work, he had suggested that gravity
gories; in his earlier
sion" of bodies, but with his later exclusion of this idea
had
all
is
cate-
an extra "dimen-
but geometry and motion,
abandoned. The vortices that he so readily postulated
to be
discussing problems of free
fall
in
were, indeed, as "occult" from the physicist's
point of view as any of the forms that had preceded them. Descartes' system vis-a-vis
is
interesting in that
matter and mass. Essentially,
geometric mass-factor; volume
is
it
it
an extreme position
illustrates
denies the existence of a non-
the only intrinsic physical index of a
body. All other quantitative features must be derived from tive features will
it,
while qualita-
be relegated to the domain of mind. Philosophic problems
of individuation and change (other than local change) go unresolved, while
the basic scientific question of a factor that
response to motion
is
dropped the matter-category ics to
would measure
differential
not faced. In a sense, he could just as easily have
and
entirely,
mathematics constituted
a physics
said that his reduction of phys-
without matter (as
exponents
later
would put it). In another way, his attempt illustrates a weakness in the Greek notion of quantity. For what he has done is to take the "first accident" of the scholastics and not only push it back into essence, but even make it equivalent to essence. This, of course, the scholastics would of his ideal
reject
(although they always had been prepared to admit that quantity
stood closer to essence than other accidents did), but
comes from the with extension.
classical
Had
Greek and
his scholastic
its
scientific
weakness
scholastic identification of quantity
mentors treated density, weight,
etc. as
quantitative factors instead of as irreducible qualities, he might have been
more prepared
to take account of
Concepts of mass:
It
may
them
in his system.
be helpful from the beginning to separate off
three operationally different notions of
mass that were
latent in seventeenth-
century physics; though they were not distinguished from one another until
much
later,
development sistance of a is
a
the distinction will allow us to understand the
much body
better.-^ Inertial
to
mass (IM)
is
a
change of motion. Passive gravitational mass
measure of the response of a body to a gravitational mass (AGM) is a measure of the ability of
tational
gravitational response in other bodies. separate, because
it
Newtonian
measure of the
would seem
that
The
PGM
first is
force.
a
re-
{PGM)
Active gravi-
body
two of these
to cause a
are hard to
simply a kind of IM,
if
the
"response" be regarded as a sort of "resistance". But the two are not the
same, as can be seen in the case of an ordinary weight measurement. There -^
See the paper by Mast below.
23
The Concept
of Matter
no motion, and the mass given by an appHca(where the acceleration due to gravity in the locality is already known) is PGM not IM. No question of resistance to change of motion arises. On the other hand, gravitational motion (if fully ; whether the body be in free fall or treated) involves IM as well as in projectile motion, it exhibits a resistance to change of motion as well as a the net force
zero, there
is
Newton's Second
tion of
is
Law
GM
characteristic response to the gravitational field.
we
tary orbits
set the centrifugal force
Thus
in calculating plane-
{mv^/r) equal
to the gravitational
{Gmm'/r~), where the first 'w' is IM and the second is PGM. In Newton's equations of motion generally, where 'w' occurs on both sides of an equation, it will usually be IM on one side and PGM on the other. is rarely of direct concern (except in the twoIn Newtonian physics, body problem); ordinarily the motion of the "actively" gravitating body force
AGM
but of account.
is left
The
seventeenth-century development of the concept of mass with
Beeckman,
Newton
Baliani,
Huygens, centered round the notion of
inertia mainly.
fused inertial and gravitational ideas in his three "Laws", the
defining the notion of inertial motion, the second equating force
first
(gravitational or other) with the product of (inertial) mass celeration
where
produced (or more
momentum
exactly,
The
and the
ac-
momentum,
has already been defined as the product of velocity and
and the third equating action and
the inertial "quantity of matter"), tion.
with the rate of change of
"quantity of matter"
product of volume and density.
Newton
the weight of each body, for
is
it
reac-
defined in the traditional fashion as the
is
notes that
it
is
"known by
also
proportional to the weight, as
I
have
found by experiments on pendulums" (Def. 1). This raises the famous question as to whether Newton really did have non-circular way of defining mass. There are really two questions. Is possible to define
terms
On
of specific
the
first,
it
mass in terms of density and volume? If weight instead of density, what happens
seems
clear that
autonomous way of defining
Newton thought
that did not
seem
be defined in
to the
"Laws"? had an
either that he
density, or else that density
irreducible quality as the scholastics supposed.
it
a it
One way
was an intensive
of defining density
weight-measurement might well have ocinvolved the corpuscularian model of matter he
to involve
curred to him, because
it
himself frequently utilized in other contexts. Condensation could be thought of as a packing closer together of particles.
Then one might
think of
mating density in terms of the number of homogeneous ticles per unit volume. But, of course, this does not really avoid
esti-
equal-sized par-
since to
24
some way
of
knowing
the particles to be of
circularity,
equal masses would have
be given in advance. So that one seems ultimately forced to reject a
Introduction
density-definition of
mass on the grounds that a knowledge of density
presupposes a knowledge of mass.
Yet Newton's system ohviously had an operational "hold" on mass somewhere. The Second Law related a hypothetical law of force (an inverse-square law, for example) with the behavior of a
moving body.
A
measurement of specific weight plus a knowledge of g for the locality gave PGM, and Newton's pendulum experiments showed the proportionality of PGM and IM. In discussing planetary motion (the heart of Newton's system), the mass of the planet occurred on both sides of the equation of motion {PGM on one side, IM on the other) and thus cancelled out, so that no operational problem about its definition or measure arose in this context. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the quantitas materiae and vis inertiae which Newton saw as numerically proportional are far from clearly defined in the Principia. Both labels were open to criticism: the first, because there was no operational way of defining the "materia'' whose quantity was sought, and the second (as Kant was to emphasize), because
"m"
the inertia cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as a
(or force).
Newtonian physics encouraged the transfer, both at the common-sense and at the philosophic levels, of the attributes of matter to mass. Just as the term, 'matter', had come, after a long evolution, to name the substratum of things, as well as to be a general
which
name
for physical objects, so 'mass',
originally denoted a single measurable characteristic of things,
"substantialized" as a sort of scientific
synonym
world was taken to consist of "point masses", since
for the older term. it
sufficed to characterize
bodies in terms of their mass and motion in order to
ductions about their behavior
(i.e.
regarded merely as a property; changes, underlying
Mass
all
make
their local motions).
it is
was
The
all
Mass
possible deis
no longer
the substance, conserved through
all
other variable (and thus "accidental") properties.
more scientifically adequate version of Newton's idea of mass as a numerical measure
could, thus, be regarded as a
the older concept of matter;
(where 'matter' is regarded as the more basic term) gradually ground as new ways of defining 'mass', within the broad limits of the Newtonian system, came to be elaborated. Euler transformed the Second for matter lost
Law
into an operational definition of
IM. (It was possible to take it at some hypothetical mass-dependent function such as the inverse-square law were substituted for the 'F'. so that the masses on either side of the equation cancelled.) Saint Venant showed that IM could be measured directly by impact experiments; Maxwell measured it in terms of a constant force (as of a "standard" coiled spring) Mach, who disliked the "metaphysical" concept of force, pre-
the same time to be an empirical law,
—
if
—
;
ferred to define
GM in terms of mutually induced gravitational accelerations. 25
The Concept
of Matter
ways of making the Newtonian system operational; by rejecting the definition of mass as "quantity of remove the concept of matter from the realm of they tend to matter", science. But before leaving the concept of mass, operational quantitative These are
different
it
will be noted that
it
will be
worth noting that
it
(like
The problem is
of mass:
What we
its
some
precarious operational foothold in
conceptual ancestor) has only a parts of science today.
allude to here as "the problem" of mass
not one with which physics has as yet had to concern
It is
not the question of whether
Max Abraham
origin, as
mass with cern us.^^
velocity,
mass
inertial
once claimed.
Nor
is
does the variability of inertial
is
more fundamental
a
one.
was in Newton's own work. Since the measure with the reference-frame chosen,
it
Its first
which
all sorts
we have some
his
manifestation
of acceleration will vary
seems that the value of the mass will
depend on the acceleration of the observer measuring at best,
very much.
demonstrated in the Special Theory of Relativity, con-
Our problem
forced to introduce
itself
entirely of electromagnetic
it.
Newton was
of postulated "absolutes" into his system; even
trouble finding the "inertial system" relative to
laws are supposed to hold.
The
second puzzle was adumbrated
mass depends upon the distribution of bodies in the universe as a whole. This claim appears to be empirically testable, but so far, the required level of experimental accuracy has not been reached. But far more serious are the conceptual difficulties raised by the General in
Mach's claim that
inertial
Theory of Relativity."*^ To jump at once to the most serious of these, if one considers bodies of finite volume (and not just point-idealizations), it becomes impossible even to define mass exactly, let alone measure it. Take AGM, for instance, which is the most favorable case. Suppose a very small test-body, B, be introduced, one which is too small to alter the field appreciably.
The
gravitational effect at
B
will be calculated by
an integral
over the effects caused by different regions of the body. A, whose
being measured. But
how
is
this
sum
to be
made? and
will
it
AGM
is
not vary with
B from A? We do not have a unique space-time frame, and the space-time itself (other than in idealized cases) may have nonwill depend on the choice of referenceuniform curvature. So that frame, and even then will be variable, depending on the direction and distance of the test-body used. If A is in motion, there will be no satisfactory the direction of
AGM
22
Jammer, op. cit., chap. 12, shows very elegantly that the relativistic "variability of is due to the redefinition of space-time relations in the Lorentz-Minkowski system and to the consequent shift in the factor expressing the relation of momentum and mass"
velocity (p. 165). -^ I
(i.e.
am
26
mass),
"ft
is
not a
new
indebted to the discussions
1
property of matter that has been discovered"
have had with Dr. C. Mast on
this point.
Introduction
way
of defining "rigidity" for
about the
effect of
because here
A
upon the
it,
and there
metric.
will also be other
With PGM,
problems
things arc even worse,
we cannot make the initial ideal assumption of an indefinitely The two-body problem has not even been solved relativisti-
small test-body.
cally for point-hod\ts\ the
of the metric
make
the
mutual accelerations and consequent variations
way towards
a solution very difficult.
IM
involves
and so far no satisfactory relativistic treatment of these is in sight; it would quite certainly be even more difto define a unique value for the mass. ficult here than in the case of There seems to be good reason to suppose, then, that the notion of mass forces other than gravitational ones,
GM
itself (i.e.
of an intrinsic measure of response or resistance to motion)
is
a
"classical" one, useful in the Newtonian approximation, but no longer even definable in a full relativity theory. The classical view depended on instantaneous propagation of light, on the making of unique time-"cuts",
on the insertion of observers and test-bodies without disturbing the metric, on the reduction of bodies to point centers of gravity. Where none of these can be assumed, it seems dubious whether the quest for a unique invariant intrinsic motion-parameter has any hope of succeeding. In a way, this ought not surprise us: it was optimistic to suppose that a body could be
from the rest of the universe and its mass determined in absolute mass is to be the measure of the response of the body to outside influences, it is scarcely to be wondered at that it should depend on the rest of the universe, on its space-time relations with other bodies here and now. And if these bodies are in constant motion and if the space and time factors cannot be neatly separated in Newtonian fashion, the "mass" is not
isolated
fashion. If
likely to be either invariant or
unique.
one were to be imaginative at this point, one might see in this the interaction between two different traditions of matter: the substratum (with its impUcit attributes of conservation; intrinsic absolute measure; If
close relation
with motion) and the Receptacle (involving spatial
tions
with
made
intelligible). It
of
all
other sensible beings; in
is
is
the former prevailed.
But
it
may
be that
That the beings in mo-
a "Platonic" period ahead for science in this regard.
scientist will seek out
tion
rela-
singularity incapable of being
fortunate for the history of physics that at the level
Newtonian approximation,
there
new
invariances to guide his grasp of
sure; but that these invariances will be such that they can be "sub-
stantialized" as
§4
is
its
Seven Ways
mass was,
is
most unlikelv.
to " Dematerialization"
In the previous section,
we have
seen one reason
why
the notion of
matter has faded out of physical science after playing an important role
27
The Concept
of Matter
as a sort of catalyst in the early
conclude
this
days of mechanics.
introduction by indicating a
number
It
may
be instructive to
of other
ways
which Each of
in
physical science has been claimed to "dematerialize" older views.
below seems to correspond to a somewhat different notion of would seem, then, that even if the category of 'matter' is not used in the actual work of science today, it may well be indispensable in talking about that work, and in particular in estimating its effect on everyday ways of thinking as well as on philosophic reflection. the six listed
matter.
It
Matter as objective: The
first
two
we
of the strands that
propose to
dis-
entangle can be conveniently related to the classical distinction between
primary and secondary
qualities, if
it
be assumed (as
it
often has been in
modern philosophy) that "matter" is to be defined by whichever properties are agreed upon as "primary". The term, 'material', will then be predicated on the
basis of the referent's possessing these properties.
And
the concept
of matter will be determined by the "primary" end of the primary-secondary
between properties. There are, however, two rather different ways of drawing this distinction, depending on whether ontological or epistemic primacy be the more stressed. In this section, we shall treat of the former. An "0-primary" property may be defined as one which does not depend in itself on the observer or on the interaction between apdistinction
paratus and object;
is
it
"objectifiable", absolutely intrinsic to the thing
itself.
In his essay below. Dr.
Hanson
argues that Berkeley showed that an
ontological primary-secondary distinction
would not work
in philosophy,
because the "primaries" of Newtonian physics (extension, impenetrability,
were observer-dependent
etc.)
He
were.
server-detector
is
shown
in the
quantum
then points to
same way
as the alleged "secondaries"
theory where the influence of the ob-
to enter, in a
complex and indissociable way, into
every statement about the microscopic realm.
And
(he assumes),
terial'.
He
is
now
extended
to science also,
basis of a scientific discovery, not a philosophic theory.
mary"
or intrinsic absolute properties then,
our term, 'demateriaUzation', be chosen to characterize
it is
is
in
it)
should be noted that
quite metaphorical, point,
i.e.
if
this
There
and the import of the 'de-' in which proper-
is,
in
its
description, detector-dependent; it
was thought
is
to be.
notion of 'V(?-materialization" would be
Dr. Hanson's paper did not go on to
that not only
and on the no "pri-
are
that "matter" (no matter
not the simple separately describable thing
It
28
is
concludes that the Berkleyan denial of the validity of the pri-
mary-secondary distinction
ties
it
realm that one would ordinarily hope to anchor the predicate, 'ma-
this
make
a further
the description of the properties dependent
upon
Introduction
means used to obtain it, but the properties themselves attributed to the on the basis of the observation have been shown to be somehow dependent upon the means of observation; the detector is asserted to impose (in some fashion) these properties, at least partially. If quantum theory had merely shown that an accurate description of microscopic properties the
object
cannot, even in principle, be given, leaving open the possibility that the object
label this a
would be
we
possesses sharp "classical" properties (only that
still
describe, or rather measure,
a
them
accurately),
it
could never
would be misleading
to
break-down of "objectifiability" or a "dematerialization". It limitation on describability but this is (from the point of view ,
much
of classical physics)
less
dramatic.
In particular, since such a limitation would in no
way
challenge the
primary-secondary distinction (the "0-primary" properties would be just as objective as before, but
would not be
fully
knowable
or measurable by
it depends upon on whether the "second-level" or interpretative claim about quantum theory's showing a basic independence of the properties themselves upon the action of the detector, can be substantiated. There is some question, then, about Dr. Hanson's final contention that this secondlevel claim does not need to be substantiated for his general point about the collapse of the primary-secondary distinction to be validated. Without
us),
clear that the dematerialization thesis (insofar as
it is
this strand) stands or falls
the demonstration of this claim that he leaves to the future in the last
sentence of the paper, his thesis remains incomplete, and the "objector" he
makes
creates in his §3
As
whether the
to
controversy as to the issue
is
a telling point.
objector's point
how quantum
a philosophic
of the theory
itself,
is
theory
unanswerable: there is
to
is
still
much
be interpreted in this matter;
one that does not bear on the predictive structure
but one that has already proved to be of central im-
portance in the controversies about the direction in which the theory should
now
be developed. Dr. Hanson's position would probably be supported by
a majority of physicists, especially by, those (although not by
only by those)
quantum like
who
theory generally.
Bohm and
any means
adopt the so-called "Copenhagen interpretation" of
The
de Broglie and
opposition
would come from
those who,
a majority, perhaps, of Soviet physicists,
believe that the possibility of a complete "separation"
between detector and
object has not been altogether excluded by any finding of
quantum
theory
so far. It is
a mistake, then, to suppose that
it
would be generally agreed
case for
come
it,
but the issue
until the trend of
is
likely to
One
that "de-
make
a good remain an open one for some time to
materialization" in this sense has actually occurred.
development within quantum
can
field
theory excludes
29
The Concept
of Matter
one or other of the two views above. if
one were
to
It
ought
to
hold that "demateriaHzation" of
be emphasized that even this sort
has occurred in
physics, the smoothing-out of the primary-secondary distinction that
volves
is
a very
shown
the object are
in-
it
modest non-Berkleyan one. The measured properties of to
the apparatus he uses.
depend, not upon the observer
The
made
point
is
not
as such,
at all, therefore,
but upon
the
same
as
Berkeley's.
In the
years of the
first
quantum
upon
it is
shown
a
It
of the pioneers,
dependence of measurement
and they used this in support of would be generally agreed today that this is
the observer as such,
philosophy.
when
some
theory of matter,
notably Bohr, thought that they had
a Kantian-type
Yet
a mistake.
people speak of "demateriaHzation" in the context of recent science,
very often this that they have vaguely at the back of their minds. In
would derive not from the primary-secondary distinction from the older matter-spirit distinction; the idea would be
this case the 'de-'
much
so
as
that even apparently "material" properties
depend upon mind or cannot be legitimately
have been shown somehow
must be emphasized drawn from quantum theory. spirit. It
Matter and reduction: Instead of taking 'primary' to
'independent of the observer',
it is
possible to take
as equivalent it
to
that this inference
roughly
also as 'irreducible',
not capable of being explained in terms of simpler properties. In the
i.e.
seventeenth century, an atomistic-type ideal of explanation began to be
adopted; macroscopic properties, like density and temperature, were "explained" in terms of microscopic entities lacking in these properties.
The
macroscopic properties are thus "reduced", or eliminated, from the basic list
of epistemic primaries needed by science. Instead of discrete irreducible
"forms", there are complex physical structures whose total behavior
is
ex-
plained by appealing to the simpler elements of which they are postulated to
It is assumed that every structure is capable of being broken way; the "elements" of the explanation the atoms, continuous are assumed to be unstructured, and their behavior is postulated
be built up.
down
—
in this
—
fluids, etc.
in advance.
With
the Democritean reduction, there entered also a Democritean no-
tion of matter: a
permanent
changes.
which the universe
stuff of
properties (hardness, inertia, bulk
.
.
.)
is
made, whose
maintain themselves throughout
Some (like Descartes) made it co-extensive with space, others made it move in space, but they agreed in using 'matter' in
(like Boyle)
an absolutist sense: that which
which mark
it
^* See the article
30
is
characterized by certain basic properties
off as the proper object of
by Hall below.
experimental science."^ There
is
Introduction
between
clearly a tension
it;
there seems to be no inherent reason
any given property or element should be taken
to be basic in
any other
temporary sense. The atoms of today are the reducible structures
than a
of tomorrow, structures which plain.
mode why
matter and the reductionist
this notif;n of
of explanation that went with
On
this view, there
still
more
properties or elements. In that case,
terms of a
permanent
set of
basic elements will serve to ex-
need be no barrier
how
common
to reduction,
no irreducible
could "matter" be specified in
properties? Properties that are epis-
temically (or E-) primary at one stage of physical theory
may
to be so. If "matter" could properly be characterized only
properties
—and
now seemed
had been the constant
this
that
its
had
definition
modern)
(early
later cease
by Z:-primary tradition
—
it
to be relativized.
was helped along by the course which indicated that the attempt define a world-stuf^ in terms of some irreducible property was not likely succeed. The gradual disappearance of the earlier "stuff" view can be This realization was slow in coming.
It
of events in nineteenth-century science, to
to
regarded as a sort of "dematerialization", in the sense that the abandoning
mind groping
of the familiar stuff-analogue leaves the
senting the world. lian stuff
The
argument that which would
just take
on
completely interconvertible and contrary,
for a
way
of repre-
no longer the Aristotechange cannot be accounted for by a basic unchanging cause of the disappearance
different forms, if
a substance
is
is
if
the elements are to be
to
be truly one.
On
the
view of explanation that is primarily alone would not have sufficed after all, it seems possi-
a very non-Aristotelian
it is
—
responsible.
But
ble that the
atoms of nineteenth century physics might have proved
this
to be
true "atoms", unstructured, incapable of futther physical analysis. If that
had been
so,
they would have
But the
heart.
fact
is
that the
made
a world-stuff after
own
Democritus'
atoms were reduced, and the process con-
tinues.
The term
recent history of science thus supports a
'matter',
noted in
§2.
one that will approximate
One
more
flexible use of the
to Aristotle's "material cause", as
can plausibly equate "matter" with the "given" elements
in a particular physical theory, the hypothetical entities in terms of
whose
combinations and interactions the theory will be constructed, the "materials" the theoretician (or "artist") has at his disposal. Since the notion of terial
cause" arose in the
explanation,
it is
of theory;
is
it
first
"ma-
instance in the analysis of different facets of
appropriate that the "matter" here should be the matter
the theoretical electron, the construct
whose
properties are
fully defined, that serves as the "material" for explaining light-emission,
not that still-mysterious cause of cloud-tracks is
the real referent of that construct.
and point
When
Aristotle
scintillations
which
made bronze
the
31
The Concept
of Matter
"material cause" in analyzing the customary description of the molding of a statue,
he assumed that the concept, bronze, accurately and exhaustively
described the real matter of the statue.
Hence he could
take this latter
without remainder to be the "matter" of his "explanation" of the change. Today this would be called a description rather than an explanation, prebecause of this assumption. In an explanation of the hypothetico-
cisely
deductive sort that characterizes science today, the "material" element of the explanation
"Matter" in
necessarily postulatory
is
this sense
is,
specified in terms of f-primaries that are If
the theory
and constructed.
then, the as-yet unreduced element of theory,
primary
the broadest possible physical one of
is
mechanics or general mass-points or
relativity theory, the
energy-momentum
relative to this theory. its
day, like
"given" elements of
Newtonian it,
whether
tensors, constitute the basic "matter"
with which the science of the day has to deal. These "matter"-elements being fully specified, further reduction can come only by turning back
and finding some new depths
to the "real" matter,
reduction, so far, at
in
it.
The
fact that further
always seems to be possible, opens up
least,
endless horizon, with "matter" always receding before us. of the
first
would be a limit to their reduction, an which science would terminate, has not been
reductionists: that there
"atom" or irreducible realized.
a sort of
The dream
The
'de-'
since been passed.
absolute limit
still
at
of our It
the reminder that their "limit" has long
title is
would be
interesting to speculate as to whether an
awaits the physicist, a limit dictated by the energies
available for continuing to penetrate into the interior of the nucleus, per-
haps, or by the uncertainty principle, or by the non-individual character
quantum
the-
by the dwindling resources of imaging in a physical (and not mathematical) way."'' But this is a topic for another occasion.
just
of the sub-atomic "particles" that are the "matter" of today's ory, or
Matter and substratum:'^
It is
frequently said that the progress of physical
makes
science, especially of field theories,
stratum seem unnecessary.
the notion of an underlying sub-
The "substratum"
here
describable underlying something, and then the
sign of such an since explicit
in the theory
To which
More
paragraph
would preclude
significant
is
tells
be taken as a non-
the answer
fact that science continues to
in the last
the horizon.
32
mention
The
able factor.
mentioned
entity in his theory.
may
critic will say there is
its
is:
no
of course not,
being a non-describ-
push back the "horizon"
us nothing about
what
lies
beyond
the suggestion that the notion of an un-
-•''
See the essay by Woodruff below.
^*'
See the paper by Hesse further on.
Introduction
derlying substantial substratum in which properties inhere, has been
minated.
One
inhere? what this
does not ask: in what docs electromagnetic
field
eli-
strength
the carrier of light-waves in "em[)ty space"? Russell in
is
context speaks of "the disappearance of matter", suggesting that
it
has been "replaced by emanations from a locality" while "tables and chairs .
.
.
have become pale abstractions, mere laws exhibited
events which radiate
There
is
a
from
misunderstanding here.
is
It
true that the apparently con-
shown
tinuous objects of sense-experience have been
myriad of
in the succession of
certain regions".^'
relatively discrete entities
with large
space between them. But this does not
mean
to be
made up
tracts of relatively
of a
empty
that predicates like 'solid',
normal sense
'impenetrable', cease to be applicable in their
at the
macro-
scopic level. Again, atoms are seen to consist of further separated entities,
themselves no longer individuals. But all,
is
it
if
any matter
is
"vanishing" here
at
the massy particles of seventeenth-century physics. Finally, the
ether, originally introduced as a
substratum for the transmission of various
types of energy, seems to have been eliminated by Relativity Theory.
One
over-all
comment can
be
made on
age physical theory today cannot be
this.
The
classified
constructs of the aver-
in Aristotelian terms of
drawn from, and
substance and property. These latter categories are applicable
to,
way
extremely complex indirect
world the theory represents.
energy and mass,
it is
equally
wrong
to
If
make
theory constructs corresponding to properties,
what do they inhere? To say
is
of conceptualizing reality,
not look for one-to-one correspondences between categories of the
are
an and we must and the structures and
the objects of sense-experience. But a physical theory
it
wrong
it is
E
to substantialize
H
of Maxwell's and about which we can ask in
of the
:
do not "inhere in" anything in Maxwell's theory, or that an ether-construct need not be invoked, as was once thought necessary, does not commit us to the view that there are real properties "floating"
without
that they
a concrete
substratum. This kind of illegitimate
—
—one
might call it the "Pythagorean" fallacy rests on a faulty grasp of the relation between the constructs and models of physics and the experienced objects whose behavior the former are intended to
categorial transfer
"explain", in a quite precise, but not simple, sense of the term, 'explain'.
A
quite different source for this sort of rejection of an "underlying
matter"
is
to
be seen in the philosophical tradition of phenomenalism which
goes back to Berkeley. use of 'matter' in relate.
~~
The
An
We
noted earlier that there
modern philosophy
is
only a single major
that has not got a direct
phenomenalists' concern with matter
Outline of Philosophy, London, 1927,
p. 106.
is
a negative
Greek
cor-
one: they
The Concept
of Matter
want to deny its existence. The "matter" they reject is "an incomprehensible somewhat", as Berkeley calls it, an inert substratum of qualities that itself neither perceives nor
of substance, or
is
more
enemy
perceived. In short, their generally, any dualistic
is
Locke's notion
view which supposes in
perceptual objects an unperceivable reality behind the appearances.^^
no sceptical questioning of the reality of from it. What he claims, rather, is that the objects of perception are "ideas" which find their support not in an unperceived substratum (for which there cannot be, in the nature of the evidence) but rather in a perceiving mind. i.e. perceptual case, any real Berkeley's immaterialism
is
the objects of perception; far
—
—
The
matter-substratum against which this polemic
is
directed
much
is
not the
form is, which one must substratum to rather different way) but a though in a or appear one had to do), made it later scholastics infer (as many of the come motions must whose ground, inert mass an one which is a passive from outside. Kant later argued that some sort of "matter" was necessary as a guarantor of empiricism against the rationalism of Descartes and Leibniz. In his system, matter appears in a great many different roles, some of them difficult to reconcile with one another,^^ but the basic one is that of Aristotelian one (which
is
"given" in perception,
just as
as
the non-constructed, encountered element in sensation, the correlate of the a priori forms of sensibility
The
epistemological setting
is
and the source of singularity and contingency. new, but the notion of matter here has ob-
vious Platonic overtones.
Returning
to the
nomenalist position
phenomenalist critique, is
basically
here only as related in a certain sort of itself
open
to
major
criticism;
we may summarize:
it is
way
effective,
to perception; the position
of "matter"
it
its is
is
however, against some seven-
teenth-century variations on the notion of substratum; (especially in
the phe-
an epistemological one, and 'matter' occurs
it
is
often vague
most recent "sense-datum" forms) about just what sort rejecting, and about who has held for such "matter"; it
does not seem to exclude a substratum-subject in the Aristotelian sense.
The Greeks found the relationship between matter and space a very difficult problem. If they did not hold a plenum view, they had to assign some reality to the "void" (since it is a ground for possible motion), yet it had no predicates whereby it could be regarded as "material". The Atomists and Plato called it "Non-Being", yet a "Non-Being" which had some reality, a near-fatal thesis for any metaphysics to sustain.
Matter and space:^^
^^ See the essay by Sayre below. -^ See Smith's article ^^ See the paper
34
below for this point. by Misner below.
Introduction
A
problem was posed by the
diflferent
identification of matter
and space
in
seventeenth-century rationalism. (>ould an adequate account of the universe be given in such terms?
doomed
this
approach to
We
have seen that the lack of a mass-factor the
sterility in
domain
of mechanics.
In recent times, there has been a major effort to revivify
much more powerful methods exponents
feel
about their
of
effort that they
into nothingness", of "building
using the
it,
modern geometry. So confident do
its
speak of matter as "evaporating
mass out of pure geometry", of "a universe
which we live" as "a strong words to the philos-
of pure geometry", of seeing "the physical world in
purely mathematical construct"."^^ These are opher.
The
substance behind them
is
that attempts are being
made
to
formulate a "geometry" of space-time in which particles would appear as geometrical singularities, electric charges as "worm-holes". They would be specified by the metric itself, and would thus not have to be added as "foreign entities". Their equations of motion would not have to be imposed ab extra, but would follow from the geometrical structure of the space. These attempts have not as yet been successful (though Rainich and
Misner have succeeded in finding electromagnetic fields).^"
would presumably
lie
in a simpler
geometrical representation of
a purely
The advantage
of this approach (if successful)
and more homogeneous mathematical
treatment.
To
model only "simulates" the presence of matter, that and that thus we have succeeded in doing away with matter, is another form of the "Pythagorean" fallacy, already mentioned. If the geometrical model gives an adequate theoretical representation of the motion of perceived physical objects, then it is acceptable as a physical theory; there will be no need to postulate a model in which the masses and the geometry have to be separately specified. There is no question of one model "simulating" matter in a way that the other does not. it is
The
say that such a
really
"empty
space",
geometrical model, by hypothesis, does not omit any feature of matter
that the other
nothing
is
model
includes, for
The mistake
did,
it
would
fail as a
model. So
is
the classical
to call space "material" or not. If
it
be taken as
is
here arises
ambiguity about whether
if it
no "abolition" of matter. from several sources. First, there
"left out", there
"non-material", then to formulate a physical theory in terms of a "pure ^^
Misner, §1, for the
first
quotation; the rest in
J.
A. Wheeler, "Curved empty
space-time as the building material of the physical world", in Logic, Methodology
and
Philosophy of Science, ed. by E. Nagel et al., Stanford, 1962, 361-73. ^^ G. Y. Rainich, "Electrodynamics in the General Relativity Theory", Proc. Nat.
Acad.
Sc. U.S.A., 27, 1925, 106-36; C.
geometry", Ann. Phys.,
2, 1957,
Misner and
J.
A. Wheeler, "Classical physics as
525-603.
35
The Concept
of Matter
geometry" might seem "there
no matter
is
to
there".
make
referent "non-material", or to imply that
its
There
a confusion here
is
between physical space,
the container of, or set of relationships between, the concrete objects of
perception, and mathematical space,
which
a
is
mental construct. The
is
called a "space" only because of certain definite
it
possesses.
But the mathematical space-concept can be applied
things besides physical space. material",
To
latter
mathematical properties to
many
is
"non-
say, then, that physical space
us nothing whatever about the "materiality" or otherwise
tells
of physical systems to
which
mathematical space can be applied via a
a
physical theory.
The second
source of the difficulty
been broadened here
to include, for
is
that the notion of 'geometry' has
example, time
as well as space.
Thus,
the claim that the behavior of matter can be described in terms of "geometry" alone
is
ambiguous. Were
this to
imply the Cartesian denial of an factor to physical bodies.
something
that
is
mean
intrinsic
The term
is
'Euclidean geometry,
so broad here, however, that to say
made
not coherent. Obviously the pure geometric
difference to physical "matter", understood as perceptible
make no
tells
"materiality" or "non-materiality".
its
Lastly, the notion of matter implicit in the claims is
would
exhaustively describable in terms of a "geometry"
us nothing whatever about
dynamics
it
Euclidean non-geometric mass-
sense to say that physical matter has been
geometro-
for
model makes no objects; it would
shown
not to exist in
consequence of a geometrical discovery. The "matter" which "vanishes" in consequence of the new hypothesis must be
model
itself,
but not in the
new
talk of
it
an inert dot
as a sort of jelly or
only difference between the two models
lies,
is
In one, the mass (not matter)
which mass measures", both models
Theory
in
one
is
introduced as a
deduced from the geomeif
will bear exactly the
matter
same
is
rela-
it.
Matter and energy :^^
36
it is
Since the mass-measure will be the same in both cases,
tion to
•''''
which occurs
is
separate non-geometrical factor; in the other, try.
The
not at the level of their refer-
—or neither—
cal construction used.
"that
as "matter".
no way of specifying "matter" that does equally), but in the methods of mathemati-
in the other (since there
not apply to both
it
simply metaphorical.
ents ("physical matter"), not in a "construct-matter"
and not
model
purely geometrical one. But what could this construct-
matter be? There are no theoretical predicates that could label
To
within the
a construct-matter
or rather one that occurs in the classical theoretical
is
The mass-energy
often assumed to
show
See both Mast papers below.
equivalence of Special Relativity
that matter
and energy are
identical
and
Introduction
that in consequence, matter
must be
less
"substantial" than
was supjxjsed,
form of "immaterial" radiation at any time. This is incorrect. The relation is between mass and energy, not matter and energy. Furthermore, it does not identify mass and
a sort of "frozen" energy ready to be released in the
energy either. They are operationally different measures, and have difsystem. They are not even numerically ferent dimensionality in an
MLT
equal, unless the velocity of light sort of
measure of a system;
is
inertial
put as one unit. Energy
mass
is
is
a particular
another. Einstein's law,
E — mr,
an important relationship between the two measures which allows derive one from the other. To say that "mass can be transformed into
asserts
us to
energy" indicates that the two are in some way not identical, or
make no
notion of "transformation" would
that the sort of entity that lends itself
change into the
most
easily to
sort of entity that lends itself to
What
else the
means is mass-measurement can
sense here.
it
energy-measurement, in
way that the combined measures obey a law of conservation. is commonly said that once energy was found to be capable of trans-
such a It
mission through space,
it
could then be regarded as a sort of entity.^* But
what was discovered, was transmitted, but rather
strictly
by a conservation law
speaking, was not that "energy" (an entity)
that a certain
to a certain
measure
in
one place was related
measure in another place
at a later time.
Within the conceptual system itself, this could conveniently be represented as though a construct-entity whose measure was energy passed from one point of space to another. But to go from that to a statement about a moving real entity called
"energy"
is
illegitimate
—the
Pythagorean "leap" once
combined with the earlier one of mass, that allows people to say that "mass and energy are identical, they are synonyms for the same physical substratum".^^ We may, if we wish, formulate a more fundamental concept (massergy ?) which relates mass- and energymeasures in a conservation law. But it is clear that the mode of existence of a nucleon and that of a nucleon which has been "transformed into energy" are not the same. And we have two terms ready at hand to signify that dis more.
It is this
reification of energy,
tinction.
The
much from the mass-energy from the evidence of certain sorts of physical interconthe measures of which are specified by the Einstein equivalence.
"dematerialization" here comes not so
equivalence vertibility, It is
*^^
itself as
a "dematerialization" in the sense that a material entity
can transform
"Energy, thus disjoined from matter (in transport through space), raised its from a mere accident of a mechanical or physical system to the
ontological status
autonomous rank of independent existence." Jamnier, op. cit., p. 173. ^^ Jammer, op. cit., p. 188. For an extreme example of such reification, see \'iscount Samuel's contribution to the chapter, "Energy and ether", in H. Samuel and H. Dingle, A Threefold Cord, London, 1961.
37
.
The Concept
of Matter
something lacking in many of the notes of the seventeenth-cpntury conand the like. According earlier ideas on the conservation of mass, this would have been impossible.
into
cept of matter impenetrabihty, inertial (rest-) mass, :
to
The disappearance
of the term 'matter' from science: If someone asks a "what is your concept of matter?", the response may well have one?" Theories of matter, yes, but a characteristic way of
scientist today:
be: "ought
I
When
using the term, 'matter'? is
he
just
about "matter" nowadays,
a physicist talks
using common-sense pre-scientific language?
What
marks it off as "material" in the most practical questions that
there about
is
mind?
the referent of this term that
a scientist's
This
faces us at the
is,
perhaps, one of
answer: the term 'matter' has a great
end
We have already seen part of the
of our enquiry into the concept of matter.
many
different uses in the context of
and these uses have been changing in the common direction symboHzed by the prefix, 'de-'. But an equally important point remains to be seen, one that introduces a new sense of 'dematerialization' 'matter' in most of its standard uses is coming to be recognized as part of the metascientific inquiry,
:
language of science, not a part of the working vocabulary or object-language
one which serves to illuminate ways we have noted above, as well allowing us to talk about the work of science in everyday language. But its meta-theoretic senses, it has no direct function in scientific theory. This can best be seen by examining the meta-theoretic character of one of
of the scientist.
many as
in
It is
a meta-theoretic term,
facets of the scientific effort in the
these senses carefully. Let us take "matter" as "material cause", in the sense
discussed above.
To
something "matter" in
call
anything of the properties the thing has
:
it
may
this sense will
depending on the theory. 'Matter' here only serves the elements so designated will play in setting
"given",
and every theory has
its
up
"given". There
is
ter to
be hard or
would
follow.
an element (whatever the properties
it
no predicate attached
this part
.
itself. If
to
we knew matwork
in
certain verifiable consequences in this sense
may happen
a certain sort of part in the explanation in
.
the theory; they are the
the term 'material' could be usefully put to
elastic,
from hardness or elasticity But we do not, for 'material'
us
tell
to indicate the role that
matter, as such, that could function within the theory
the theory, for
not
be bronze, electric charge
which
it
is
to be attached to
to possess)
occurs.
which plays
The
playing of
does not, as such, add any physically differentiable properties to the
element. 'Matter' in this sense ture',
one that
general. But
the theory
38
it
is
to
need
itself.
is
thus a meta-theoretic term, like 'cause' or 'struc-
be used in talking about a theory, or about theory in not,
There
indeed
is
may
nothing
it
not, be used as a functional
could do there in
its
own
term within
right. It could
Introduction
designate, or refer
But
to.
to,
certain elements that continually have to be referred
to justify the use of a term,
not enough that
it is
it
should designate
them Even made. statement to the sort of which is relevant under an aspect wish we to referents the single out 'material' though the terms 'matter' or reason, the wrong for speak of in a particular scientific theory, they do so that is, for a reason which is unhelpful in this context, though quite appropriate if one were to be doing philosophy of science instead. These terms
we wish
the referents about which
to speak;
it
must
also designate
will not be of direct service in empirical science, unless
them which would allow them
sense for
own
to function in their
within the object-language of empirical theory. senses of 'matter' will suffice for this.
one can provide
Few
of the
Most of these are
many
a
right
traditional
clearly meta-theoretic
in character.
For is
instance,
if
'material' serves to denote in a
accessible to empirical investigation,
scendental" term.
It
object in a general
it
vague way anything that
becomes
a sort of scientific "tran-
can then be used only in talking about science or
way;
it
could not serve within a
first-level theory,
its
where
which could conceivably be would constitute no warrant for the theory. (This has always constituted a major problem for scientific cosmologies of the Cartesian plenum type: if the universe is full of
the predicates are expected to be of the kind
absent, because otherwise "verifying" their presence
how
something,
could this something possibly be specified in terms that
could be of use in the cosmology
appHcable
at all places
and
itself,
times?)
all
since these terms are
Or
again,
if
substratum of the various properties treated in the does not
itself
occur
among
which underlies" and
is
the
working
going
to be
'matter' designates the
scientific theory,
predicates of the theory. It
never verbally captured; 'matter' in
then is
it
"that
this sense
is
central to the philosophical analysis of change, but not to that empirical dif-
ferentiation
between changes which constitutes the
Or
'matter' refers to the individuating principle of "material" ob-
again,
jects, it
if
does not
fall
basis of natural science.
within the competence of empirical science to
since science cannot reach the individual, as individual, in
In
all
of these instances, 'matter'
but one that scientific theory senses in
would
which
itself
its
treat of
it,
explanations.
an indispensable meta-theoretic term,
is
seems able
to dispense with.
The
only
'matter' could properly be used within the object-language
be, first, as a stuff-term
universal physical
properties
connoting the possession of certain non-
(e.g.
impenetrability)
from which conse-
quences could be theoretically deduced (as in early atomic theory), and second, as a term used simply to physical theory
from others
Newtonian mechanics).
mark
We have
some of the elements studied in a was distinguished from "space" in
off
(as "matter"
already seen that the
first
of these senses
39
The Concept is
not of
of Matter
much
service in science today; the second
however, especially in theories of motion, but
one
still
some
has
a gravitational field
mark off from matter as "empty space" used to be. would appear, then, that the term 'matter' in most of
value,
not as
is
easy to It
meta-language of science, not to the
to the
The
scientific
its
uses belongs
object-language
realization of this has led to a gradual elimination of the
itself.
term from
technical scientific contexts; the scientist, unlike the philosopher, can
very well without its
senses,
he
if
is
it,
although he will need
about his science or
to talk
larger context. Since scientists
Hke
aware that the terms 'matter' and
mark
it
to
do
right away,
try to
this,
they
and
make it intelligible in a may sometimes be un-
keep using have become a
'material' they
of philosophic, rather than scientific, discourse.This dismissal
science of 'matter' in most of
its
senses
is
do
in several of
perhaps the most striking
from
way
in
which "dematerialization" has come about. This sense of 'dematerialization' differs entirely from the others discussed above; in them, the 'de-' was relative to a particular concept of matter and the "dematerialization" was brought about by advances in science. Whereas this last 'de-' concerns all, or almost
all,
the
many
we have
concepts of matter
indicates that they
do
not, for the
most
it
does not say It
fact,' it
would not be
too incor-
(within the restrictions noted above) that the scientist no longer
He
will
of philosophical shift
and
needs the concept of matter in the routine practice of his science. call
upon
swing
The tific
at
it
that
simply
part, pertain directly to empirical
science, despite past belief to the contrary. In rect to say
reviewed;
was formerly supposed.
that they apply less, or differently, than
most only
at
those critical
moments
accompany and condition major
point here
is
a philosophical one,
theoretical discoveries.
not directly dependent upon scien-
discovery, as were the other "dematerializations" above. Yet
it
had
to
await the development of science, for an obvious reason. There was no clear distinction in
Greek physics between the philosophical and the
scientific
components, between meta-language and object-language, between philoso-
phy of science (or of nature) and
science.
It is
usually not too difficult to
decide after reading a passage in Aristotle's works on Nature to what genre of explanation (in to distinguish the
modern terms) the passage belongs. But since the need two had not yet been felt, no question arose about where
the key-term, 'matter', properly belonged.
This was losophy".
still
Its
to a great extent true in
doing, tended at
first to
pline quite different in as
we have
regard its
it
as a
new form
methodology,
basis
of philosophy, not as a disci-
and import. Thus, Newton,
mass in terms of "matter" in his mechanics, and unexpHcitated notion of "matter". Outside of
seen, will define
relying on a pre-scientific
40
seventeenth century "natural phi-
exponents, though well aware of the novelty of what they were
Introduction
the systematic pliilosophical context in
could not really have been defined;
it
which
this
notion had originated,
it
originally responded to a far less spe-
had no operational physical definition, nor anyappeared here as a sort of "stuff", and the (unanswerable) question of what predicates are to identify it was shelved, since a numerical measure has now replaced it in the actual workings of science. need than Newton's.
cific
thing to harness
'Matter'
is
it
thus no
to one.
It
It
more than
a general
name
for
any entity which produces
the inertial or gravitational effects that are measurable as "mass".
It
will be
useful to the scientist, not directly in his theories, but only as a label to
mark
which "have mass" from those which do not. And as we have even this dichotomy, almost from Newton's time onwards, became less
off entities
seen,
and less clear-cut. Today, then, the Newtonian concept of matter {that which has mass) clearly understood to have been an entirely derivative one. As a means theoretical insight, the concept of matter
entirely the property of the phi-
is
losopher and the "meta-scientist". Their insights concerning course of science undoubtedly, though they ysis
where the sharp
directly effective. sible,
may
The
its
lie at
it
affect the
a level of conceptual anal-
tools of the hypothetico-predictive
advance, in turn, that these
latter
method
are not
tools render pos-
well furnish vital material for the philosopher. But although in-
teraction in both these directions tant, this
is
to
between science and philosophy
is
impor-
does not blur our final conclusion that the concept of matter can of
nature be of direct concern only to the philosopher, and especially to the
philosopher of science, even though
it is,
for all the reasons
we have
seen
above, of continuing though indirect concern to the scientist also.
41
PART ONE
Nlatter in Greek
and Nledieval Philosophy
:
THE CONCEPT OF MATTER IN PRESOCRATIC
PHILOSOPHY Czestaw Lejewski
The
^tIJ!
systematic examination of the concept of matter in early
first
Greek philosophy appears
Of own
his Metaphysics.
of view of his
adapting lows
we
to
to
have been attempted by Aristotle
I
of
theory of nature but this need not prevent us from
our present purpose the pattern of his enquiry. Thus in what
fol-
propose to examine, in their historical order, the relevant doctrines
of the older "physiologists", Thales, clitus;
Bk.
in
course Aristotle approaches his subject from the point
Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Hera-
then the concept of the void, which most probably was introduced
into philosophical discussion
by the pre-Parmenidean Pythagoreans, will
be given attention. In particular
whose
the Eleatics,
we
shall
be interested in the doctrines of
rejection of the existence of the void appears to have
influenced the theories of matter
worked out by
of nature, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus,
the younger philosophers and Democritus. The Py-
thagorean speculations on the nature and function of number are omitted
as
they are related rather to the concept of form than to that of matter.
In Bk.
Ch.
II,
3,
of his Physics, Aristotle discusses his
famous theory
of
He
it
the four kinds of cause: material, formal, efficient, and final. great prominence in his system because for sists
knowing
in
the causes of things.
the Metaphysics that for the
only cause of
That
all
first
him knowledge
When
gives
in general con-
he remarks in Bk.
I,
Ch.
3,
of
philosophers the material cause was the
things, he refers to his theory of causality
which all things that are consist, the first from which they come to be. into which they are resolved (the substance remaining, but changing in its modifications), this they say is the element and this the principle of things, and therefore they think nothing is cither generated or destroyed, since this sort of entity is always conserved, as we say Socrates neither comes to be absolutely when he comes to be beautiful or musical, nor ceases to be the
of
last
when he remains.
loses these characteristics,
because the substratum, Socrates himself.
'^
this is nothing other than Aristotle's own formulation of what he thought was the concept of matter in the early stage of philosophizing.
Admittedly
1
Met. 983b
8,
Oxford
trans.
45
C. Lejewski
Thus, for instance, the notion of substratum (as
illustrated
Socrates in the quotation) characterizes Aristotle's
own
by the example of
conceptual scheme,
and seems to be entirely foreign to the Presocratics from Thales to Democritus. Yet Aristotle is in substantial accord with the preserved fragments of the early Greek doctrines when he says that by material cause the first philosophers understood that of which all things that are consist, the first from which they come to be, and the last into which they are resolved. We tentatively accept this general characterization of the concept of matter al-
though in the
may wish
to
light of the
amplify
it
views attributable to individual Presocratics
in a
way which
differs
we
from the Aristotelian para-
phrase. It is
rather disconcerting that our sources
trines of Thales.
According
tained that water
was the
tell
to Aristotle, this
"principle".
us so
little
about the doc-
founder of philosophy main-
The theory might have been suggested
him by the fact that food was moist and that so were the seeds of all things. The belief that heat itself was generated from the moist and kept alive by it, to
might
also
have influenced Thales.^
If Aristotle's
repeated by the doxographical tradition)
is
correct,
Thales' view water was a necessary condition of
explanation (which it
life.
is
only implies that in Since for Thales the
whole universe was probably alive, a position which he expressed by saying that everything was full of gods, it is not surprising that water suggested itself to him as that from which the world and everything in it had originated. For after all, this would only be a rationalization of certain mythological conceptions
which
had currency not only in Near East. But can we that that of which all things
in the time of Thales
Greece but also in the neighbouring countries of the
go further and attribute to Thales the belief consisted was water in one form or another ? Aristotle and the doxographical tradition appear to be somewhat ambiguous on this point. Since, however, the doctrine that everything not only had originated from water but in fact consisted of water, would call at once for some explanation of how the various modifications of the original matter could come about, and since, further, this problem according to our evidence was first approached by Anaximenes, we may be
justified in suggesting that Thales did not go beyond asserting that water was the original "stuf?" from which everything came to be. Nor do we have sufficient evidence for attributing to Thales the view that in the last resort everything would resolve into water. The isolated statement by Servius seems to suggest such a view but is not supported by
any
parallel testimony.^
2Me/. 983bl8ff. H. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, •"*
46
1 1
A
13.
Concept of Matter
We
Philosophy
in Presocratic
know
a little more about the doctrine of Anaximander, the comand younger contemporary of Thales. He identified the primary matter with the indeterminate, or to apeiron as he called it, which he conceived as that from which everything came to be and that into which everypatriot
thing would finally be resolved.
mander went
things consisted.
The term
was the
tradition he
It is
very unlikely, however, that Anaxi-
so far as to assert that the apeiron 'apeiron',
'spatially
infinite'
hand our sources imply
all
existing
doxographical
to the
introduce into the philosophical vocabulary,
first to
appears to have had a double meaning.
with
was that of which
which according
On
or 'boundless' or
the one
Anaximander used
that
hand
it
is
'inexhaustible'.
synonymous
On
the other
the term with reference
something that could be contrasted with qualitatively determined subAnaximander 's view the original
to
stances such as air, water, or earth. In
matter had to be boundless so that the coming to be might not cease. it
had
all
to be qualitatively
undetermined because otherwise
other kinds of matter opposed to
we
out of Anaximander's book, resolved into that
it.**
From
it
And
might destroy
the only sentence preserved
learn that existing things are eventually
from which they came
to be, "as
is
make
meet; for they
reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to
Here the apeiron is both that from which and that which and it would appear that what "make reparation and satisfaction one another" are existing things on the one hand and the apeiron on the
the ordering of time".^ into to
;
other.
To
put
in terms reminiscent of
it
about half a century
later, all
what HeracUtus was
to
have
to say
things are an exchange for the apeiron and the
to Anaximander, the apeiron was eternal, was in eternal motion, and as a result, opposites such as hot and cold could separate off from it. This separating off of determinate opposites would lead eventually to the generation of the heavens and the worlds. However, the mechanics of the separating off of opposites is by no means clear to us, and possibly enough was not quite clear to Anaximander himself. It is tempting to assume that he conceived his
apeiron for
all
things.^
According
un-aging, and indestructible.
It
original matter, the apeiron, as a sort of indeterminate mixture of deter-
minate ingredients.
And
this is
how Aristotle seems
inclined to interpret the
Milesian philosopher. Such an interpretation, however, probably reads doctrines into
Anaximander
that are
more
likely to
have originated
later
with
Empedocles and Anaxagoras.
A further step in formulating the concept of matter was made by Anaximander's pupil, Anaximenes. 4 Aristotle,
Phys. 203b
^ Diels,
1
«
90.
12B Diels, 22B
;
15,
He identified matter with air. Air for him was
and 204b 24
the Burnet translation
ff.
is
used here and in what follows.
47
C. Lejewski
not only that from which everything
came
to be
and that
into
which every-
thing would resolve, but also that of which everything consisted. He believed that the various kinds of substance known in experience were nothing other than different modifications of air due to rarefaction or condensation.
Air in
its
usual state was most even and hence invisible, but
presence perceptible
when
it
became
cold or hot or
damp
or
motion. Rarefied air would assume, he thought, the form of
it
when fire.
made it
was
When
its
in
con-
would have the form of wind and then the form of cloud. Further condensed it would become water, then earth, and finally stones. All existing things consisted of these and similar materials.' The theory of rarefaction and condensation of air was much simpler and more intuitively acceptable than Anaximander's "separating off" from the indeterminate. It "divided the critics", being accepted by some and rejected by others, but it had far-reaching implications which seem to have been worked out only by the atomists. Like Anaximander's apeiron, the air of Anaximenes was boundless or inexhaustible as regards its volume, and it was in eternal motion, which accounted for its modifications. It encompassed the whole universe and was, as it were, the soul of the universe; which perhaps simply meant the principle and condition of life, just as water had been for Thales. densed a
It is
to
little, it
not surprising that the philosopher regarded air as divine, as according
our sources he did.
Judging from what we find in the doxographic
tradition, the concept of
matter in Heraclitus was not unlike that in Anaximenes except that Heraclitus identified
it
with
fire. It
has to be admitted, however, that the evidence
from such fragments of Heraclitus' book as have been preserved) is not as conclusive as we would have wished. Heraclitus usually expressed himself in metaphorical language, whose meaning may easily have become lost through rationalization by the doxographers'. Moreover, we must not forget that, generally speaking, HeracHtus' main problem was change, rather than primary matter. If the doxographers are to be trusted, Heraclitus had conceived of matter as that from which everything came to be, that of which everything consisted, and that into which everything would ultimately resolve; for him this primary matter was fire. Every other kind of substance was a modification of, or an exchange for, fire due to condensation. For when fire was condensed it became first moist and then water; with further condensation it became earth. Concurrently with this condensation the opposite process of rarefaction was supposed to take place. Thus rarefied earth would become liquid, turn to water, and so give rise for his
to
view
(as derived
everything
Diels,
else.
13A5,6,and7.
Concept of Matter
Philosophy
in Presocratic
which following Theophrastus the doxographers interpreted what Heraclitus had described as the upward and downward path.** In the fragments genuinely attributable to himself we do not
Such seems
way
to be the
in
find any explicit reference to condensation or rarefaction.
One
can hardly
resist the suspicion that this sober theory of Milesian origin has been read
into
some obscure aphorisms
we
authentic fragments
From
of Heraclitus by Theophrastus.
only learn that the present world "was ever,
the
now, kindling, and is
shall be an ever-living Fire, with measures of it measures going out". "All things are an exchange for Fire, and Fire for all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares." According to Heraclitus
and ever
first of all sea; and half of the sea is earth, hand earth "becomes liquid sea, and is measbefore it became earth".'* Some testimonies about
"the transformations of Fire are,
On
half whirlwind".
ured by the same
the other
tale as
Heraclitus imply that he described the transformations or modifications of fire as
living the death of
the death of
fire,
one another. Thus in his view apparently air lived air, and earth the death of water; but in
water the death of
turn to become water meant the death of earth, and to become
meant respectively the death
of water or
air.^''
Anaximander's theory of "reparation" and
The
In this idea
we easily
air or fire
recognize
"satisfaction".
predecessors of Heraclitus used to attribute to matter properties
which, to our way of thinking, appear incompatible with it. Thus Anaximander described the apeiron in terms equally applicable to gods. For
was un-aging, immortal, and divine, encompassing and steering all things.^^ Anaximenes similarly regarded as divine the airprinciple. This Hne of thought, which eventually led to the distinguishing of a non-material principle in the origin and development of the universe,
him
the apeiron
was
also followed
Moreover, in some
by Heraclitus.
He
taught that
fire
of the fragments and testimonies
concept of logos, which appears to be related to that of
steered
fire as
the universe. It has certain material characteristics, since
encompass the world menes.
On
like the apeiron of
the other hand,
it
is
Anaximander and
regarded
all
we come it
things.^-
across the
constitutive of is
the
supposed air of
to
Anaxi-
as the source of intelligence in
men.^^
The
older "phyisiologists" have tried to explain the multipUcity of the
materials to be found in experience by assuming one kind of matter to be
8Diels,22Al (7, 8, 9), 5. 9Diels,22B30,90,31. 10 Diels, 22B 76; see also 36 and iiDiels,
12B2,3,andA15.
12 Diels,
22B
64.
13 Diels,
22A
16.
62.
49
C. Lejewski
and showing how the other kinds originated from
basic
it.
For
this
reason
they have been called "monists" while the term 'pluralist' has been assigned
Empedocles and Anaxagoras, who postulated matter of several kinds, monism, and its opposite, corporeal or material pluralism, should not be confused with what to
irreducible to one another. This corporeal or material
can perhaps best be described as the "structural" monism of the Eleatics, and its
corresponding opposite.
The
philosophers of Elea were not primarily
which all things that are confrom which they come to be, and the last unto which they are resolved", and their structural monism seems to have resulted from their uncompromising rejection of the concept of the void. As far as one can judge, the concept of the void was introduced into the philosophical vocabulary by the early Pythagoreans. It is only natural that interested in the notion of matter as "that of
the
sist,
first
at first they
did not see
its
implications with great clarity.
The
scanty evi-
dence to be found in Aristotle's Physics suggests that the Pythagoreans conceived of the void as encompassing the world or being contained in that
which encompassed the world. It was inhaled by the latter like breath or air, and served as the principle of division or differentiation between things.^* It is most likely that in these early speculations the void was regarded as opposite to concrete or "full" things, yet at the same time it was thought to be
real.
Parmenides anxious
criticizes this
confusion in very strong terms.
to establish that the totality of
with no room for an empty space, and
ism
is
being
is
He
is
most
one continuous plenum
this central thesis of structural
mon-
hardly a theory which could be ignored by the younger "physiologists"
in their inquiries into the nature of primary matter.
For structural monism
excludes the possibility of reducing the multiplicity of kinds of matter to
one substance by invoking the principle of rarefaction and condensation. This was seen by Parmenides himself phatically
rejects the principle
most em-
no more of it (i.e., of that which is) in one place than in another, to from holding together, nor less of it, but everything is full of what Wherefore it is wholly continuous; for what is, is in contact with what is.^"^
There
hinder is.
who
:
is
it
Similarly Melissus argues that: It
as
cannot be dense and rare; for foj it is not possible for what is rare to be as full what is dense, but what is rare is at once emptier than what is dense. ^^ :
Empedocles, i-t
who seems
Aristotle, Physics
2\ih 22
i"''Diels,28B8(23ff.).
i«Diels,30B7(8).
50
to ff.
have accepted the structural monism of Par-
Concept of Matter menides, was the
replace the material
first to
phers by a material pluralism. earth, water, air,
and
fire.
He assumed
Mixed
Philosophy
in Presocratic
monism
of the Ionian philoso-
four different kinds of matter:
in difTerent proportions these elements,
or "roots" as they were called by Empedocles, produced the variety of ob-
given in experience. Change was reduced to a mixing and unmixing of elements, which were themselves eternal and unchangeable. Like the air of Anaximenes, they were divine. And indeed Empedocles assigned to jects
them names
of deities. In Empedocles'
view the four were enough
to ac-
count for the whole variety of the phenomenal world. But he thought of them as passive. Left alone they would not enter into the various mixtures. Nor would they separate from one another, were their original state that of a mixture. Thus Empedocles feels compelled to introduce the concept of an active principle, and decides upon two such. He refers to them as "love" and "strife", but describes them as if they were kinds of matter.
By introducing these two concepts into his explanation of the changing world Empedocles was in fact exploring the idea of efficient cause. This is at least how the doxographers are anxious to interpret him. According to Empedocles, love and
strife
appear to be conducive, respectively, to the
mixing of the passive elements and to their unmixing. In the great cosmic process of change, love and strife enjoy an alternating predominance. Love leads to the perfect mixture of the four elements while the predominance of strife culminates in the four being entirely separated one
Existing things
come
to
from another.
be either from the union of the four elements into
appropriate mixtures under the rule of love, or from the all-embracing
mixture having become differentiated under the influence of
strife
into
portions consisting of uneven shares of each element. Correspondingly,
under the rule of love into the total mixture, but predominant they break up into the four elements. There certain Heraclitean feature in this double scheme of generation
existing things dissolve
when
strife is
seems
to
and
be a
reminding one of the upward and downward path of the
destruction,
Ephesian.
According to Empedocles then, all existing things consist of different mixtures of the four primary kinds of matter. This he explains with the aid of a very ingenious Just as
when
model:
painters are elaborating temple-offerings,
—
men whom wisdom
hath well taught their art they, when they have taken pigments of many colours with their hands, mix them in due proportion, more of some and less so let not of others, and from them produce shapes like unto all things, the error prevail over thy mind, that there is any other source of all perishable creatures that appear in countless numbers.^" .
.
.
—
i"Diels,31B23.
51
C. Lejewski
In every object, then, Empedocles saw a harmonious mixture of the four
primary kinds of matter comparable with the mixture of pigments in the
work
of a painter.
No
other ingredient, material or non-material, was re-
quired except perhaps the presence of love or
was
the object
in the process of decomposition.
remarks
implicit
strife,
depending upon whether
a result of the unifying process or
to
whether
it
came
to
be
This model, together with certain other
be found in our sources, suggests that in explaining the
variety of objects in the world
Empedocles thought
in terms of mechanistic
mixture rather than in terms of fusion. Galen reports that according
to
Empedocles, compound bodies came into being from the unchangeable four elements mixed with one another in the same
way
in
which someone, hav-
ing crushed different kinds of ore into very fine powder, might mix them so that
would not be
it
possible to take
from the mixture a portion consisting Galen
of only one kind of ore without the admixture of any other kind.
points out that Hippocrates
and and
was the
that in this respect he diilered all
first to
talk about fusion of elements,
from Empedocles, who
said that
men
other earthly bodies were the result not of fusion of elements but of
mixture, whereby small particles were placed side by side and touched one
what Galen says is correct, we ought to give Empedocles the ground for the two most mature theories of matter worked out before Plato and Aristotle, those of Anaxagoras and of the another. ^^ If
credit for preparing the
Atomists.
Anaxagoras was probably older than Empedocles but his treatise was poem had been in circulation for some time. This seems to be implied by a remark in Aristotle's Metaphysics}^ Both Empedocles and Anaxagoras accept the structural monism of the Eleatics and try to written after Empedocles'
reconcile
it
with the world of experience by postulating material pluralism.
But the material pluralism of Anaxagoras
We
saw
is
bolder and
more
original than
Empedocles every material object consisted of small particles each of which was pure fire, or pure air, or pure water, or pure earth, but Empedocles did not consider the problem as to whether or not these particles were divisible any further. Anaxagoras, on that of
Empedocles.
that according to
assumed an unlimited number
the other hand,
of different kinds of material
substance. Moreover, he explicitly accepted infinite divisibility of matter:
"Nor
is
there a least of
cannot be that what
is
what
is
small, but there
is
should cease to be by being
always a smaller; for
it
cut.""*^
i8Diels,31A34. ^^
Met. 984a
]
I.
To
interpret Aristotle as wishing to say that
of Empedocles, Anaxagoras' views to
inferior, does not
Anaxagoras' imaginative theorizing or
cism. 20 Diels,
52
were
59B
3.
compared with those
appear to do justice either
to Aristotle's capability for impartial criti-
Concept of Matter
The
Philosophy
in Presocratic
principle of infinite divisibility of matter has proved pu/,zling even
some modern commentators. Yet there is no evidence that Anaxagoras himself was confused about its far-reaching implications. By assuming it, he was able to contend, without falling into contradiction, that in any portion of determinate matter, say gold, there was a portion of every other to
kind of matter:
And
since the portions of the great
and of the small are equal
this reason, too, all things will be in everything;
be apart but
all
nor
is it
in
amount,
possible for
for
them
to
things have a portion of everything.-'
Thus
there is no pure air, pure water, or pure gold but "each single thing is and was manifestly those things of which it has most in it". The only exception is Nous, which is mixed with nothing but is alone, itself by itself."^
The
principle that in everything there are portions or "seeds" of everything
else
explained the fact that food in the form of bread and water turned into
hair, blood, flesh, nerves,
of everything else. For to
and bones, which
it is
in their turn contained "seeds"
quite consistent with the theory of Anaxagoras
hold that in every "seed" there were "seeds" of everything
this
else.
In fact
only a special case of his general principle that "in everything there
is
a portion of everything",
which
is
is
secured by the principle of infinite divisi-
bility.
According
They
senses.
to the
doxographers the "seeds" were not perceptible by the
could, however, be
known by
reason. Aetius reports that
Anax-
agoras called them "homeomeries", as they were similar to what they formed
when
collected in sufficient amount."'^ This sense of the
term has
to
be dis-
tinguished from the Aristotelian 'homeomerous' as applied to material substances
There let
whose parts were believed to be the same in kind as the wholes. no evidence that Anaxagoras used the term 'homeomerous' at all,
is
alone in the sense comparable to that assigned to
We cause
must
is
to
it by Aristotle. though progress in the search for an efficient Anaxagoras, he failed to arrive at the concept of a
also note that
be credited to
non-corporeal being. His
nothing" but
it is
Nous
material.
It is
is
"infinite
and
self-ruled,
"the thinnest of
all
and mixed with
things and the purest,
knowledge about everything and the greatest strength". Being "has power over all things that have life". "And all things that are mingled together and separated oflf and distinguished are all known by Nous. And Nous set in order all things that were to be, and .""^ all things that were and are not now and that are It was the cause and
it
has
alone by
all
itself it
.
.
.
.
.
21 Diels,
59B 6. 22Diels,59B12. 23 Diels,
59A
46.
2-*Diels,59B12.
53
C. Lejewski
which occurred
of rotary motion,
mass of
in various areas of the infinite
matter and constituted the beginning of worlds like ours. Since Anaxagoras is inclined to speculate in terms of a "linear" rather than a "cyclic" development of the universe, he is primarily interested in the concept of matter as the concept of that from which all things come to be
and that of which
The
things consist.
all
concept of that into which
all
things are eventually resolved does not seem to play a part in his theories.
The
monism
structural
of
Parmenides appears
the rejection of the reality of the void: to
put the point in other words,
reality
must be
it is
it is
to
have been derived from
not true that the void
is
real or,
not true that the void exists; therefore
plenum, matter must be continuous, portions of matter as Melissus was to
a
must touch one another, there must be no gaps, and, point out, the totaUty of existing things,
volume. This argument was accepted
i.e.,
as valid
the One,
must be
infinite in
who
questioned
even by some
As explained Emworld was by phenomenal we saw pedocles and Anaxagoras with the aid of the theory of "mingling and separation" of elements or seeds. Now the theory of mingling and separation appeared to imply the concept of motion, which had been flatly rejected by the Eleatics. Empedocles and Anaxagoras took motion for granted and were conclusion, like Empedocles and Anaxagoras and even the atomists.
its
above, the variety of the
only concerned with possibility difficult
under
its
causal explanation.
They did not
try to explain its
the conditions presupposed by the structural
problem was
left
monism. This
to the atomists. But they, faced with the alternative
of denying motion or rejecting the concept of a plenum,
made
concessions
to experience and postulated the discontinuity of matter. In virtue of the Parmenidean argument, discontinuity of matter implied the existence and reality of the void, and the atomists accepted this conclusion. Leucippus held, so we are told by Theophrastus, that "that what is is no more real than
what
is
not,
he laid
for
and
down
that both are alike causes of things that
he called them what is
not, It
come
is
but affirmed to be just as real as what
appears that
we
is''?''
can press the point even a
little
further and say that
both the Eleatics and the atomists the denial of existence
for
into being;
atoms was compact and full, and while they moved in the void which he called what
that the substance of the
to the
void was
equivalent to postulating the plenum, and consequently that the denial of
plenum was equivalent to asserting the existence of the void. Neither the saw that these equivalences did not in fact hold. To say that the void exists may mean a number of things. It may mean
the
Eleatics nor the atomists
{a) that the void
2-"'
54
Diels,
67A
8.
is
something,
i.e.,
that the void
is
an
entity, a being,
an
Concept of Matter
Or
object.
it
may mean
in Pres(x:ratic
(b) that the totaHty of existing things
which, as regards structure,
discrete or discontinuous,
is
which do not touch one another.
It
may mean
is
continuous but porous or finally (d) that the
things
is
an object that
is
finite as
regards
its
denying
(a). In their
from
seemed
was not the
it
an object
totality of existing
to
Now when
understand their
case that the void
was
a
they turned to drawing conclusions
their rejection of the reality of the void, they either treated their
assumption
as if
or they treated
it
it
denial of (d), as
of existing things
They
were the denial of (b),
as if
it
was the was
a
The
i.e.,
atomists
was the
case with Melissus.
way
case with Parmenides,
plenum,
make
The
at the
same
time, the
was
possibility of (c)
the Eleatics tried to conclude that the totality finite
(Parmenides) or
failed to notice that the denial of {a)
or(d).
as
were the denial of (b) and,
disregarded. In this
tacitly
(b),
view
When, however,
is
consists of parts
spatial extension.
the Eleatics denied the existence of the void they thesis as
i.e.,
(c) that the totahty of existing
things
being or a real object.
Philosophy
infinite (Melissus).
was compatible with {b) or
a similar mistake.
Their principal
thesis
(r)
implied
that the totality of existing things consisted of parts that did not
touch one another. This they expressed by saying that the void existed, which
was mistakenly equated by them with (a), i.e., with the assertion was a real entity, no less real than the atoms. Hence they described it as rare, and regarded it, according to Aristotle, as a material cause of things on a par with the atoms.^^ Nevertheless, it is very likely that they would have denied the existence of the void in the sense of (a), had they only been able to see that this denial was consistent with the thesis asserting in turn
that the void
the discontinuity of matter.
The
atomists' theory of matter can be briefly characterized as structural
pluralism and material monism. According to atomists matter, which
is
conceived as that from which, that of which, and that into which, consists of an infinite number of atoms each of which is a plenum. The atoms are of
all
shapes and they differ in
smallness.
No
part of an
size,
but they are
all
invisible because of their
atom can be separated from the
be distinguished by reason.
Atoms
moving. In substance they do not
rest of
it
are eternal, indestructible,
differ
but
and
it
can
ever-
from one another (material mon-
ism), but they differ from any perceptible material.
The
qualitative differ-
ences between perceptible kinds of matter are accounted for by the differences in size, shape, position, and arrangement of the atoms involved, which
by their coming together
coming of things into being, and bv Empedocles and Anaxagoras the cause originative of motion. They took motion
effect the
separation, their passing away. Contrary to
atomists assumed no efficient
2« Met.
985b 4
ff.
55
C. Lejewski
for granted, just as the early Milesians did, but believed
laws, or as they used to put
any
to "necessity".
it,
They did
it
to
not,
be subject to
however, give
clear account of these laws.
It
seems
to be clear that the concept of matter
which the Presocratic
philosophers began to develop was destined to play a role of significance rather to science than to philosophy.
regarded
as the precursors of
Thus Leucippus and Democritus
John Dalton, and Empedocles
described as the father of chemistry.
The
is
are
sometimes
on form as its opposite and comconcept of form can perhaps be traced philosopher's concept of matter,
the other hand, seems to require a concept of
plement. While the origins of such a
back
to the
Pythagoreans,
its
articulate application appears to be recognisable
only in the writings of Plato and Aristotle.^' University of Manchester. -' Professor
improvements.
56
J.
W.
Scott has kindly read the typescript
and offered many
styUstic
COMMENT Remaining within
tiiI';
conventional picture
pkesockatic philosophy,
oi-
Professor Lejewski's paper has located the early Greek notion of matter as "that of which
all
things that are consist".
Accompanying
the notion
more
from which all things originate, and that into which all things are resolved. This description isolates a primitive, though workable, concept of matter. At the same time, however, the Presocratics regarded their material principle as endowed with life, and as steering and encompassing and holding together the universe. They looked upon it as something active, intelligent, and divine. They included in it not only what we today would understand by matter, but also nearly everything that we would directly or
less
regularly are the concepts that
—
oppose to matter. Aristotle separated these different phases in the Presocratic teachings, ics
and we today can separate them
easily
enough. But did the Presocrat-
themselves do so? Did the Presocratics, then, really isolate any concept that
could be called matter in contradistinction to form or energy or intelligence or
any other non-material principle? Or on the contrary, is the notion of matter, originally emerged in western philosophy, also to be identified with activity, intelligence, and divinity, in such a way that no surprise should be caused by to as
it
later ascriptions of these attributes to it?
Secondly, Lejewski prefers to leave out the Pythagoreans on the ground that their speculations concern
form rather than matter.
the heavens inhale the void and that the unlimited
by the
limit,
seem
in
their doctrines that
constrained and limited
is
approximation
to present the closest
to the later contrast of matter
—Yet
among
the Presocratics
with form. At the end of his paper, Lejewski sees
Pythagoreanism a possible origin for the philosopher's, though not for the concept of matter. The problem, accordingly, seems to call for more
scientist's,
discussion. Finally, Lejewski offers four possible
—The sponge-like structure
meanings
for the 'void' of the Atomists.
in the third alternative does not actually appear in
Presocratic philosophy, he acknowledges. Moreover,
pertinent problems of action at a distance, since
conductors of action to any part whatsoever.
it
it
would seem
to
evade the
allows labyrinthine material
The
fourth alternative presents
an Eleatic rather than Atomistic problem. The problem for the Atomists, accordingly, concerned the equating of the first two alternatives. The Atomists conceived as an entity the discontinuity between the atoms. According to Aristotle, they regarded the void "as a material cause of things on a par with the atoms".
The
interpretation so far
But Lejewski's further exegesis
is
compatible with the AristoteUan
text.
that the atomists described the void as the rare.
57
^
Comment is
open
to question.
script authority loc.)
omit the
is
The
text at
Meta.
A
4,985b7
is
divided. Recent editors (Ross,
'rare' at by,
though some
at least doubtful.
Jaeger— see
The manu-
Jaeger's note
translators (Tredennik,
ad
Warrington,
Further, the text (blO-19) compares the dense and the rare not direcdy with the atoms and void, but with different shapes, position, and arrangement of the atoms (see Ross's comment at bl3). This doctrine of the
Tricot) retain
it.
Atomists reported by Aristotle, however, raises the interesting problem as to whether for them the concept of matter should be extended to the void as well as
plenum. If, as held today, material things consist of particles and "empty" must both be included under the concept of matter? Does the Democritean statement of the problem offer any help towards elucidating the present-day conception of "empty" space?
to the
space,
Joseph Owens, C.Ss.R. Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies.
58
THE MATERIAL SUBSTRATE IN PLATO Leonard
J.
Eslick
and the material cause other things, and the One is the cause of the essence of the Forms); and it is evident what the underlying matter is, of which the Forms are predicated in the case of sensible things, and the One in the case of Forms, viz. that this is a dyad, the great and the small. .
.
(Plato) used only two causes, that of the essence
.
Forms
(for the
are the causes of the essence of
—
^ To
speak of "matter" in Plato
standing.
a
It is
seems
to
those
who deny
be the
is,
all
Aristotle, Metaphysics,
/, 6,
988a 8-13
o£ course, to run the risk of misunder-
word, meaning originally wood or timber, which Aristotle
first to
have used in a technical philosophical sense. There are
any doctrine of matter or
that Plato, strictly speaking, has
material cause. ^ Certainly, even
if
one
is
to
go
as far as Friedlander,
who tells
must be recognized that the concept in Plato is not at all the same as Aristotle's wood. There is, in both of them, an indeterminate substrate, a principle of limitation of form or essence, but the mode of reality and functioning of this principle are prous that Plato originated the doctrine of matter^,
foundly different in each. nature and
mode
of
its
The need
it
for positing a material substrate, the
existence, the scope of
causation
its
tions are pertinent, in radically diverse ways, to the
—
all
these ques-
undertanding of the most
significant oppositions within their thought. Plato's cally
approach
opposed
to the existence of
to that of Aristotle's. It
matter is
is
for the
most part diametri-
true that, in a general sense, the
method is determined by an aversion to the fleeting, Heraclitean and by a conversion to ideal archetypes, and ultimately, to a preeminently transcendent unity, a principle which at once accounts for the reality of all things and yet falls short of being the total explanation for the way things are. Nevertheless, the fundamental datum for the Platonic Platonic
things of sense,
philosophy 1
the world of the concrete;
it is
this
world given in experience
W.
D. Ross, Plato's Theory of Ideas, Oxford, Clarendon, 1951, pp. 233-34. 1, An Introduction. Translated by Hans Meyerhoff. York, Pantheon, 1958, p. 249.
Cf.
2 P.
New
is
Friedlander, Plato, Vol.
59
L. Eslick
which Plato sets out to explain. Yet by all that and unreality, a world given not to reason but
to sense.
the assumption that the world of sense experience
is
world of image
a
it is, it is
Hence, in view of
characterized by in-
and non-permanence, by imaging, Plato's approach to the which account for this world cannot be inductive. There is no potential intelligibiUty to be actualized from that which always becomes and never is, nothing within image-beings which the mind can draw out, trinsic instabiUty
principles
no
which human reason can be related to the them into the unity of science.
possible content in terms of
things of experience and be able to organize
My
first
observation
is
then
:
whatever the causes for image-reaUty these
They must represent not what is ever shadow of some other but what, in its own rights, is and, as permanent and ultimate. These causes must, therefore, be attained
causes cannot themselves be image. the fleeting such,
is
aprioristically.
The
experience of image-reahty will be helpful only in a
conditional and negative sense, and to the extent that
it
leads
beyond the
beings which exist by imaging to the principles which explain both their
tenuous hold on nature and their image-mode of existing. How, if possible, does a philosopher explain such a world?
How
is
the
which is and yet is not, to be brought into the unity requisite for knowledge? To the rationalist, Plato's answer is indeed both evasive and paradoxical. For if the world of becoming is unsubstantial image, knowledge of it properly concerns not it but that of which it is the image. Then to know this world is really not to know it at all. not really
Now
real, that
it is
clear to Plato first of all that
exists the archetypal reality of
by all that it imaged, and
is
which
(or better, by all that
we must
so while
attain the existence of the
if
image-beings
exist, there also
the image-beings are image. it is
An image,
not) points to the existence of the
transcend the order of sense experience to
paradigm
reality, this existence
is
in
some way
already established in the very existence of the images themselves.^ Secondly,
it is
clear to Plato that since images, as such, fall short of the reality
imaged'*, there
must
beings merely
reflect,
imitative
way
being imaged,
also exist over
of being. it
and against the
reality
something other, which explains
For
if
the reality
which
is
imaged accounts
The understanding of
3 In a similar
for the
does not by this line of reasoning explain the image-htmgs,,
the imagings, the ontological degradation of the copy as
model.
which the image-
this deficiency, this
way
this
compared to the to what I will
seems of utmost importance
for Kant, the existence of the
phenomenal order points
to the
necessary existence of the noumenal, of the ding an sich. *
Cf. L.
J.
Eslick,
"The
Two
Cratyluses:
The Problem
of Identity of Indiscernibles",
Atti del XII Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia, Vol. XI, Firenze, Sansoni, 1960, pp.
81-87.
60
The Material call
Substrate in Plato
"the Platonic dilemma". This dilemma, rooted in the Platonic choris-
mos,
is
fundamentally
this: If that
which
is
imaged (ultimately Unity
in the
Forms, and the Forms in the case of sensibles) represents the essence of that which is image, and exists nonetheless in a state of ontological case of the
separation from them, then the essence imaged cannot formally explain the
imagings,
i.e.
the defective or privative character of the images. Yet to imi-
tate is to imitate itself, so
that
imaged.
If
something, and
imaging must
in
this
some
thing imitated
real sense
is,
for Plato, essence
be explicable by the essence
image-beings are natureless in themselves and have natures in a
purely relational and imitative
way then their imitating must somehow be Thus by the real separation, on the
causally related to the nature imitated.
one hand, and the image-likeness on the other, Plato must both deny and
qua images are explicable in terms of essence or true form. Now the difficulty becomes ever more acute once we find Plato demonstrating the existence of matter as principle from precisely the identical premise upon which he bases the necessity for positing a principle of transcendent essence or true being, namely, the imaging of that which is image. It is necessary to consider this imaging as the basis for matter's existence before I can properly deal with the dilemma I have outlined, and come to any adequate determination of the causality exercised by essence. On the levels both of being and of becoming the separation of that which participates from the essence participated immediately provides the basis for concluding that all beings separated from their essence are constituted by
affirm that image-beings
real difference or otherness. If the separation
is
ontological the difference
is
and there cannot exist real separation unless there exist real difference. Now inasmuch as true Being can render fully intelligible only that which is the same as it and does not suffice to explain what is different, we must look elsewhere for the difference which separates it from the world of images, the things which are its copies. This difference and otherness which accounts for the lack of intrinsic essence and the image character of all that which imitates is, as Plato sees it, matter. Matter must then exist for the general reason: images exist. Particularly, matter must exist on two accounts: because the sensible world is the image-being it is, and as such Being is inadequate to explain it; because Being itself is the image -one it is, and as such Unity does not suffice as explanation. This reasoning is clearly expressed by Plato in several dialogues. With
ontological,
reference to physical generation in the Timaeus^, Plato concludes that since
which exist "ever must be "inferred to be in an-
true reality does not belong to the image-beings generated, as the fleeting
^
Timaeus,
shadow
of
some
other", they
52.
61
L. Eslick
other", or else they could not be at
and
the lack of substantiality, of inseity
all. It is
which
indivisible sameness in sensible things
leads Plato to posit matter
images in the sensible order. Here, then,
as the container of
the being
it is
contained and the being received which differentiates the image-mode of existing
which
and
this
requires, in
mode
view of
Parmenides, the
thesis of the
this differentia, a container
of defective existing effort to
may
and
receiver in
be realized. In the second hypo-
mingle unity with being leads inex-
orably to a traumatizing infinite plurality, in which everything participates everything.
The
therapeutic healing of this traumatic shock, to safeguard
both the transcendence of absolute Unity, and to provide for
produce the truly differentiated multiplicity which of being and discourse, will be the
many
in producing
work
is
its
extrinsic
which alone can
limitation by a material principle of relative non-being
requisite for a universe
of the Sophistes.
Such
a principle,
by extrinsic limitation of absolute
really different beings
Unity, necessarily differentiates only through negation. Only a material principle of this kind, for Plato,
which
Unity which
beings (as
is
the essence of
all
is
from the absolute
really distinct its
precise contrary or privative
opposite), can guarantee both the possibility of inter-participation of beings in one another,
and
a restriction of universal relativity
and
infinite internal
relatedness, so that everything does not participate in everything.
the conditions, as the Sophistes
and
false discourse.
makes
clear,^ for the possibility of
These are both true
In the VhilehusJ the plurality which intrinsically con-
Being is said to be consequent upon the composition in Being of and infinite. Being is finite in respect to having a certain ratio of number and measure, and infinite in regard to non-being and multiplicity. stitutes finite
The
ontological basis for the existence of the Platonic matter
the chorismos or separation It is not, to
an
its
sets
and Being would not he unless
own essence. But there is
with Being's essential Unity, without
tivism which destroys the foundation of
it
somehow
^ Sophistes,
251c
participated in
which cannot be iden-
a collapse into a universal rela-
all real
differentiation in Being.^*'
This principle, the "material" substrate which grounds
7
evidently
nevertheless, in Being's dyadic structure^,
intrinsic principle of internal relatedness to others
tified
is
up between Unity and Being.^
be sure, an opposition of contrariety, since contrariety excludes
participation,
Unity,
which Plato
all
participation in
— 253c.
Philebus, 23,-15.
^ Cf.
A. C. Pegis, "The
Dilemma
of Being and Unity", Essays in Thoniism,
New
York, 1942, pp. 151-83. ^ Cf. L.
J.
Eslick,
"The Dyadic Character
of Being in Plato",
Modern Schoolman,
2i, 1953, 11-18. ^^
62
Such
a collapse
is
the consequence of the
2nd hypothesis of the Parmenides.
The
Material Substrate in Plato
Unity by Being, so that beings are differentiated and multiple images of their essential principle, is the "relative non-being" of the Sophistes, and it is
Unity's contrary. Because of
its
presence in every being, to be Being
is
not to be One, but to be a mere image-one, to exist as a whole of unlimited
be in
parts, to
intrinsic to
many ways
as
being can
as
infinite context or
web
to all other entities,
which alone defines
Being in
For any being,
this sense is
it
as differentiated
it
series
If
and
Thus
Being cannot be an
if
be a completely and exhaustively determinate
would have inherent unity)
it
or a completion, or a realiza-
bound
so
is
to plurality,
it is
only because Unity
is
own
mathematical
principle of
number which
that esse
Being
Unity which
essence it is
susceptibilities (for is,
and true
—and
this
the source
is
reality.
But
it
is
why
it is
is
the
not possible to hold
is
the perfection
and
Being, as such, can never fully be.
from whence it is
it is
Unity which
by
facilitated
One which
the
is
such ontologized),
as
the act of ens. Rather
is itself
realization of is
above Being
accorded absolute primacy in the Platonic ontology. This primacy
assumed, most probably under Pythagorean influence and Plato's
is
itself.
Being is
it
it
cannot possess, as an intrinsic and proper perfection, an actual
limit (for then
tion of
an
—like the number —an infinite surplusage whose infinitude
characterized by an intrinsic indefiniteness.
—
that, is
and negative, from those others.
without limit or end
absolute One, neither can
many
means
this
essential Unity, there
its
of internal relatedness, both positive
always capable of further increase is
be.
very being but distinct from
its
all
that
is
It
secondary participates
not unity as intrinsically possessed, so that
proportionately but really realized in the beings which are image-ones.
In Platonic metaphysics an analogy of proper proportionality can never function.
The
natural posteriority of Being in relation to Unity thus means,
Being
for Plato, that
actuality
is
inescapably determined to multiplicity.
determined by derivation, not from what
is,
Its essential
but from Unity, as
Being must ever be a semblance of itself, of its and hence an image-one and a plurality. In this way, it is the pluralism of Being which forces Plato to assume the existence of matter as an ultimate substrate principle of Being's dyadic constitution. Since Being cannot be and be a true One there must exist outside the generic Unity a source from whence originates Being's difference, its mode of being an
other than
its
true essential
image-one.
essential cause
self,
And
this source, in
its
function as cause of Being's ontological
otherness in relation to Unity, can only be a natureless multiplicity, an in-
determinate matrix of relatedness.
primal not,
reality,
As
such,
a real absence or privation of
and cannot
it
is
an existing negation of
True being. Matter,
be, potential being. Aristotle's
primary matter
minate potentiality for substantial existence. Platonic matter
is is
in Plato,
is
the indeter-
not poten-
63
L. Eslick
—
which can never actually become substance, because it is in itself radically non-being and privation. In the Thomistic formula, potency Hmits act, but though the act or per-
tially
ousia
it is
precisely that
fection so received
is
Hmited
Such famous Spinozistic maxim, status of unreal image.
tion limited by potency
not thereby ontologically degraded to the
it is
by potency does not accord with the
a Hmitation
that
all
determination
is
negation.
properly and truly perfection or
is still
The act.
perfec-
This
is
not the case in Platonism. For Plato the limitation of act (in this case, essence)
is
not by potency, but by relative non-being or privation, and such
a limitation received.
is
fatal to the integrity of the act or perfection as
existence of non-being
is
thus intimately contingent
being and the certitude with which non-being
which
from
that with
exist
because being
non-being
is
is
known
and
is
is
upon the
known
Such being
which
to
be
is
The
existence of
inseparable
must and function of the lack of unity and
the being of being. In short, non-being
an image-one, and the
reality
as material principle is entirely relative to
essential deficiency
Hmited and
of act can be generated in this way.
Only degraded images
intrinsically constitutes being.
Plato's proofs for the existence of matter,
character does matter have in the Platonic philosophy
?
what meaning
or
Or, in more precise
how are we to understand matter in comparison with that which is image or defective copy, and in comparison with the essence imaged? It is from the principle that matter accounts for the imaging of the essence imaged that we must infer that matter itself is not and cannot be terms,
own
image. This seems evident from Plato's
insistence that since image-
beings (the sensibles) lack the proper inseity to exist in themselves, are to exist in the tenuous
way
possible to
them they must
Certainly this other cannot be image, unless infinite regress.
which
But especially
it is
the very
we
if
they
exist in another.^^
are to involve Plato in an
meaning Plato
attaches to images
prohibits any identification, or even similarity, of the container of
images with the images contained.
To
be an image-being (sensible thing)
and it is the fact which renders impossible any relation of likeness between images and their material substrate. For participation signifies a sharing in essence in such a way that that which is participated always remains separate from that which participates. Participation, in this Platonic sense, always involves: the participated which is related to that which participates as its essence or nature; that which participates which is or an image-one (form) signifies participation in essence,
of this participation, mysterious as
related to the participated as
its
it is,
image or copy; the chorismos
which, on the one hand, the participated i^C£.7/7Mfl