Can you give me a coherent reason why matter and spirit cannot be manifestations of the same underlying reality. If physics can cope with wave/particle duality, why is it necessary for philosophy to insist on an either/or solution?
Can you give me a coherent reason why matter and spirit cannot be manifestations of the same underlying reality. If physics can cope with wave/particle duality, why is it necessary for philosophy to insist on an either/or solution?
AquinasFan, would you mind pinging me on your reply to this question? It's relevant to our earlier exchange about whether 'mind' is automatically going to count as 'supernatural'. (For the record, I'm basically with js1138 on this issue but I think it makes better sense to regard 'mind' as more fundamental than 'matter'.)
The problem here is an equivocal use of the term matter. Matter, in the Aristotelian sense, considered absolutely, is pure potentiality. It has no existence apart from "form," again in the Aristotelian sense, which is the principle of "act" or existence. Matter (when it is conjoined with form) is the principle of individuation.
The form/matter dichotomy helps to explain the problem of change. Aristotle solved the problem of change by postulating four causes: material, efficient, formal and final. Consider a block of marble being changed into a statue. The marble constitutes the material cause of the change, the "matter" which is effected by the change. The sculptor represents the efficient cause of the change, or the agent bringing about the change. The sculpture itself represents the formal cause of the change, the aspect of the change that brings about a new "whatness" (the sculpture). The final cause would be the purpose for which the statue is sculpted.
Form and matter represents the most fundamental division of existing things, apart from Being and non-being (wherein non-being has no actual existence, but only logical existence as the opposite of Being). All things, apart from God and the angels, are composites of matter and form. Matter, on one extreme, is pure potentiality and has no existence apart from form. God, on the other extreme, is pure act, with no admixture of matter or potency. Interestingly, angels are pure forms without matter, but are not pure act. God is categorically different from all other things in that His essence is pure act, His nature is Being.
Matter, in the modern sense, is the subject of deterministic natural processes. Such a theory makes a coherent explanation of consciousness and the truth of our knowledge impossible.
placemarker