Making Objects and Events: A Hylomorphic Theory of Artifacts, Actions, and Organisms
Simon J. Evnine
Abstract
The book explores the view (amorphic hylomorphism) that some objects have matter from which they are distinct but that this distinctness is not due to the existence of anything like a form. It exploits Aristotle’s insight that such objects must be understood in terms of an account that links what they are essentially with how they come to exist and what their functions are (the coincidence of formal, final, and efficient causes). Artifacts are the most prominent kind of objects where these three features coincide and the book develops a detailed account of the existence and identity conditions ... More
The book explores the view (amorphic hylomorphism) that some objects have matter from which they are distinct but that this distinctness is not due to the existence of anything like a form. It exploits Aristotle’s insight that such objects must be understood in terms of an account that links what they are essentially with how they come to exist and what their functions are (the coincidence of formal, final, and efficient causes). Artifacts are the most prominent kind of objects where these three features coincide and the book develops a detailed account of the existence and identity conditions of artifacts, and the origins of their functions, in terms of the processes by which they come into existence. This process is, in general terms, a making of them out of their initial matter by an agent acting with the intention to make an object of the given kind. The account is extended to organisms, where evolution accomplishes what is effected by intentional making in the case of artifacts, and to actions, which are treated as artifactual events.
Keywords:
Aristotle,
hylomorphism,
artifacts,
making,
functions,
origins,
actions,
organisms,
form,
matter
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198779674 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198779674.001.0001 |
