Form as Structure: It's not so Simple

Ratio 31 (1):20-36 (2016)
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Abstract

Hylomorphism is the theory that objects are composites of form and matter. Recently it has been argued that form is structure, or the arrangement of an object's parts. This paper shows that the principle of form cannot be ontologically exhausted by structure. That is, I deny form should be understood just as the arrangement of an object's parts. I do so by showing that structure cannot play the role form is supposed to in a certain domain of objects, specifically, in mereological simples. Thus, I show that Hylomorphism does not reduce to Structuralism. I also draw out some important consequences from my argument for Hylomorphism in general.

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Author's Profile

Graham Renz
Marian University

Citations of this work

Forms Are Not Emergent Powers.Graham Renz - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
Do Substances Have Formal Parts?Graham Renz - forthcoming - Analytic Philosophy.
Structures as Relations.Michele Paolini Paoletti - 2021 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 11):S2671-S2690.
Whence the Form?Graham Renz - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

Material beings.Peter Van Inwagen - 1990 - Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Material Beings.Peter Van Inwagen - 1990 - Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Is there a fundamental level?Jonathan Schaffer - 2003 - Noûs 37 (3):498–517.
Real Essentialism.David S. Oderberg - 2007 - New York: Routledge.
Things and Their Parts.Kit Fine - 1999 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 23 (1):61-74.

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