From Hylomorphism to Mumorphism

Hylomorphism is the Aristotelian idea that all physical things are composites of matter (hyle) and form (morphe). An example is a butter knife, whose matter is stainless steel, which has been given the appropriate form to allow one to cut a slab of butter and spread it. From this one gets Aristotle's four causes of a thing: the formal cause (the right shape), the material cause (stainless steel), the final cause (wanting something that spreads butter), and the efficient cause (the actual making of the knife).

The problem with hylomorphism comes when one notes that stainless steel, or at least its constituent molecules, are also form/matter composites. Hence one calls it "proximate matter". Now the question is, as one burrows down into these proximate matters, from iron atoms to protons, neutrons, and electrons, is there some fundamental stuff? Whatever physicists might identify as fundamental particles, or resonances, or what have you, is going to have form. Thus, the Aristotelian says one bottoms out with prime matter (a term not used by Aristotle, and as I understand it, there is debate over whether the concept would have been acceptable to him, but that is not our concern). So what is prime matter? The Aristotelian calls it "pure potential", which brings up the more basic Aristotelian idea of actual and potential existence. Suffice it to say that form is understood to actuate the potential of matter, both proximate and prime. That is, the steel has the potential to be a knife, and prime matter has the potential to be anything physical. In itself, though, it is inert and formless, though it never is "in itself" -- that is, it never occurs in the absence of form.

Well, this makes some sort of sense, but I find it unsatisfactory. Prime matter is undetectable, and so the question is, must one infer its reality? I shall argue that, no, one can do without it. And I shall do so by accepting another Scholastic idea, namely that of Divine Simplicity.

One should insert here a lot of Thomist argument (including his Five Ways on the existence of God), but I shall just give the conclusion, which is that God is perfectly "simple", that is, has no parts, is not in any way a composite, and so on. In short, God is formless. But there are many words that one can apply to God, like Being, Love, Intellect, Will, and so on (the capital letters are needed to remind us that such words apply to God differently than they apply to humans). But since God is perfectly simple, God's Being is the same as God's Love, and so on. Oh yes, another such word is Act: God is Pure Act, which is to say is at the opposite pole from the Pure Potential of prime matter.

So far, so good. Basically, I accept all of that, but wish to note one additional thing about God according to Thomists (and other classical theists), which is that God sustains everything in existence at all times. Call this God's Sustenance. But as God is simple, one must add this to to the list: God's Will is God's Intellect, is God's Sustenance. This is what keeps every physical thing in existence. So what if we just eliminate prime matter from our metaphysics and replace it with God's Sustenance? In themselves they are both formless, and I have to wonder about having two formlessnesses hanging about.

Of course, this means a bigger change for the Aristotelian/Thomist, for God is Pure Act, while prime matter is Pure Potential, in itself completely inactive. The change to mumorphism will also add the characteristic of Pure Potential to God.

It seems to me that one can also reduce Aristotle's four causes to two, now that matter has been eliminated. Thus the material cause of something becomes an elaboration of the formal cause -- a plastic knife differs from a steel knife by having different molecular subforms. In addition, a final cause, like any idea, is a form. (This does not mean that the concept of final cause isn't useful -- just recognizes that it is an additional formal cause.) And so, one can say that an object has a (variously complex) formal cause and an efficient cause. If one examines the efficient cause, it reduces ultimately to the application of energy. Which is ultimately formless. Thus the existence of anything is ultimately the result of the interplay of form and formlessness, or mumorphism.

A minor point: in replacing hylomorphism with mumorphism one also removes any fundamental difference between physical and non-physical objects. They are both mumorphic, while only physical objects are hylomorphic.

A major point. While hylomorphism can be said to be a composite of matter and form,  one cannot say of mumorphism that it is a composite of form and formlessness. This is because form is not other than formlessness. What word should one use, then? Well, that is the reason for coining the word 'mumorphism' -- there is no previously existing word for this relation.