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Notes
But of the hylomorphic, not the Cartesian, variety. See my ‘Hylomorphism” Journal of Philosophy, 2006.
Metaphysics Z.4, 1029b22–1030a11. For example, 1030a2: "But is being for 'cloak' [i.e. pale human or any other concatenated unity] an essence at all?…".
Non-trivial: not by way of being a mere conjunction of just those properties or something logically equivalent to a mere conjunction of just those properties. An analogy—a pure tone has a particular determinate qualitative nature which grounds its specific loudness, pitch and timbre, but that qualitative nature is not a mere conjunction of those features. There is nothing that has a pitch and a timbre but no loudness, as a mere conjunctive or concatenative view would predict.
On the substantial form as individual and determinate [tode ti], see Z.3 1029a27ff and Z.11 1037a5ff. I rely here on old conversations with Michael Frede and recent conversations with Marcus Gibson.
Just which ontology of the self is forced on us by these constraints, and how this bears on the mind–body problem, is set out in my Gifford Lectures, five in all, delivered at the University of St Andrews in September 2019.
References
Johnston, M. (2016). Personites, maximality and ontological trash. Philosophical Perspectives, 30(1), 198–228.
Johnston, M. (2017). The personite problem: Should practical reason be tabled? NOUS, 50.
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Johnston, M. The subject and its apparatus: are they ontological trash?. Philos Stud 178, 2731–2744 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01543-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01543-7