Vivarium 54 (1):1-21 (2016)
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Abstract |
_ Source: _Volume 54, Issue 1, pp 1 - 21 Thomas Aquinas sees a sharp metaphysical distinction between artifacts and substances, but does not offer any explicit account of it. We argue that for Aquinas the contribution that an artisan makes to the generation of an artifact compromises the causal responsibility of the form of that artifact for what the artifact is; hence it compromises the metaphysical unity of the artifact to that of an accidental unity. By contrast, the metaphysical unity of a substance is achieved by a process of generation whereby the substantial form is solely responsible for what each part and the whole of a substance are. This, we submit, is where the metaphysical difference between artifacts and substances lies for Aquinas. Here we offer on behalf of Aquinas a novel account of the causal process of generation of substances, in terms of _descending forms_, and we bring out its explanatory merits by contrasting it to other existing accounts in the literature.
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Keywords | Aquinas hylomorphism substance unity artifact form |
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DOI | 10.1163/15685349-12341310 |
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References found in this work BETA
Substance and Artifact in Thomas Aquinas.Michael Rota - 2004 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 21 (3):241 - 259.
Citations of this work BETA
Aristotelian Causation and Neural Correlates of Consciousness.Matthew Owen - 2020 - Topoi 39 (5):1-12.
Aristotelian Causation and Neural Correlates of Consciousness.Matthew Owen - 2020 - Topoi 39 (5):1113-1124.
Introduction to the Special Issue on Form, Structure and Hylomorphism.Anna Marmodoro & Michele Paolini Paoletti - 2021 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 11):S2647-S2656.
Circumnavigating the Causal Pairing Problem with Hylomorphism and the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness.Matthew Owen - forthcoming - Synthese (Suppl 11):2829-2851.
Neo-Thomistic Hylomorphism Applied to Mental Causation and Neural Correlates of Consciousness.Matthew Keith Owen - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Birmingham
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