'Matter' and 'form': By way of a preface

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 215-226

  Lüthy, Christoph ^a   Newman, William R ^b  

^a MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE   (Germany)

^b INDIANA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77952869536     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157338297X00122     Document Type: Review

References (24)

1. J-R. Le Fèvre (Faber), Cursus physicus in quo totius philosophiœ naturalis corpus explicatur, (Geneva, 1625), 24-5: "principia interna rerum naturalium;" "omnia esse unum ens immobile;" "Decimaquinta [sententia] quae sola vera est, fuit Aristotelis dicentis principia interna & per se constitutionis corporurn naturalium esse duo, nempe materiam & formam [...]."
2. T. S. Kuhn, "Preface", The Essential Tension, (Chicago, 1977), xi-xiii.
3. H. Butterfield, Origins of Modern Science, 1300-1800 (London, 1949), 1.
4. J. Combach: Physicorum Libri TV (Marburg, 1620), 2: "[...]ut tandem monstret, et quae Paracelsus aliique veritatis magistri sparsim hinc inde tradiderunt, in unum quoddam systema colligat, veraeque physicae ordinem et connectionem nobis exhibeat"
5. Quote and translation from M. R. Reif, Natural Philosophy in Some Early Seventeenth Century Scholastic Textbooks (Ph. D. thesis, Saint Louis University, 1962), 265.
6. B. Keckermann, Organi Aristolelis analysis aphoristica (Frankfurt, 1614), col.1680
7. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, tr. N. Kemp Smith (London, 1929), 280.
8. N. E. Emerton, The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form (Ithaca and London, 1984), 36.
9. Emerton, Reinterpretation, 13, 20;
10. A. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Mass., 1950), "Introduction"
11. K. Lasswitz, Geschichte der Atomistik vom Mittelalter bis Newton 2 vols (LeiDzig 1890), 1:502.
12. Met. VII 8, 1034a.
13. Cf. E. McMullin, ed., The Concept of Matter in Greek and Medieval Philosophy, Notre Dame, 1965.
14. Cf. De gen. et con., II 9, 335b.
15. Met. I 9, 991a-b.
16. Emerton, Reinterpretation, 51ff.
17. E. De Clave, Paradoxes, ou traittez philosophiques des pierres et pierreries, contre l'opinion vulgaire (Paris, 1635), 404-6; 414.
18. Quoted from Emerton, Reinterpretalion, 60.
19. Cf., for a similar statement, D. Sennert, "Epitome scientiae naturalis", Opera omnia (Lyons, 1650), 1:10-11.
20. Cf. W. D. Ross, Aristotle (Oxford, 1923), 74: "'Form' for Aristotle embraces a variety of meanings. Sometimes it is used of sensible shape [...] But more often, perhaps, it is thought of as something which is an object of thought rather than of sense [...]"
21. Jungius had "nothing against the names of 'matter' and 'form'" as long as one understood by materia "the completely homogeneous bodies or their atoms" and by forma "either the relation of the mixed hypostatical principles or the order and position of the atoms or a certain combination of attributes or something like it", cited from E. Wohlwill, "Joachim Jungius und die Erneuerung atomistischer Lehren im 17. Jahrhundert", Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften 19(1887), 68, fn. 1, who in turn cites from Jungius' Ms. Doxoscopiae physicae majores, 1:177 (published under the same title but in revised form in 1662 by M. Vogel).
22. Basson, who otherwise rejected hylomorphism as a grave philosophical aberration, was willing to accept the notion of 'form' if by it was meant no more than "a certain aggregation of parts of different genera." Cf. S. Basson, Philosophiae naturalis contra Aristotelem libri XII (Geneva, 1621), 275.
23. On the development from the one materia to specific materiae, cf. G. Bachelard, Le materialisme rationnel (Paris, 1953);
24. R. Hooykaas, Het begrip element in zijn historisch-wijsgeerige ontwikkeling (Ph. D. dissertation, Utrecht, 1933). But cf. Descartes' or Boyle's continued adherence to one "uniform Catholic matter"