Metaphysics: Substances & Their Attributes

Substances are the subject of the four explanations and are the concrete, existing beings we encounter in life. Insofar as a substance exists, it is a composite of form and matter, caused by something, and possessing causal powers for specific, intrinsic ends. Form and matter are a substance’s internal principles since they undergird the composition of a substance, while causality and teleology are external principles since those causal powers and ends manifest outside the substance. Form and telos are perhaps the most notable of the four explanations. This is because the form (AKA nature) of a substance provides explanatory power for what and how a substance has what it has regarding its matter and causality while teleology explains why it has that matter and causality. Further, teleology tells us what is good for a substance by virtue of its form. We will return to this latter point in another post; however, as we have already noted, substances reach their fullest actuality when they reach their natural ends, and those natural ends are grounded in their nature.

Also, substances inherently possess their causal powers and ends versus having them extrinsically imposed. For instance, a daisy flower is a substance, intrinsically possessing its powers and ends, such as the power to absorb sunlight for the end of obtaining food. We call the forms of these substances’ substantial forms, since their forms are intrinsically grounded, rather than extrinsically imposed. On the other hand, a crown of daisy flowers strung together is what we might call an artificial form, by virtue of its form being extrinsically imposed. A daisy crown possesses the power to communicate peace and love for the purpose of obtaining world peace; however, there is nothing intrinsic to this artifact that possesses these properties and ends because the form from which they proceed is extrinsically imposed and depends on the more fundamental, substantial form of a daisy. Examples of substantial forms and artificial forms are numerous. For the former, we have minerals, plants, animals, and human beings; for the latter we have bricks, daisy crowns, taxidermized deer heads, and wax figurines of Elvis Presley.  

Further, substances do not exist in other things, but rather exist in their own right; they are the receivers of change, permanence, diversity, and unity. On the other hand, the attributes of substances are the givers of change, permanence, diversity, and unity in a substance. Thus, just as form and matter are applications of act and potency respectively, so too are attributes and substance applications of act and potency respectively. Attributes can include quantity, quality, relation, place, time, posture, condition, action, and being acted upon. For instance, a human (substance) has the attribute of weighing 139 pounds (quantity), with black hair (quality), that has a child (relation), who is at the grocery store (place) in the afternoon (time), bending over (posture), wearing clothes (condition), picking up (action) a box of cereal while being tugged to leave the store by their child (being acted upon). In such a situation, such attributes are acts actualized by the substance, and the substance remains in potency to take-on new acts/attributes, such as standing upright, moving to a new location, etc.

Finally, attributes can be distinguished between contingent and proper attributes. The latter directly flows from the form of a substance, while the former does not. For instance, the skin color (quality) of a human being is a contingent attribute, but to have skin (condition) at all is a proper attribute of a human being. As an aside, this is why racism is irrational on a philosophical analysis. For to make skin color X a matter of superiority or inferiority to that of other skin colors, is to directly associate a contingent attribute with the substantial form of a human being. But contingent accidents do not flow from a substance’s substantial form. Therefore, skin color has nothing to do with the substantial form of a human and thus has no relevance to superiority or inferiority amongst substances of the same substantial form. A light-colored and dark-colored human share the same substantial form.

Metaphysics: Hylemorphism – Matter and Form

We have addressed two – causality and teleology - of the four explanations that provide a metaphysical account of a thing. We will now move on to the remaining two explanations and then conclude this metaphysics series with an account of what – or, perhaps, who – are the subjects of these four explanations. For now, let us address the remaining two explanations, matter (hyle) and form (morphe). As we will see, these two principles are complimentary to each other, like how causality and teleology are complementary.

Matter is that out of which a thing is made; it answers the question, “what is X made of”? It is an application of potentiality, accounting for an individual thing’s change, diversity, and limitation. Form is that which configures and determines matter; it answers the question, “what is the nature of X”? It is an application of actuality, accounting for an individual thing’s permanence, unity, and perfection. For example, an eyeball is made of various tissues and veins, and yet, an eyeball is not merely these tissues and veins; an eyeball is also a configuration of these materials that actualize the nature of “eyeball”. If I had an eyeball resting on my palm and squished it with my grip, no eyeball would remain despite the matter remaining. This is because things are not merely their matter, but their matter plus the organizing principle by which their matter is actualized with a given nature. 

In the context of change and diversity, matter is that which needs actualizing; form is that which results from actualization:

• For instance, the matter of X human being differentiates it from Y human being and, for both, has the potential to take on diverse changes throughout the human being's development, and, by virtue of human form, actualizing those changes. Change occurs because something persists, namely the form; otherwise, it would not be change, but rather annihilation of one thing and the spontaneous emergence of something else. Therefore, as a particular human being reaches adulthood, it actualizes various potencies – puberty, for example – by virtue of what it is. 

In the context of perfection, matter is that which limits (i.e., remains potential); form is that which perfects (i.e., actualizes):

• For instance, the form of circularity - a collection of points equidistant from a fixed center point -can be actualized by drawing a circle. To the extent a given circle is drawn in conformity to circularity, the circle actualizes circularity. In the case of any given circle, matter is the limiting principle insofar as it keeps in potentiality all points being equidistant from a fixed center point. Form is the perfecting principle; insofar as we can make our circle in conformity to circularity, we have a more perfect circle. We might say a circle drawn digitally using special technology is more perfect than a circle drawn with chalk on a blackboard.

Next in the series: Substances & Their Attributes

Metaphysics: Teleology

 In our account of being, we have discovered that being is fundamentally divided into act and potency, which accounts for how permanence and change, on the one hand, and unity and diversity, on the other, can coexist in being. We focused on the principle of causality (PoC), which states potential being can only be actualized by some being already actual. Further, the PoC grounds how an agent can bring about change or be changed by virtue of its causal powers and potencies respectively. It is one of four explanations that together form a complete metaphysical account of any substance. We will now move on to another of these explanations: teleology.

Teleology studies the ends (telos) of beings by virtue of their causal powers and potencies; in other words, it studies a thing’s effects. If the PoC answers, “what brought X about?”, teleology answers “what is X for”? For example, while rain and sunshine are the causes of an acorn becoming an oak tree, the end or goal of an acorn is to become an oak tree. This is rooted (no pun intended) in what an acorn is, what makes an acorn an acorn - it’s form and matter, the remaining two explanations we will discuss later.

To know something about how a thing is affected is also to know something about what a thing is for. We know that rain and sunshine actualize the potencies of an acorn to grow into an oak instead of an elephant partially because we know the telos of an acorn. This is based on the causal regularity we see between agents and their effects, which of course can be frustrated by interfering factors; in the case of the above example, a squirrel eating the acorn or it being damaged. Nevertheless, a causal regularity exists that explains why one effect is produced over another. Thus, we see causality is not intelligible without teleology. This establishes the principle of finality: every agent acts for an end. In other words, a potency always points beyond itself towards some specific actuality. Without such a principle, we cannot intelligibly explain why X agent causes Y effect instead of Z effect.

From the macro to the micro, our experience of being is full of teleology. The telos of a thing is some potential end waiting to be actualized; it points beyond the already actual being possessing that end. DNA points towards the development of some organism or part of an organism; the act of thinking points towards some thought; the eye points towards sight; the water cycle points towards hydrating the Earth, and so on. Being thus has a natural tendency towards certain ends by virtue of what form it takes. Therefore, substances reach their fullest actuality when they reach their natural ends.

Next in the series: Hylemorphism – Matter and Form

Metaphysics: The Principle of Causality & Causal Series

An example of a hierarchal causal series

The Principle of Causality

Previously, we established the principle of causality (PoC), which states, potential being can only be actualized by some already actual being.  Potential being, by virtue of merely being potential, cannot do anything in and of itself. In other words, the PoC accounts for how potential being becomes actual being. The potentiality of a car’s movement is actualized by something already actual, namely a foot stepping on the pedal; a mirror’s potential to reflect my self is actualized by my standing in front of it; a pot of water’s potential to boil is actualized by heat underneath it. In all these cases, something actual – a foot, a person, a source of heat – brings something potential – locomotion, reflection, boiling water – to actualization. The PoC is the explanatory foundation of how being goes from potential to actual.

An effect (i.e., an actualized potential) cannot be self-caused, but, as we said, must rely on something else already actual. The idea that a potential could bring itself to act - pulling itself up by its metaphysical bootstraps - is necessarily impossible. An example showing this impossibility would be the incoherent statement, “I caused my own existence”. If I caused my own existence, then I existed before I caused my own existence since for me to cause my own existence presupposes my existence. The very thing I am claiming to cause is in fact already in effect before I cause it, an incoherent absurdity. Furthermore, causation is intimately connected by simultaneity. For instance, it would be imprecise to say “throwing the baseball caused the window to shatter”; rather, it is the pressing of the thrown baseball into the window, as the cause, and the window buckling, as the simultaneous effect, which account for the causal story in such an example.

The PoC is one of four causes articulated by the ancient philosophers; all four provide an exhaustive account of what any substance. We will discuss the other three later. The ancients used “cause” more inclusively than us moderns. For them “cause” would be closely related to the word “explanation”. For us moderns, only one of Aristotle’s four causes would intuitively be tied to the word “cause”, namely the “efficient cause”, another term for PoC. We will discuss the other three "causes" - material, formal, and final - in later posts. 

Causal Series

There are two applications of the principle of causality: a linear causal series that deals with a temporal line of events and a hierarchical causal series that deals with any moment in time, independent of the past. An example of a linear causal series is a father, who at some point in time, begets a son, and that son, later in time, begets his own son and so on. From a philosophical analysis, this series could theoretically go on to infinity: there is simply nothing in this causal series that necessitates a first, most fundamental cause that all the other members in the series rely upon to actualize their potency. In the example used, the first son requires nothing from his father to beget his own son once the first son is begotten. After the first son is begotten, the father is irrelevant to the son continuing to exist and using his own causal powers to actualize the potential life of his own son.

However, in a hierarchical causal series a first cause is necessary for the other members of the series to have any causal efficacy. Additionally, a hierarchical causal series deals with simultaneity, and therefore not concerned with the past. I will provide three examples of a hierarchical causal series:

1. A stone’s potency to roll is actualized by a stick pushing it; however, the stick can only actualize this potency insofar as a moving hand actualizes the stick’s potency to move.

 2. A car’s potency to drive is actualized by a gas pedal in the forward throttle position; however, the gas pedal can only actualize this potency insofar as a foot pushed down actualizes the gas pedal’s potency to be in the forward throttle position. 

3. A mirror’s potency to reflect your likeness can only be actualized insofar as you stand in front of the mirror; otherwise, this potency of the mirror remains in potency until you, being in act by simply existing, walk in front of the mirror to bring the mirror’s potency to act.

In all three cases, there is simultaneity in the potencies being actualized: my body being reflected in the mirror is only there insofar as I stand in front of the mirror; as soon as I step away, the reflection ceases. Additionally, there is a “first member” who is necessary to the causal series since the secondary members’ efficacy in the causal series are contingent on receiving said efficacy from the first member. Notice two important considerations: 1) there is no reference to the past since the “first member” is first not temporally, but because it imparts causal efficacy to the other members at any given moment; 2) the point of these examples is not to make the literal claim the hand, foot, and body are all in fact the first members in these examples (that’s why I used quotes around “first member” at the beginning of the paragraph); there are more fundamental members in all three of these causal series. The point is to show what a hierarchical causal series looks like and the metaphysical work a first cause does in this series vis-a-vis its secondary members.

Next in the series: Teleology 

Metaphysics: Being as Act and Potency

Since being is common to all that exists and therefore above every category, as we have shown, how do we account for the diversity and change we see in being? Diversity and change can be accounted for by a fundamental distinction within being: actuality and potentiality. Actuality is being immediately apparent to the senses: the car is parked in the driveway, the human is speaking, the bird is roosting. Potentially is being that can be become actualized: the car is potentially able to back up from the driveway, the human can potentially be quiet, the bird can potentially fly. Potentials and their actualization explain the diversity of being since different beings possess different potentials and the actualization of those potentialities vary within each of those beings. Furthermore, the actualization of potential being explains change amongst beings since for a thing to go from potential to actual just is for a thing to change from one state of being (potentiality) to another (actuality). Therefore, diversity and unity as well as change and permanence are present under the transcending reality of being.

Actual being grounds potential being, for without something actual, there cannot be something potential. Without an actually parked car, there is no potentially moving car; without an actually talking human, there is no potentially quiet human; without an actually roosting bird, there is no potentially flying bird. The asymmetry that gives priority to actual being is seen most fundamentally when we consider existence itself. Without an actual [i.e. existing] car, there is no potential for the car to park or move; without an actual human, there is no potential of the human to speak or be quiet; without an actual bird, there is no potential of the bird to fly or roost. Thus, potentiality and actuality are layered together, with actuality always supporting potentiality. 

Furthermore, potential being requires already actual being(s) to bring it to actuality. The car’s potential to move cannot be actualized without already actual things: keys, a motor, a driver; a human’s potential to be quiet cannot be actualized without actual things: an intellect and will to direct their lips and tongue or duct tape; the bird’s potential to fly cannot be actualized without actual things: healthy wings and desire to fly. Therefore, potential being can only become actual being by something that is already actual. This is known as the principle of causality. 

Finally, potentiality and actuality are divided into subcategories: first and second. First potentiality is that which is contingent, in need of receiving something to actualize some power. First actuality comes when such a power is realized, but not being exercised. Second potentiality, which is intimately tied to first actuality, is the acquisition of a power that can be exercised but is not being exercised at a given moment. Finally, second actuality is the exercising of a power at a given moment. 

For example (see visual for additional example):

• Capt. Nathan Algren’s potency for learning Japanese (first potentiality)
• Capt. Nathan Algren, having learned Japanese, is now capable of speaking it (first actuality) but is currently not (second potentiality)
• Capt. Nathan Algren is speaking Japanese to Katsumoto (second actuality) 

In sum, actuality accounts for the unity and permanence of being and potentiality accounts for the diversity and change in being. Potential being depends on actual being for its existence and actualization, creating an asymmetry between the two. Finally, there is first potentiality, which requires something in act to bring it to actuality; first actuality and second potentiality, which is actual insofar as a being has it at its disposal, but potential insofar as it is not in actual use at a given moment; and lastly second actuality, in which a being has an actual power and is exercising it.

Next in the series: The Principle of Causality & Causal Series