You are very close to the kingdom!
So allow me the liberty to comment on your words in a more line by line fashion, because you have a lot here that is really, really good (at least, from a Thomistic perspective, and I'll offer some distinctions in that direction below--there are other schools of thought that would be even closer to what you are saying, e.g., Scotism, as far as I understand it).
Kurieuo wrote:I do follow what you're saying, but for "secondary substance" is using the term "nature" or "essence" really appropriate?
To me they connote "matter" and I can't conceptually distinguish these terms as merely "form".
It is
appropriate insofar as the definition of a substance is really just that which exists in itself (if you want technical jargon, subsists). Further, look at the etymology of the word "substance." In this case, it's actually enlightening. A substance is that which "stands under"--stands under what? The accidents of our being. So you--the composite being--certainly stand under your accidents. But in a real way, so does your very essence (your humanity), and so it can be called a "substance" in a secondary sense.
Again, it's appropriate. Is it helpful? Usually not. I think when possible, we should use the words "form" or "nature" or "essence" which are all roughly synonymous even as they have different connotations.
Which brings me to an interesting thoughts, which you may/may not know more about and have been discussed historical within philosophy.
Consider universals, for example, shapes -- circles, squares, triangles, etc.
They seem predicated upon mind that conceives of such, and I tend to believe they've always existed with God who has eternally conceived triangles, squares or circles.
But, there is some "substance" to the conception if you will of shapes, namely their shape which is like a blueprint in our mind.
So I don't know that I'd call universals like shapes "substances." Here's where we can differentiate between forms and secondary substances. All secondary substances are forms, but not all are forms are secondary substances. So let me just strike out your word "substance" for a moment and revisit it again below. The bigger point you are making here is correct. (As an aside, the idea that all forms preexist in God's mind goes back at least as far as Augustine . . . one of the few things I think he was right on, so you're in good company!) It does seem impossible to imagine that a form like Triangularity could have any existence outside of either a mind or matter (and what if the mind is matter?). Historically, that's one of the main reasons that Platonists are, well, Platonists. Plantinga takes exactly this point to argue that Triangularity necessarily exists, and that it would necessarily exist even in a world where there are no real Triangles. It seems, after all, just silly if not self-contradictory to say, "In world X, there are no triangles, therefore, the form Triangularity does not exist." No, it would just be that the form is never actualized in any way. And that, in turn, does seem to point to an Eternal Mind . . .
Anyway, back to your point. We've still been a bit sloppy wit our terms. We jumped from universals right to the forms themselves, but the two are different. Obviously, the form of Triangularity exists outside the mind. You can see them all around you, and unless we are Idealists, and I know you are not, then triangles exist in nature regardless of who is there to observe them. But universals are an entirely different matter. For universals don't exist in the world. They exist in the mind only. After all, I bet you anything that you have never seen "Triangularity" or "Humanness" or "Dogness" or "Treeness." You've seen individual triangles and humans and dogs and trees. And somehow, your mind is able to abstract the general form from the particulars. That abstracted form is the universal.
The point here is your question about substances applies to universals and not forms per se. For if it only applied to forms, the answer would be easy: forms can exist outside the mind, which everyone other than Idealists will agree with. But since universals do not, then what about
them?
You rightly point out that universals exist
in the mind. Now the mind is a faculty of the rational soul, and the rational soul is a substance. Therefore, universals are always found in substances. But they have no substance of their own. The mind perceives the thing before it (first, it "judges" it to be, and then it "apprehends" the thing's nature/form) and abstracts that thing's nature and relates it to a universal (which the mind itself creates). The key here, though, is that the thing itself--the form--really is in the mind. It's not just a representation. The actual thing is in the mind, and we identify it and talk about it via the universal. (There are, by the way, a lot of technicalities associated with this process; the impressed species, the expressed species, the phantasm, the active and passive imagination, the formal word, etc. But the bottom line is actually pretty straight-forward: the actual form of the thing is impressed on the mind and abstracted into a universal)
What is the substance of that shape we view in our heads when we think: Circle?
I'll answer it now, anyway. It isn't a substance that is in our heads. It is a form or nature that is in our heads. But that consistent distinction aside, yes the form is "Circle."
Before we answer that, we must ask whether or not a "circle" is actualised in our head? I'd answer yes.
Correct! What was potentially there is now actually there.
If yes, then we can then ask well what is the flavour of its materialisation -- what material is it?
Well, the substance of the circle we picture is qualitatively of some "mental" flavour being actualised.
Akin to a circle actualised in physical world that is cut from paper is qualitatively of a "paper" (or wood) flavour.
And here is where I think the distinction I've been pushing is important. There is no material here, because the mind is immaterial. Yet the mind itself stands in potentiality to the forms of the world around it. So the thing in front of me possesses the form "Circularity." I apprehend the thing, and its form is impressed on my mind. My mind is "informed." But, again, yes, the mind, which was in potentiality to Circle, was so actualized by the form itself.
(Maybe it's important to note that matter is only actualized because matter is potentiality. What is actualized is ALWAYS potentiality. Now, some potentiality is matter, but not all potentiality is matter. So just because something is actualized, it does not follow that what is actualized is material)
What is the importance of this?
Well, I'm not sure I can comprehend how shapes can exist without being actualised.
You are right. They cannot!
Blueprints (or "form") must at least be minimum of a "mental" material, and therefore substance will always have form+matter.
While we might abstract form out as the design of something, nonetheless it exists as in the form of a materialised concept.
If the
universal (not simply the form) exists, then there is a mind in which it exists. But since the mind is potentiality though not material, it does not follow that all substances are form+matter composites. Some substances can be pure forms (like angels). What
is true, though, again, is that where the universal exists, there necessarily exists a mind in potentiality to that universal. I think that is what you are really getting at. There isn't a "mental substance." There's just the mind. THAT is what is informed, and what is comparable to matter. In nature, the circle informed a material thing. In your mind, it informed an immaterial thing. As an aside, that does mean, when thinking of God, that we have to be careful about saying that universals are in God in the same way that they are in us, since God is not in potentiality to the universal. But that should be obvious, because God has a "mind" only in an analogous way to us having a mind. They are in Him in that they are known by and caused by Him.
Conclusion: I'm not sure that "form" can exist without "matter" of some flavour.
Perhaps this is where my own equivocations that I mention -- seeing substance in one sense as "form", and then seeing it as both "form" and "matter" -- keep rearing its head.
It just comes down to an inability of my own part to really separate "form" from "matter" given for me even a mental conception is comprised of "mental space" if you will.
Thoughts on this? In particular, are you aware to much discussion historically about whether "form" can really exist in and of itself?
I'm sure there has since pretty much anything that could be thought of has been discussed. So I like seeing with whom or what thinking my own logical reasoning aligns.
I hope some of that is helpful. Even if you disagree with me you are, again, in good company. The idea that there is such a thing as "spiritual matter" is an old one, and one that Thomas Aquinas thought was serious enough he had to deal with it explicitly. Still, I think when we make the proper distinctions between form and substance, between matter and potentiality, we can see that form can exist without matter. And let me just give a
very simple proof for that.
All matter is potentiality. There is no such thing as pure matter that has no form, for matter is only what it is once it is informed by some nature.
Forms are the active (actualizing) principle of things. In form/matter composites, form is the act, and matter is the potency.
Now, matter cannot exist by itself, because pure potentiality would be nothing at all, as pure potentiality would have no actuality. But pure actuality
can exist. But that which is pure act would by definition have no potentiality, and since all matter is potentiality, then that which is pure act would be pure form.
It does not follow from this, of course, that any given thing is pure form, nor that all instances of pure form are pure act (angels are pure form but they are not pure act). But this ought to be sufficient to show that, in principle, form can exist without matter, though matter cannot exist without form.
Sorry for the length on this . . .
