Hylomorphism: Aristotle’s snub nose, Descartes’s wax, Kant’s plate and dog, Husserl’s brown bottle of bier.

Notes on The History of the Hylomorphism: From Aristotle to Descartes (Oxford: OUP, 2023).

Abstract

This seemingly simple question, "What is hylomorphism?", is not so straightforward to answer. We shall attempt to address this question by presenting and interpreting "On The History of Hylomorphism". We shall, therefore, examine closely the link between matter and form, body and soul, primarily in Aristotle's work. We then move on to Descartes, who goes to the extreme of radically separating soul (form) from body (matter). I shall read David Charles's detailed and insightful introduction, as well as Lilli Alanen's chapter on Descartes. We shall consider Descartes' perception of a burning wax candle. Subsequently, I shall venture a glimpse into the future of the narrative. We shall examine Kant's plate circularity and geometric circles in the "Doctrine of Schematism" (resembling David Charles's Sigma-Structure) and attempt to engage with the phenomenological stance, analysing Husserl's "brown bottle of beer", where the morphē-hylē relationship undergoes a transformation in his analyses of time consciousness.