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Hylomorphism

1000wordphilosophy.com

41–50 of 56 posts

Re: Hylomorphism

#41
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah. My first read was that this way of looking at the world sounds object-oriented (an instance of a class being state encapsulated with function). Just goes to show how quickly any philosophy can lead to a schism ;)

Yes: the class is the form; the data values are the matter. A superclass is a genus and a subclass is a species. I have long suspected that the creators of Simula had a grounding in Aristotelian metaphysics.

My intuition is that bits are pure matter. Data Values are bits with an interpretation, already more than pure matter.

Re: Hylomorphism

#42
post #7

It's pretty similar to Chinese Neo-Confucian concepts of 理 (li) and 气 (qi). Qi being matter-energy. Li - being structure or form or pattern. Although to be human in Chinese concepts, required more than just having the form of a human, and e.g. looking human, but also the ability to act like a human with concepts of e.g. 仁 (ren).

I love Xunzi’s definition of human and wish it were more widely discussed in the West: 水火有氣而無生,草木有生而無知,禽獸有知而無義,人有氣、有生、有知,亦且有義,故最為天下貴也。力不若牛,走不若馬,而牛馬為用,何也?曰:人能群,彼不能群也。人何以能群?曰:分。分何以能行?曰:義。故義以分則和,和則一,一則多力,多力則彊,彊則勝物;故宮室可得而居也 Water and fire have qi but lack life. Trees and shrubs have life but lack intelligence. Birds and beasts have intelligence but lack morality. Humans have qi, life, intelligence, and moreover morality,…

Reminds me of a qoute from Aristotle's Politics [0]:

διότι δὲ πολιτικὸν ὁ ἄνθρωπος ζῷον πάσης μελίττης καὶ παντὸς ἀγελαίου ζῴου μᾶλλον, δῆλον. οὐθὲν γάρ, ὡς φαμέν, μάτην ἡ φύσις ποιεῖ: λόγον δὲ μόνον ἄνθρωπος ἔχει τῶν ζῴων: ἡ μὲν οὖν φωνὴ τοῦ λυπηροῦ καὶ ἡδέος ἐστὶ σημεῖον, διὸ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ὑπάρχει ζῴοις (μέχρι γὰρ τούτου ἡ φύσις αὐτῶν ἐλήλυθε, τοῦ ἔχειν αἴσθησιν λυπηροῦ καὶ ἡδέος καὶ ταῦτα σημαίνειν ἀλλήλοις), ὁ δὲ λόγος ἐπὶ τῷ δηλοῦν ἐστι τὸ συμφέρον καὶ [15] τὸ βλαβερόν, ὥστε καὶ τὸ δίκαιον καὶ τὸ ἄδικον: τοῦτο γὰρ πρὸς τὰ ἄλλα ζῷα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἴδιον, τὸ μόνον ἀγαθοῦ καὶ κακοῦ καὶ δικαίου καὶ ἀδίκου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων αἴσθησιν ἔχειν: ἡ δὲ τούτων κοινωνία ποιεῖ οἰκίαν καὶ πόλιν.

And why man is a political animal in a greater measure than any bee or any gregarious animal is clear. For nature, as we declare, does nothing without purpose; and man alone of the animals possesses speech. The mere voice, it is true, can indicate pain and pleasure, and therefore is possessed by the other animals as well (for their nature has been developed so far as to have sensations of what is painful and pleasant and to indicate those sensations to one another), but speech is designed to indicate the advantageous and the harmful, and therefore also the right and the wrong; for it is the special property of man in distinction from the other animals that he alone has perception of good and bad and right and wrong and the other moral qualities, and it is partnership in these things that makes a household and a city-state.

[0]http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg...

Re: Hylomorphism

#43

If only hylo-morphism was so simple...I just spent a few months studying the concept, and let me tell you, Aristotle's form/matter distinction is so strange and complex and difficult to "boil down." Really, it takes a close, and very slow reading of the Physics (as well as other Aristotle texts), and a lot of reference to secondary sources, to get a handle on those difficulties. I'm not sure if this is an apt introdu…

Two points. First, I might recommend the Metaphysics before the Physics. Second, I think reading the original Aristotle as a novice and alone is perhaps not the best move. I think it is best to start with a commentary or something more pedagogically suitable. Contemporary expositors like Edward Feser or David Oderberg write lucidly and approachably on the subject (see “Scholastic Metaphysics” and “Real Essentialism”)…

Asking from genuine curiosity: what sort of bad habits did you encounter when reading philosophy?

I can identify with this from analogy: I recently started learning a guitar solo that is probably a couple of steps above my current skill level, and it served to reveal some bad fingering habits I had that never became a problem until I started to push the limits of my playing ability.

Re: Hylomorphism

#44
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah. My first read was that this way of looking at the world sounds object-oriented (an instance of a class being state encapsulated with function). Just goes to show how quickly any philosophy can lead to a schism ;)

Yes: the class is the form; the data values are the matter. A superclass is a genus and a subclass is a species. I have long suspected that the creators of Simula had a grounding in Aristotelian metaphysics.

It is true that particular interpretations of Aristotle have led to the construction of our modern world, and that the text is constantly in tension with the material it is grounded in, and vica versa--like Heidegger's notion of World and Earth in "The Origin of the Work of Art" (a great introduction to Heidegger, if you're curious).

Re: Hylomorphism

#45

The issue I've always had with this kind of reductionist philosophy is that there is a very clear and obvious continuum between "table" and "not table". At no point can everyone clearly agree what is and isn't a table. Sure, most people would agree that an assembled IKEA "LISABO" table is a table. Okay.. what if one of the legs is removed and it is sideways? What if one leg is removed but it is propped up with a pile…

A table is an artificial object. If I’m trying to build a table and a leg breaks, I will replace the broken leg. A natural object like the Old Man of the Mountain isn’t like that. When it broke, nature didn’t care and didn’t “fix” it. Biological organisms are weird because they are in between. Your heart pumps your blood, and if it’s not working, your body tries its best to fix it. It has a function like an artificia…

> A table is an artificial object.

Does it have to be? If a natural rock formation or horizontal tree root with a flat top is used as a table, then it is a table, is it not?

Tables are anything humans use for the purpose of a table.

Their manufacture or lack thereof is immaterial.

Re: Hylomorphism

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A table is an artificial object. If I’m trying to build a table and a leg breaks, I will replace the broken leg. A natural object like the Old Man of the Mountain isn’t like that. When it broke, nature didn’t care and didn’t “fix” it. Biological organisms are weird because they are in between. Your heart pumps your blood, and if it’s not working, your body tries its best to fix it. It has a function like an artificia…

> A table is an artificial object. Does it have to be? If a natural rock formation or horizontal tree root with a flat top is used as a table, then it is a table, is it not? Tables are anything humans use for the purpose of a table. Their manufacture or lack thereof is immaterial.

I agree discovery vs. manufacture isn't that big of distinction. If a rock table was almost fit for purpose, but not quite, you might do something to make it work, or if it's way too different to work as a table, you wouldn't consider it at all. In any event, human intention is taking raw material (trees, rocks that are almost table) and using it according to an intention, and the intention is what makes it a table.

Re: Hylomorphism

#47

It works well for computer science as well. Values have types (forms) and bytes (matter). One type can be instantiated in multiple ways, for example you can have multiple integers, like 1,2,3,4 or the bytes 01000001 can represent different information, like 65 or 'A'. The interesting thing is null, because here the distinction sort of breaks down.

> The interesting thing is null, because here the distinction sort of breaks down.

Kind of like zero, represents "nothing" but also "something", at the same time.

Re: Hylomorphism

#48

If only hylo-morphism was so simple...I just spent a few months studying the concept, and let me tell you, Aristotle's form/matter distinction is so strange and complex and difficult to "boil down." Really, it takes a close, and very slow reading of the Physics (as well as other Aristotle texts), and a lot of reference to secondary sources, to get a handle on those difficulties. I'm not sure if this is an apt introdu…

If it’s so messy and hard to understand, isn’t it maybe simply not Aristotle’s best work? Must we assume that everything he ever wrote was perfect?

Who said it's perfect?

Re: Hylomorphism

#49
post #3

TFA is about philosophy, but the computer science concept is also interesting - composition of recursive functions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism_(computer_scien...

Also: 21 Hylomorphisms and nexuses from Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design: https://dai.fmph.uniba.sk/courses/FPRO/bird_pearls.pdf

Re: Hylomorphism

#50
For reasons that I have difficulty articulating this seems relevant to some intuition I've had in the last several years about matter maintaining "information memory" across time in a way that energy doesn't seem to? I'm not a physicist so I might be totally wrong about that but form to me seems to imply some information that is constant across time?
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