Book contents
- Aristotle on Matter, Form, and Moving Causes
- Aristotle on Matter, Form, and Moving Causes
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations of Aristotle’s Works
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Preliminary Puzzles
- Chapter 2 The Hylomorphic Model of Substantial Generation: Physics I
- Chapter 3 Substantial versus Non-Substantial Change: GC I 1–4
- Chapter 4 The Extended Hylomorphic Model: GC II 9
- Chapter 5 Biological Generation: Part One
- Chapter 6 Biological Generation: Part Two
- Chapter 7 The Efficient Cause of Animal Generation
- Chapter 8 The Architectonic Model
- Chapter 9 The Cosmological Significance of Substantial Generation
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Subject Index
Chapter 8 - The Architectonic Model
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2019
- Aristotle on Matter, Form, and Moving Causes
- Aristotle on Matter, Form, and Moving Causes
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations of Aristotle’s Works
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Preliminary Puzzles
- Chapter 2 The Hylomorphic Model of Substantial Generation: Physics I
- Chapter 3 Substantial versus Non-Substantial Change: GC I 1–4
- Chapter 4 The Extended Hylomorphic Model: GC II 9
- Chapter 5 Biological Generation: Part One
- Chapter 6 Biological Generation: Part Two
- Chapter 7 The Efficient Cause of Animal Generation
- Chapter 8 The Architectonic Model
- Chapter 9 The Cosmological Significance of Substantial Generation
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Subject Index
Summary
The seeds of an answer to the question raised at the end of Chapter 7 – how do formal and material natures interact in the creation of a new substantial individual? – have already been sown inChapter 4 in connection with GC II 9. On the reading I defended there, while Aristotle agrees with those more sophisticated materialists who regard natural generation as the effect of the simple bodies and their inherent powers, he ultimately rejects their account on the grounds that the powers they give them are too instrumental (lian organikas) to serve as primary causes of the change (336a1–12). But Aristotle’s positive account in GC II 9 remains undeveloped in two important respects. First, he says very little about the nature of the efficient cause that was ‘vaguely dreamed of’ by all his predecessors but ‘definitely stated’ by none of them (335b7–8).
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- Information
- Aristotle on Matter, Form, and Moving CausesThe Hylomorphic Theory of Substantial Generation, pp. 162 - 195Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019