The Nature of Material Beings
By Jim J. McCrea
The traditional Catholic stance on material beings is known as the *hylomorphic doctrine* This states that all physical things consist of prime matter combined with substantial form.
Now this has been dismissed in the modern world as antiquated and medieval in light of modern scientific knowledge. This modern scientific knowledge demonstrates that physical things have subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, and often consist of systems.
We can address this objection by updating the hylomorphic doctrine to take into account modern science. With this, we can start off by saying that matter is a thing's parts, whereas form is the arrangement, distribution and interconnectivity of those parts in three dimensional space. With this, form is something deeper than mere shape.
For example consider a computer. The matter of a computer is its chips of memory, central processor, etc. - and its form is how they are put together. But matter and form have several levels in this. Consider an element of the matter (or part) of a computer: its processor. That processor itself has matter and form. The matter of it is the individual transistors that constitute it (and other things), and its form is the connection and arrangement of all those transistors (with the other things).
Now each transistor has matter and form. Its matter is the silicon, phosphorous, and boron atoms, etc. and its form is how they are arranged and connected in the atomic lattice. We can go deeper and deeper. Atoms consist of electrons, protons, and neutrons, and protons and neutrons consist of quarks.
What if there are more undiscovered levels deeper? What is at the bottom? That would be *prime matter.* What is prime matter? Prime matter is *mere* existence - it merely exists and nothing else. If it were not mere existence and had some attribute in addition to that, it would need form to explain that attribute, which would also have matter, so it would not be at the bottom.
Now prime matter cannot exist on its own. If prime matter is mere existence, there is nothing that is mere existence on its own. It must always be combined with some form to constitute a real physical thing. For it to be real, it must have some attribute. Prime matter is substratum, not a being in itself.
Prime matter cannot be discovered in a particle accelerator for it is not a physical reality that can be scientifically analyzed, but is a *metaphysical* principle. Form itself is a metaphysical principle, for the physical sciences only investigates the matter of things, and what is immediately adjacent to particular items of matter (form is often modeled mathematically, but that model is not the same as the form. The map is not the territory) Form bespeaks of intelligibility which is a transcendental principle. It is a holistic reality that can only be grasped by an intellect.
With this, to ultimately explain physical reality we require metaphysics.
--------
