1. Aristotelian/Thomistic metaphysics does indeed affirm matter as passive, since all matter is in potency to the active principle of form which determines the kind of being the substance is (hence prime matter). This is why, at death, the body is merely left in accidental local contact since there is no unifying principle (form) to organize the body into a functional unity. If the body is not passive but active, it wouldn't necessarily need a soul to subsist and function on its own.
2. You say the soul doesn't sense, supposedly because it doesn't have sensory organs like the body (through which it provides sensory data to the soul). But isn't the soul then the subject of that sensory data and what has the experiences of the color red, for example? It would be strange to say "my cerebral cortex sees red" as opposed to "I see red". The subject "I" refers to what is having the experience (my soul), which isn't a part of me, but is me. If my arm has a tattoo, then I have a tattoo, and I have a tattoo because my arm has a tattoo. If my soul has a pain, then I have a pain and I have a pain because my soul has a pain. There is nothing strange about this. Also, the experience of material sense data seems to entail that there is something to see, or something to smell, etc. My sense faculty could essentially be immaterial and my perception of material sense data could be accidental to that faculty. It actually makes more sense to say that my body senses in some derivate sense. It's like saying "the car made a noise" when in fact the horn was what really made the noise. The car (body) made a noise in virtue of some part (soul). Aquinas himself believes the soul is a substance (that is, it's a subsistent of that which exists in itself and not in another). He claims that when the soul is separated from the body, it possesses only an incomplete nature. I believe the idea of a substance having an incomplete nature is unintelligible and actually Aquinas is somewhat of a substance dualist. It seems that my soul is what has the functional unity and irreducible property (mainly consciousness) which my body doesn't have in an essential way. I'm an organism in an accidental sense, but in a numerical sense, I am my soul. Anything predicated of me can easily be predicted of my soul.
3. It's not clear why or how hylomorphism solves the mind body problem (if one is inclined to think it's even a problem in the first place). The traditional Cartesian substance dualist answer is that the soul affects the body and vice versa through a basic causal relation, no mechanism, just direct efficient causation. St. Thomas also concedes something similar to this in the First Part, Article 75, Reply to Objection 3 of the Summa Theologiae: "There are two kinds of contact; of quantity, and of power. By the former, a body can be touched only by a body; by the latter a body can be touched by an incorporeal thing, which moves that body". If one believes in causation, then at some point, mechanisms just run out and causation just simply occurs, no medium or mechanism involved (quantum mechanics shows us this). Soul (or mind)/body interaction is efficient causation by definition. Mental events bring about physical events and vice versa. Saying that the formal cause of the material body is what explains this doesn't seem to help. If I have the mental event of being nervous, and that mental event causes a physical change (I begin to sweat), then is this event the form of anything in my body? It seems to be answering the wrong question.
1) Yes, prime matter is passive. You are right. Leclerc refers to "body" not "matter" as passive. I made a correction as follows. I changed the word "matter" to "body" in this sentence and others, "Where is matter in this scheme?"
2) I added the word "completely" here: "The significant step here is that sensation is not a bodily function but completely an act of the soul in which the bodily configuration forces itself on and affects the soul." Leclerc's point here is that these seventeenth century thinkers did, erroneously, cast the soul as sensing completely separate from any bodily unity. He does not deny that anything predicated of the subject is predicated of the whole subject.
3) This one is tougher. In ST I, Q. 75, A. 1, reply to obj. 3, Aquinas argues that the soul is not a body. He responds to this argument:
Between the mover and the moved there must be contact.
Contact is only between bodies.
The soul moves the body.
Therefore, it seems that the soul must be a body.
He says the argument is invalid because there are equivocal uses of the term "contact." Contact can be by quantity or by power. The above argument holds for quantitative body-to-body contact. But contact by something incorporeal cannot be that kind of contact. The kind of contact in that case is "by power." In other words, the above argument is circular using the wrong term. He goes on in Q. 76-81 to discuss those powers.
Two notes: In any case, matter does and will, become a corrupting force. The kitchen analogy does and will, leave out the fact that the chef's (not inert) matter, is used to make poison. These seem to
be irreconcilable with Form. Great clarity navigating the essay's complexity.
https://open.substack.com/pub/codebanthe/p/1092-this-world-is-a-layer-of-the?r=5iv1v0&utm_medium=ios
A couple thoughts:
1. Aristotelian/Thomistic metaphysics does indeed affirm matter as passive, since all matter is in potency to the active principle of form which determines the kind of being the substance is (hence prime matter). This is why, at death, the body is merely left in accidental local contact since there is no unifying principle (form) to organize the body into a functional unity. If the body is not passive but active, it wouldn't necessarily need a soul to subsist and function on its own.
2. You say the soul doesn't sense, supposedly because it doesn't have sensory organs like the body (through which it provides sensory data to the soul). But isn't the soul then the subject of that sensory data and what has the experiences of the color red, for example? It would be strange to say "my cerebral cortex sees red" as opposed to "I see red". The subject "I" refers to what is having the experience (my soul), which isn't a part of me, but is me. If my arm has a tattoo, then I have a tattoo, and I have a tattoo because my arm has a tattoo. If my soul has a pain, then I have a pain and I have a pain because my soul has a pain. There is nothing strange about this. Also, the experience of material sense data seems to entail that there is something to see, or something to smell, etc. My sense faculty could essentially be immaterial and my perception of material sense data could be accidental to that faculty. It actually makes more sense to say that my body senses in some derivate sense. It's like saying "the car made a noise" when in fact the horn was what really made the noise. The car (body) made a noise in virtue of some part (soul). Aquinas himself believes the soul is a substance (that is, it's a subsistent of that which exists in itself and not in another). He claims that when the soul is separated from the body, it possesses only an incomplete nature. I believe the idea of a substance having an incomplete nature is unintelligible and actually Aquinas is somewhat of a substance dualist. It seems that my soul is what has the functional unity and irreducible property (mainly consciousness) which my body doesn't have in an essential way. I'm an organism in an accidental sense, but in a numerical sense, I am my soul. Anything predicated of me can easily be predicted of my soul.
3. It's not clear why or how hylomorphism solves the mind body problem (if one is inclined to think it's even a problem in the first place). The traditional Cartesian substance dualist answer is that the soul affects the body and vice versa through a basic causal relation, no mechanism, just direct efficient causation. St. Thomas also concedes something similar to this in the First Part, Article 75, Reply to Objection 3 of the Summa Theologiae: "There are two kinds of contact; of quantity, and of power. By the former, a body can be touched only by a body; by the latter a body can be touched by an incorporeal thing, which moves that body". If one believes in causation, then at some point, mechanisms just run out and causation just simply occurs, no medium or mechanism involved (quantum mechanics shows us this). Soul (or mind)/body interaction is efficient causation by definition. Mental events bring about physical events and vice versa. Saying that the formal cause of the material body is what explains this doesn't seem to help. If I have the mental event of being nervous, and that mental event causes a physical change (I begin to sweat), then is this event the form of anything in my body? It seems to be answering the wrong question.
Thank you!
1) Yes, prime matter is passive. You are right. Leclerc refers to "body" not "matter" as passive. I made a correction as follows. I changed the word "matter" to "body" in this sentence and others, "Where is matter in this scheme?"
2) I added the word "completely" here: "The significant step here is that sensation is not a bodily function but completely an act of the soul in which the bodily configuration forces itself on and affects the soul." Leclerc's point here is that these seventeenth century thinkers did, erroneously, cast the soul as sensing completely separate from any bodily unity. He does not deny that anything predicated of the subject is predicated of the whole subject.
3) This one is tougher. In ST I, Q. 75, A. 1, reply to obj. 3, Aquinas argues that the soul is not a body. He responds to this argument:
Between the mover and the moved there must be contact.
Contact is only between bodies.
The soul moves the body.
Therefore, it seems that the soul must be a body.
He says the argument is invalid because there are equivocal uses of the term "contact." Contact can be by quantity or by power. The above argument holds for quantitative body-to-body contact. But contact by something incorporeal cannot be that kind of contact. The kind of contact in that case is "by power." In other words, the above argument is circular using the wrong term. He goes on in Q. 76-81 to discuss those powers.
Two notes: In any case, matter does and will, become a corrupting force. The kitchen analogy does and will, leave out the fact that the chef's (not inert) matter, is used to make poison. These seem to
be irreconcilable with Form. Great clarity navigating the essay's complexity.
Yes, that is the bane of science.