12/22/12

December 22, 2011 at 10:01 am (Uncategorized)

One permanent value to hylomorphism is in the sort of composition it articulates about the world. The existence or unity of what is given in experience must be reduced to heterogeneous parts. The first articulation of these heterogeneous parts (in Plato) is taken from their relation to an intellect: there is something intelligible in things and something divided from this. The part that is not intelligible, however, appears to be only unintelligible to us and not in itself, and so this yields a serious blow to the division as a division made on the part of things. We can only call matter unintelligible in the way a deer can call bright orange invisible. It is more a statement about our limitations than a statement about things.

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