Posted today on Facebook: Uniformity, Pluriformity, and Virtual Presence

There is a question predominant in the understanding of modern and Aristotelian science, the question of the current understanding of the character and role of substantial form.  While I myself am convinced of its unity against the pluriformists, and of its utility even to modern science, I am, like many others, dissatisfied with some of the lingering dark places left unexplored in general by the modern attempts to adapt the ancient to the modern, and would like to see some discussion by those who are interested in exploring these wonderful realities.  Principally, I am concerned with the need for a greater understanding of "virtual presence" and participation in the application of substantial form to modern science.

The World Outside of Yonkers: Introducing Formal Cause

I have recently been studying the relation of substantial form to modern science in both my Philosophy of Nature and Divine Action classes.  To this end, I recently read Dr. Goyette's "Substantial Form and the Recovery of an Aristotelian Natural Science" (http://www.thomist.org/jour/2002/October/2002%20Oct%20A%20Goyette%20web.htm) and his following article, "St. Thomas on Substantial Unity against the Pluriformists" (http://www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/ti01/goyette.htm).  While Dr. Goyette's arguments were all very well, and even convincing, they have also left a number of people dissatisfied with the state in which the field has been left.  To explain why this is, it is necessary to summarize his arguments a bit, with attention to some particular terminological uses.

Dr. Goyette begins (in "Substantial Form and the Recovery of an Aristotelian Natural Science") by laying out the Thomistic understanding of substantial form with great clarity, and explaining the nature of the difference between accidental and substantial form.  Accidental form is a sort of character of the thing as composed and ordered, but the substantial form is that principle by which the parts are, let alone by which they are ordered.  From the substantial form, we say that the thing is one organism per se; from the accidental form, we say that the thing is one per accidens, as a house is one thing and yet nothing more than the composition and order of the materials.  He then proceeds to defend the concept of substantial form against three modern "scientific" objections:

Objection 1: DNA.  If we are composed of little material-efficient causes which, by their interaction and the information contained within them, construct us into a living being, isn't the doctrine of a metaphysically prior principle unnecessary?  Dr. Goyette argues otherwise, claiming that the information is, first, not reducible to the material (as informative words cannot be reduced to a composition of uninformative sound waves,) and second, left uninterpreted in a materially reductive hypothesis, because words do not interpret themselves, and likewise DNA requires a prior principle of interpretation of a kind different than a material bearer of information.  Moreover, although DNA is potentially expressive in each gene, only some come to be expressed; as a lung, or a heart, or suchlike, even though the same DNA is present in every cell.  Something prior, a principle of order, is needed to determine how the DNA comes to be expressed.

Objection 2: Organ transplants.  We can now keep an organ alive outside the body; that is, outside the participation the organ has in the substantial form of a living human being.  Before this was possible, it is often claimed, this was thought impossible under the doctrine of substantial form; myself, I am inclined to think it was not explored at all, not being a current concern.  That being said, when it came to be known to be possible, substantial form seemed a less likely explanation.  Goyette responds that in fact, since the organ needs to bekept alive, there might be a way in which even organ transplants testify to the understanding of substantial form.  Inside the body, the organ does not require artificial life support, but is sustained in being by being part of a living organism.  Outside, it requires an imitation of the natural system in which the organ is sustained internally in order to maintain it.  Clearly there is some state in which one is aiming to maintain the organ.  Left to itself, the organ quickly decays past this state, just as the transplant, put within a human body, quickly adapts itself into the whole if accepted.  Goyette posits that there are intermediate states between "human" or "living" organs and "dead" organs, such that the organ is a human organ in potency in the state wherein the transplanting agent preserves it.  This state is characterized by the organ being properly disposed to accept the participation in the higher substantial form of a living being.

Objection 3: Formal vs. Mechanical Causality.  If there is already a mechanical explanation, why does there need to be a formal one?  Don't we already have an explanation for how it works?  Dr. Goyette capably answers this by explaining that nature acts in a similar way to art.  If, seeing an artifact, we are compelled to consider the role of the artist in its composition, order and identity as an artifact, we must also understand that complex organisms do not come to be purely by chance.  If something comes to be always or for the most part thus (as in reproduction), and not by some direct artistry on the part of an artist, but by nature, on that account one must posit an explanation in the thing itself whereby the natural organism comes to be thus.  Material configuration cannot explain itself; it answers the how (according to what the thing does) but not the why (the question of how the material became thus "configured.")  Thus we posit the substantial form.

These objections are neat, tidy, and well-refuted, but the difficulty in any refutation is that that by which one refutes it is often itself in need of clarification.  What is substantial form?  Some others, the pluriformists, posited it to be the form of the substance in a hierarchy of governed forms.  Thus, each part has its own substantial form, and each part is changed by being under some higher part which has a more dominant form.  This is not the understanding Goyette expresses, as he makes clear in a second paper on the Unity of Substantial Form.  The second part of the introduction to my question requires a similar explanation of this paper.

Put on Your Sunday Clothes: Against Substantial Form as an Addition Producing Order

The pluriformists, looking at the same things as Dr. Goyette, conclude that there is in fact a multiplicity of forms in the being; the ruler form being the chief form by which we name the whole, "man", and which subordinates the forms of the other things (so that the heart, the lungs, etc all have special substantial forms by which they are what we call them, but are also the heart, lungs, etc of a man) into the divisible totality of the organism.  Goyette provides several objections to this:

Objection A: Being vs. Being Ordered.  The pluriformists claim that a single body can be informed by multiple substantial forms: thus, water is water by the substantial form of water, but part of blood by being ruled by the substantial form of blood.  Yet as Goyette notes, the substantial form of water is that by which the water is, simply, as well as that by which it is water.  To add another substantial form does not give the water being, but this is precisely what a substantial form does.  Thus, Goyette claims, it were better to call it an accidental form, so that water could come to be blood or cease to be blood and still remain water.  But the pluriformists, he claims, disagree on the basis that the form of blood directs and orders the water to a further end (which is, indeed, an act of substantial form).  This does not answer the problem of the water alreadybeing prior to the blood-form ordering it.  What is attributed to the blood-form is rather the character of an efficient or moving cause, by which something already having being comes to be changed to some ordered state accidentally.  Thus, the soul (being even more distant from the being of the parts) is not the formal cause but the ultimate efficient mover of the human being, intermediated from the parts by several degrees of lesser moved movers, the ultimate form of "substance" being that by which any part (and thus the whole) has being.  Thus, that by which "such-and-such" a thing is simply becomes not the form of "such-and-such" a thing (as Aristotle postulated rather sensibly, that by which a man is a man is the substantial form of "man") but the form of "thingness most basic", either matter itself considered as a thing (bad) or matter to which the most elemental form (whatever that means) is added; the form, I suppose, of "substance" said exclusively.

The soul thus has only the character of an efficient cause or mover.  Yet when the form of man departs, as Goyette notes, the parts begin to corrupt and decay and the thing ceases to be a man; so in the first place, the form of man seems to be prior in being to the form of the parts, not posterior.  The problem of organ transplant does not really present a problem according to the reasoning in Objection 2 above; the form of the organ may be understood as transitional.  The most difficult objection to address, really, and the cause of this note, is the question of how every part of the being has its form from the whole.  After all, it's easy enough to see it from the organs, but our bodies are 70 percent or so composed of water, which is water outside as well as in (at least in some manner.)  Goyette admits this, and claims something remarkable from the writings of St. Thomas, namely that the higher form ("man", in the example) contains "virtually" all the perfections of the lower forms that constitute his parts taken separately, and accordingly these things keep their character without requiring unique substantial forms.  As far as this goes, it saves the appearances; but pluriformism still seems possible, if not hylomorphic, so that Goyette educes three further objections to pluriformism as it seems to oppose the empirical evidence from which it was prompted.

Objection B:  Sensing Our Own Unity.  We sense that we, body and soul, are one thing, intrinsically and empirically.  It is difficult to empirically posit a living body distinct from the soul, or vice versa.  Yet if we are in fact an incredibly multiple series of movers, we are not one thing, even in species, but a composition of many things different in both species and number, unified only by a tenuous ruling form, governing through many ministers.  In this way, that by which we are human is the least of all, according to being that by which we leastare, while at the same time that by which all the parts are somehow ordered to what is best; moreover, form being recast as a mover requires us to educe some other principle of being simply in the thing, which posits a dualism.

Objection C:  Immaterial Being and Immortality of Form.  If our form is thus given its own being as a mover, it must have being distinct from what is moved (because, as Aristotle proves, there can be no self-mover; moreover, if there was, one must deny the First Way of St. Thomas, which requires great trepidation indeed!)  Yet if the form exists distinctly as mover of the whole, it must be distinct from the matter moved, and thus immaterially existing, and thus immortal, as matter is the principle of corruption of the hylomorphic subject.  Thus, the human being comes to be composed of a magnificent multiplicity of immortal forms, and not one immortal soul.

Objection D:  Nature Follows Intrinsicality of Form.  If our form is recast as an extrinsic mover, there is no nature of the thing itself, but only the nature of substance to which nothing is added, or some substantial recharacterization of prime matter, which is then sculpted into the character of this thing by a multiplicity of efficient causes acting in hierarchy; "all things are full of gods."  But we believe and empirically experience the nature of the thing to be intrinsic to the thing, so that this ought to give us pause. 

Now, each of these convince me well enough.  This is not the matter of the question, as such, but an introduction.  So here's my question:

What the heck is virtual presence of lower forms?!

Define Dancing: introit quaestio

Some time back, in TAC's Sophomore Lab program, whilst studying atomic theory and the philosophical foundations thereof, we students were given an article by Dr. Christopher Decaen entitled Elemental Virtual Presence in St. Thomas.  (http://www.thomist.org/jour/2000/April/2000%20Apr%20A%20Decaen.htm)  This article made some inroads into discussing the character of the virtual presence of elements in the composition thereof, and I think it will prove helpful in seeking an answer to the mysterious character of the participation virtually of the lower forms in the substantial form of the organism.  Here, I suppose, I'll give my thoughts on the matter, but I must warn you, dear readers, that the article is in some respects almost as confusing to me as Mr. Sean Collins' force paper (which, intriguingly enough, may rear its head in this very discussion, if the enormous importance of virtual presence is as important as I think it is); and like the force paper, this is not for its being badly written (it is written as well as one might hope such a thing to be written) but for the subject itself being so far from ready understanding.  A sign of this is the headache it regularly gives me when I try and define the "powers" of an element in composition, the difficulty of the element not being regarded as substantially actually present when the very bonding of "this substance" to "that substance" in a structural order produced "this other substance", and so forth.  But here's my hazarding of a guess on how the elemental virtuality gives us an understanding of virtual presence of the lower forms.

Decaen argues that since the distinction between potency and act is indeed exhaustive for St. Thomas, and the elements are not in act, they must be, at root, in a kind of potential existence.  Yet this is not pure potentiality, because prime matter has potentiality to every form, not just that of the elements said to be virtually present.  It is rather (on the side of potency) the potential presence of the substantial forms of the elements.  But there is also an actuality present, the presence of the accidents (namely, "anything that is not the primary substance or its substantial form"), and not just as they are in the elements (because if so the new element would be both hot and cold at the same time, or suchlike in theory) but as they reach a mean according to their proportion in the mixture.

This bears a striking similarity to our picture of the human person.  Within the human, there are various organs, the form of which we take to be the substantial form of the whole human.  Yet they clearly have their own shape and function, which led the pluriformists to propose the seemingly obvious idea that they have their own substantial forms, and which led Thomas to refute them with virtual presence.  Likewise, we now look at the individual water molecule and discover, in an electrical dance, the component elements, seemingly existing as a system bonded in its parts.  We are thus expected to say, just as Thomas said of the form of "man" and the presence of the lower forms of his organs, that hydrogen and oxygen have a virtual presence in water, while nevertheless having only potential presence of the substantial form.  Looking at them, though, we feel a certain sympathy for the pluriformists, because, well, look at it!  It's hydrogen, and oxygen, isn't it?  Totality in the organism seems mystical when you have the guts laid out upon the table.

The situation only gets odder as one moves down to quarks, as it happens.  I do not feel qualified to undertake that particular investigation (...yet) but I imagine it would follow in a similar way, quarks being more elemental than hydrogen and oxygen.  What happens when one moves up, though?  The elements become part of bodies, lower forms virtually present in a larger combination with various emergent qualities and such.  These in turn become part of a vegetative animal, and so on.  This is laid out explicitly in the Summa Contra Gentiles, III, 22:

As we said, since any moved thing, inasmuch as it is moved, tends to the divine likeness so that it may be perfected in itself, and since a thing is perfect in so far as it is actualized, the intention of everything existing in potency must be to tend through motion toward actuality. And so, the more posterior and more perfect an act is, the more fundamentally is the inclination of matter directed toward it. Hence. in regard to the last and most perfect act that matter can attain, the inclination of matter whereby it desires form must be inclined as toward the ultimate end of generation. Now, among the acts pertaining to forms, certain gradations are found. Thus, prime matter is in potency, first of all, to the form of an element. When it is existing under the form of an element it is in potency to the form of a mixed body; that is why the elements are matter for the mixed body. Considered under the form of a mixed body, it is in potency to a vegetative soul, for this sort of soul is the act of a body. In turn, the vegetative soul is in potency to a sensitive soul, and a sensitive one to an intellectual one. This the process of generation shows: at the start of generation there is the embryo living with plant life, later with animal life, and finally with human life. After this last type of form, no later and more noble form is found in the order of generable and corruptible things. Therefore, the ultimate end of the whole process of generation is the human soul, and matter tends toward it as toward an ultimate form. So, elements exist for the sake of mixed bodies; these latter exist for the sake of living bodies, among which plants exist for animals, and animals for men. Therefore, man is the end of the whole order of generation.

Wondrous as this map is, it has still more wondrous implications when one considers the subject; virtual presence becomes fundamental to the understanding of the entire order of creation.  To clarify:

The lower elements are virtually present in the mixed bodies.

The mixed bodies are virtually present in the animals having lower souls.

The lower souls are virtually present in the souls of the higher animals.

Man is the highest animal.

Simply put, virtual presence is fundamental, not just to the understanding of the elements, but of the participation of all created reality in Providence; to the ultimate end of each sort of living thing as that sort of living thing up to man; and who knows what theological significance it has.  I can only wonder at what role it has in the Beatific Vision, when man enters into the unio caritatis with the very highest order of being, God Himself, the Wisdom who laid the foundations of the universe in measure, and number, and weight.  I think it pretty important to understand, from a philosophical and theological point of view; but it is also the place of great contention, as Dr. Decaen stated in his paper, and a better understanding of the relation of virtual presence and empirical science is not just useful, but crucial to understanding both nature and divine action.

Any thoughts on virtual presence or what I've written here?  There could be a paper in this.