Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Hylomorphism
/ˌhaɪloʊˈmɔːrfɪzəm/noun
The Aristotelian doctrine that every physical thing is a compound of matter and form.
The Greek roots
ὕλη
hýlē
wood, matter
μορφή
morphḗ
form, shape
Literally: “matter-form”
The story of the word
Aristotle's word for matter was ὕλη, which in ordinary Greek meant timber, woodland, the stuff stacked in a carpenter's yard. The metaphor is a workshop one throughout: bronze is the matter, the shape of the statue is the form, and neither exists on its own. The name of the doctrine is a nineteenth-century scholastic coinage, not Aristotle's own, and Thomas Aquinas used the idea centuries before anyone had the label.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Scholastic Latin → English
- First recorded
- late 19th century
Same family
hylozoismmorphologyamorphousmetamorphosis
In a sentence
On a hylomorphic account the soul is not a passenger in the body but its form.