Unity of Corporeal Substance: The Study of an Aristotelean Challenge

This paper focuses on a challenge rooted in Aristotle’s writings on the truth of corporeal substance. On the one hand, body as substance is always concomitant with a kind of ontological priority. Therefore, the unity of corporeal substance is prior to the unity of matter and form. On the other hand, Aristotle’s perception of the truth of change necessitates that matter, as one of the components of body, remains fixed in the process of change in order to preserve the unity of change. Thus, corporeal substance consists of matter and form, is posterior to them, and depends on them. The response to this problem, which is called the “paradox of unity”, is formulated in two traditional and new molds of interpretation. The present study initially reviews the main elements of these two interpretations and then, through distinguishing between the two types of unity, namely vertical and horizontal, demonstrates that the traditional interpretation is incapable of explaining the vertical unity of matter and form. It also stipulates that the new interpretation is insufficient for clarifying horizontal unity. Finally, the authors provide a unitary interpretation of the synthesis of matter and form, as a third response to this question, which explains both horizontal and vertical forms of unity free from previous problems.