Prime matter

See the discussion of Khunrath s theosophy in Szulakowska, The Alchemy of Light (2000), 79-137. Christ, the Ruah-Elohim, became the Paracelsian azoth. See Heinrich Khunrath, Vom Hylealischen das ist pri-matmalischen oder algerminen naturlichen Chaos (Magdeburg J. Schmeidt for Johann Francken, 1616), 75, 86-88. Christ is also identified with the Paracelsian Salt, the prime matter of creation. 

Towering above all his other sources was Paracelsus who provided Fludd with the account of the origins of the material and spiritual universe from within God s own Being. In the Phibsophia ad Athenienses he had explained how God had originally separated the elements from each other in the manner of an alchemist. Out of insubstantial prime matter there had emerged the four proto-elements ... 

Debus, Chemical Phihsophy (1977), 1, 51-61. An important study of Paracelsianism is Walter Pagel and Marianne Winder, The Higher Elements and Prime Matter in Renaissance Naturalism and in Paracelsus, Ambix, 21 (1974) 93 ff. 

Hermes ploughs the seeds of gold into the prime matter, Alchemical Miscellany, London British Library Sloane 1316, folio 6r (early 17th century). With the permission of the British... 

Pagel, Walter and Marianne Winder. The higher elements and prime matter in renaissance naturalism and in Paracelsus. Ambix 21, no. 2-3 (Jul-Nov 1974) 93-127. 

Mahdihassan, S. The earliest concept of Prime Matter in alchemy. Studs Hist Med 8, no. 3-4(1984) 135-141. 

Mahdihassan, S. "Prime matter and ferment-gold." In Essays in the history of alchemy, medicine and drugs, ed. S. Mahdihassan, 39-. Hamdard Foundation, 1982. 

As shall become apparent in chapter 4,1 do not think that prime matter... 

Thesis I finds support in Aristotle s division of substance in book XU of die Metaphysics. Thesis II comes direedy from Aristode s discussion of the category of quantity in the Metaphysics. Thesis III comes direedy from Aristode s discussion of change in the Physics. Thesis IV comes from Aristode s claim that form is a principle of motion. Thesis V comes from Aristode s views that composite substances have forms and that bodies in the category of substance are composites. Thesis VI is, of all the theses, the most controversial In fact, I shall reject it in chapter 4. Nonetheless, as shall become apparent there, the connection between prime matter and extension is sufficiendy intimate that the above solution to the body problem can easily be altered in order to accommodate what is the correct understanding of prime matter. Finally, thesis VII emerges from an examination of Aristode s understanding of the qua locution. 

To deny that the elemental contraries enform matter is to deny the existence of prime matter. Among those who have denied that Aristotle thinks there is prime matter are H.R. King, "Aristode Without Prime Matter,"Journal of the History of Ideas 17 (1956) 370-89 W Charlton, Aristotle s Physics Books I-II (Oxford, 1970) Barrington Jones, "Aristode s Introduction of Matter," Philosophical Review 83 (1974) 474-500 M. Schofield, Metaph. 

Sokolowski bases his interpretation of prime matter on two passages. In Metaphysics VII 3, Aristotle performs a thought experiment in which he mentally strips away all qualitative and quantitative determinations of an object. What remains, he claims, is matter that is capable of receiving attributes accidentally but possesses none of the attributes in itself. Aristode says ... 

First of all, it is difficult to see what extension might be. Several philosophers have appealed to the notion, but without some robust characterization of the sort I shall give, such an appeal can appear to lack much content. Second, the account of extension I shall give provides a perspicuous way of understanding not only Aristode s conception of the spatiality of material objects but also how he might have understood various phenomena associated with spatial motion. Finally, and most importandy, my account of Aristotelian extension will prepare the way for some speculations I make in the final section about the nature of prime matter as distinct from but importandy related to extension. 

I have argued that Aristode had the concept of extension, that one can characterize extension mathematically and that the resulting theory fits easily into a hylomorphic ontology. I have not yet addressed, however, the question as to the nature of prime matter. In particular, I have not addressed whether prime matter is, as Sokolowski claims, extension. Now, it is difficult to provide much textual support for such an identification. As is well known, many scholars think that Aristodes texts do not support even attributing to Aristode the view that there is any more remote matter than the elements. I disagree with such scholars but am nonetheless willing to admit that Aristotle s texts cannot provide much support for any theory about the nature of prime matter. 

It is not so obvious, however, that prime matter could not be in itself F in the second sense. One might argue, for instance, that it is the proper subject of those relations that are constitutive of extension. After all, prime matter does serve as the matter for such formal features. Despite this possibility, however, there are reasons to deny that prime matter is in itself F even in this second sense. These reasons stem from the way in which prime matter could be a subject of properties. 

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