FORM

From the Latin forma, a term signifying figure or shape or "that which is seen" (Gr. ε[symbol omitted]δος) and having many derived meanings, such as kind, nature, and species. In early philosophical usage it came to signify the intrinsic determinant of quantity from which figure or shape results, and then to mean the intrinsic determinant of anything that is determinable. Thus the term is employed in such expressions as "form of contract," "form of worship," and "form of a Sacrament." In its stricter philosophical usage, however, it is limited to signifying the intrinsic principle of existence in any determinate essence, a definition that applies to both accidental and substantial form. In a further extended usage, every species or nature, whether in itself material or existent as immaterial, is called a form, although it may not be strictly a formal principle. In this manner it is not unusual to speak of the angelic form, or even of the form of God, as signifying the nature or essence of the angel, or of God. Hence, form is sometimes used as a synonym for essence or nature. Similarly, the formal cause, in Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy, is frequently identified with the essence (τὸ τί [symbol omitted]ν ε[symbol omitted]ναι), as that in virtue of which the essence, even of material and composite entities, is precisely what it is.

This article is concerned primarily with the philosophical significance of the term form and treats this in two parts: the first presents a history of the development of the concept of form; the second, a systematic analysis of the concept from the viewpoint of scholastic philosophy.

History of the Concept of Form

This survey (taken mainly from F. Aveling's earlier one) first enumerates the kinds of form discussed by philosophers; the development of these kinds is then traced through the Greek, medieval, modern, and contemporary periods.

Kinds of Form. The various kinds of form recognized in philosophy include the following. Substantial form, in material entities, is what determines or actuates primary matter to become a specific substantial nature or essence, as the form of hydrogen, of horse, or of man (see matter and form). It is defined by aristotle as the first entelechy of a physical body, and it may be such that it is merely the determinant of matter, in which case it is called a corporeal substantial form, or it may exceed, as it were, the potentiality of matter, in which case it is called a spiritual or subsistent form. Accidental form is what determines a substance to one or other of the accidental modes, such as quantified, qualified, relationed, etc. (see categories of being). As the existence of an accident is an inexistence, or one of inherence in an existent subject, it always connotes a subject of inherence. A separated form is one that exists apart from the matter it actuates. No accidental form can thus be separated, nor can corporeal substantial forms. The form of man, the human soul, becomes a separated form at death. An accidental form, because it modifies and determines substance, is sometimes referred to as an inhering form. The term is employed to emphasize the distinction of accidental from substantial forms. These latter do not inhere in matter, but are coprinciples with it in the constitution of material substances.

Forms of knowledge, according to I. kant, are forms of (1) intuition, viz, space and time, and (2) thought, viz, the 12 categories by which all judgments are conditioned: unity, plurality, totality; reality, negation, limitation; substantiality, causality, relation; possibility, existence, and necessity. All of these are a priori forms and under them, as content, fall all of humanity's intuitions and judgments.

Greek Thought. The doctrine of form in Greek philosophy made its first appearance with plato. While not denying that the things of ordinary experience possess something like form, Plato turned his primary attention to the exemplars that corporeal shapes or forms might imitate. This led him to postulate the existence of a world of Forms or Ideas that subsist in themselves and are the immutable objects of man's highest knowledge. (For the historical development of this Platonic conception, see idea.) Plato's doctrine was criticized by his student, Aristotle, particularly on the point of the separate existence of Forms. For Aristotle, forms exist, but they exist in matter. The Aristotelian doctrine of forms stems from the notion of substance, and particularly from that of material substance as composed of matter and form. In some texts Aristotle identifies form with essence, and this because substance is what it is essentially by reason of the substantial form; it would be a mistake, nonetheless, to suppose that his doctrine leaves no room for a distinction between the two.

Medieval Thought. The Aristotelian distinction between matter and form, and its more basic formulation in the doctrine of potency and act, is central in the philosophy and theology of St. thomas aquinas, the principal spokesman for medieval scholasticism. For him, substantial form is an act, the principle of activity, and that by which things actually exist (Summa theologiae 1a, 66.1–2). Moreover, it is one. Thus man exists as man, in virtue of his substantial form, otherwise known as the human soul (see soul, human). That the rational soul is the unique form of the body is also of faith [H. Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, ed. A. Schönmetzer (Freiburg 1963) 900, 902, 1440, 2828]. Man is learned or healthy in virtue of the accidental forms of learning or health that inhere in him; these may be present or absent without detriment to his humanity. Both kinds of form, it may be noted, are individuated by something extrinsic to themselves: substantial forms by quantified matter, and accidental forms by their subject of inherence (see individuation). The incorporeal subsistent form of man, though continuing to exist when separated from the body, retains its relationship to the matter by which it was individuated.

This doctrine is common to most scholastics, but it should be noted that duns scotus and others taught, in opposition to St. Thomas's doctrine of one substantial form, a plurality of forms in individuals. Thus, while according to Aquinas man is all that he is substantially (corporeal, animal, rational, Socrates) in virtue of his one soul, according to Scotus each determination (generic or specific) adds a new form to man. In this way, man would be corporeal in virtue of a corporeal form, animal in virtue of a superadded animal form, etc., until he becomes Socrates in virtue of his ultimate personal form (Socrateitas ). william of ockham also distinguished between a rational and a sensitive soul in man, and taught that the latter is corruptible. (see forms, unicity and plurality of.)

Modern Thought. The principal alternative systems in the modern period that profess to give an account of corporeal substances are those of Descartes, Locke, Mill, and the materialists. R. descartes placed the essence of bodies in extension in three dimensions, thus identifying quantified substance with quantity and in no way accounting for substantial differences. Each substance possesses a "preeminent attribute, which constitutes its nature and essence and to which all others relate." To this J. locke added the qualities of substance, making its essence consist of its primary qualities or properties (extension, figure and mobility, divisibility and activity). Locke regarded substantial form as "wholly unintelligible," maintaining that the search for this and like entities is fruitless. J. S. mill, considering substance from a psychological rather than from an ontological viewpoint, defined it by its relation to sense perception as an external and permanent possibility of human sensations. Akin to this is the doctrine of many materialists and positivists, who attempt to explain the nature of matter or substance as a series of sensations. All of these theories, as well as that of Kant mentioned above and those of the idealists, are strongly influenced by the epistemologies of their proponents (see knowledge, theories of; quality).

Contemporary Thought. In recent philosophy the term form rarely occurs, and the issues concerning the relationships between matter and form are no longer argued, the term matter being generally used without reference to form. Yet the problems that have traditionally been solved in terms of matter and form continue to be discussed. Examples are the problem of the one and the many, that of the universal and the particular, and that of the changeable and the changeless. These are discussed by thinkers such as W. james and H. bergson,J. Dewey and G. santayana, and A. N. whitehead and B. russell. An occasional approximation to earlier thought is found in expressions such as the "eternal objects" of Whitehead or the "realm of essence" of Santayana. Although not explicitly stated, therefore, the problem of form and its meaning still lies dormant in contemporary thought.

Bibliography: f. aveling, The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. c.g. herbermann et al., 6:137–39 (New York 1907–14; suppl.1922). m. j. adler, ed., The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World, 1:526–542 (Chicago 1952); v.2, 3 of Great Books of the Western World. f. c. copleston, History of Philosophy (Westminster, Md., 1946–). a. carlini, Enciclopedia filosofica, 2:477–492 (Venice-Rome 1957). a. michel, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 6.1:541–588 (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951–). j. b. lotz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 4:203–205 (2d new ed. Freiburg 1957–65). r. eisler, Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe, 1:436–443 (4th ed. Berlin 1927–30). r. p. phillips, Modern Thomistic Philosophy, 2 v. (Westminster, Md. 1934; repr.1945). e. j. watkin, A Philosophy of Form (New York 1935).

[w. a. wallace]

Systematic Analysis

Form is the term commonly used to designate the determinate aspects humans apprehend in things. This part of the article investigates such a notion of form systematically, treating of quantitative form, qualitative form, and intelligible form, and concluding with an analysis of the concept of formal causality.

Quantitative Form. The shape of a triangular bar and the shape of a square desk top are quantitative forms. They are configurations of actual matter that are definite down to the minutest detail; that is, they are determinate. They must be the shapes of actual things, for otherwise they would not exist independently of thought; yet the kind of stuff of which they are quantitative forms is quite irrelevant to human understanding of them as such forms. Thus triangularity and squareness are abstract, and this in two ways: they leave out of consideration all possible materials that can be formed triangularly or squarely, and they also omit all deviations from actual straightness that occur in attempts to produce perfectly triangular or square surfaces in matter. This twofold abstractness results from the omission of all features that are irrelevant to understanding what it is to be triangular and what it is to be square. Thus does the human understanding apprehend some determinate aspect of the thing understood; this exists in the mind not with the properties of a physical existent but with the abstractness of an act of under-standing. By contrast, the things that do exist in a physical way are determinate in every detail. Consequently, they are only approximations to their idealized quantitative aspects.

Some of the quantitative forms humans apprehend in nature can serve as models for forms engendered by him in matter when he produces artifacts. Thus a table top that is approximately square has been formed by man in accordance with a model made on paper or one existing only in his imagination. The model possesses the determinate form called squareness just as truly as does the actual table; however, its manner of existence is different, and so is its degree of approximation to the idealized squareness known through understanding. Thus one and the same formality (form considered abstractly as that by which something is determinate) can exist actually in matter, or representationally in the imagination, or meaningfully in the understanding.

Number and Measurement. A similar analysis holds for the quantitative form called number, which is used in a practical way to signify groupings of things; here, however, the imagined groupings and one's understanding of them can be exact replicas of actual physical multiplicities. This is so because numbers are more abstract than abstract shapes. Consequently, for numerical distinction any one means of identifying units suffices; the determinate aspects of their actual configurations can be left out of consideration.

In general the term quantitative form refers to any static or dynamic aspect of extension that can be considered in itself or as an actual aspect of things found in nature. The determinate aspects of such extension can be known with great precision by measurement.

Form and Matter. The determinate is contrasted with the determinable, that is, with what is capable of being formed in some manner. This latter is called matter or substrate; it designates what is formed and what remains when one form replaces another. The wood of a table about to be built is determinate as wood; nevertheless it is further determinable, since an arrangement of parts can be introduced into a pile of wood to form a table. When the wood has received these determinations, however, it is still receptive to further ones: it can be arranged, for example, as part of a room ensemble, or the table can be disassembled and the wood formed into some entirely different thing. Because the receiver of these new determinations is merely physical, and in no way cognitive, a new determination is acquired in each instance only at the expense of a previously existing one. This is so because a form that is actually present in a substrate forms the substrate determinately and thereby excludes other similar forms. Any one form must cease to be present actually when a contrary form replaces it.

The forms that result from the arrangement of parts presuppose the existence of parts, which are themselves determinate and further determinable. Consequently, the term quantitative form applies universally to the extended aspects of the most basic parts of material being as well as to the largest and most complex system of parts. But it is by the latter type of quantitative form that one customarily distinguishes kinds of living things. The same criterion is commonly used in the sciences of botany and zoology, and even paleontology, which primarily studies traces of the quantitative forms of living things preserved in the earth's crust. (see quantity.)

Qualitative Form. Inseparable from the quantitatively determinate aspects of things are determinate aspects that correspond to a person's various abilities to be directly aware of his or her body and its environment. By sight and taste and touch, for example, one can detect determinate aspects that are called qualitative forms or sensory qualities—"forms" because they are actual determinations of things, "qualities" because they are of a particular kind (Lat. quale ) for each external sense. Such aspects are directly indicative of differences other than differences of mere extension. They are forms sui generis and provide the initial diversity in one's apprehension of matter. Their number corresponds to the number of ways in which humanity can make direct sensory contact with things. Thus sensible qualitative form is any aspect of anything that can make an initial impression upon any human sense. The quantitative forms resulting from the limits of the extension of material beings, it should be noted, are not apprehended initially but only by means of the sense qualities. The triangular shape of a steel bar, for example, may be apprehended either in the contrast of the color of the steel with the visual appearances of its surroundings or in the contrast of its hardness and coolness with the tactile impressions of its surroundings, but not directly and initially.

Forms Related to Sense. Humanity's view of the material universe is predetermined in that the senses are able to detect some formal aspects but not others. Yet, through technology, people have devised instruments to extend the normal range of the senses and to detect formalities that are otherwise too minute, too gross, or too distant for accurate discrimination. Through such instruments, formal aspects of things not discernible by any sense (e.g., molecular structure) can be represented to the senses. These may be referred to as reductively sensible, even though they are not directly apprehended by the senses.

Mechanical Explanation. The discovery of such formal aspects and the entities corresponding to them—such as atoms and molecules—has led some in the history of thought to attempt to explain all sensory forms mechanically, i.e., as nothing more than subjective impressions produced by the motion of particles of matter. Thus de mocritus posited atoms and the void as the only true realities and asserted that sense qualities exist for man but not in things themselves; similarly, contemporary mechanists hold that sense perception is but a biochemical function of brain cells. One difficulty for such mechanical viewpoints is that the basic entities of one age tend to be replaced by new ones in succeeding ages, thus giving rise to repeated revolutions in mechanistic thought. Another is that mechanical phenomena alone are rendered more intelligible by mechanical explanations. For example, a mechanical explanation proposes that puttylike sodium, combining with gaseous chlorine, forms crystalline salt. The crystalline structure of salt can be explained in terms of the quantitative forms of its components, but this explanation sheds no light on the different qualitative properties found in salt and in its components when taken by themselves. Yet another difficulty for mechanism is that no direct contact with matter is possible for man except through his senses and through formal aspects that are inseparable from them. To cast doubt upon the senses is thus to characterize all sensory information, and all theory elaborated from it (mechanism included), as nothing more than an illusion.

The alternative to rejecting sense knowledge or reducing it to some inexplicable, albeit real, element in human experience is to recognize the mechanical viewpoint as but one of many limited viewpoints arising in human understanding, according as a person singles out one or other formal aspect as preeminently intelligible.

Intelligible Form. Since the senses can apprehend only what is actually present to them, they are cognitively formed, or informed, by the determinate aspects of all things that can make an impression upon a sense organ. Through the repetition of sensory impressions, many things that are first discriminated as novelties come to be familiar. For example, bread and butter and coffee are easily recognizable by their visual appearances and their customary aromas and textures. If a mistake in identifying coffee by such sensory signs occurs, the sense of smell or of taste is usually invoked to decide the issue, since for most people to be coffee means to have a certain aroma or taste. But this may not be the decisive criterion for all. Some, for example, may want assurance that the ingredients are known to have been obtained from a coffee tree; others may wish a chemical analysis to determine that the beverage has the chemical components found in coffee beans. Each of these methods of identification—the regular recurrence of the same sensory signs in the same combination (with incidental variations), the regular derivation of the thing in question from the same kind of source, and the invariability of the chemical components and quantitative form of the individual molecule of the kind of thing in question—is sufficient for the practical purposes of identification. Moreover, all three viewpoints, when added together, constitute part of the answer to the question as to what coffee really is. Such grouping of characteristics is the work of the human intellect; its result is what is known as intelligible form.

The name abstraction is commonly used of the process by which the intelligible form is derived from sensory experience. The concept it attains is abstract; there can be no concrete representation of it in itself, although its intelligible content can often be exemplified. Thus human understanding of animal as a sentient organism can be exemplified by any individual animal. While the concept is immaterial, however, it can be said to be formal, or to be a form, because it informs human intellect, even if in a general and abstract way. Its generality and abstractness do not militate against its being a form, since one formal aspect may encompass another, as the concept of color includes concepts of red, blue, and green. When many limited formal aspects are included within a more general formal aspect, however, this is always done at the expense of the determinateness of the more general. Thus to include green in the category of color and to include color in the category of quality is to proceed from determinate to general notions. It is this way, incidentally, that the notion of form itself is arrived at. The partiality of individual intelligible viewpoints obtained by abstraction from experience need not hinder human attempts at understanding the universe, for in thought itself one can compare them and derive more general but equally informative intelligible forms as a result. (see apprehension, simple; knowledge, process of.)

Formal Causality. Although formal aspects that are exclusive of one another considered in themselves may be included in some more general category in thought, the same is not true for forms outside of thought, such as the quantitative forms of bodies. Forms of the same kind exclude one another from the same substrate. But many forms not of the same kind can exist in the same substrate. Thus a body that is living may also be sentient and soft and warm, although it cannot be warm and cold at the same time. Similarly, what are materially the same parts may be informed by different forms at both the substantial and the accidental level. Thus combinations of chemicals may be salt or living flesh, depending upon the form of the whole of which the chemicals are the components. The principle of formation in this case is called substantial form to indicate that it gives to that which it forms its very being in the order of substance. By contrast, accidental forms are aspects that may always be found with the kind of thing in question but are not thought to characterize it fully. Hardness is an essential quality of diamonds, although the substance of diamond is carbon; and humans have many reflex actions similar to those found in unicellular organisms, although they are defined as rational animals because reason is the dominating characteristic in their acting and being.

Form comes into being when the composite of which it is the form comes into being. Thus the properties of salt arise simultaneously with the chemical union of sodium and chlorine by their mutual action upon one another. While the sculptor is the sole efficient cause of the statue he produces in stone, the stone and the figure with which he informs it exert mutual causality upon each other.

Both substantial and accidental forms are said to be educed from the potency of their corresponding matter under the action of the efficient cause. The rational soul of man, however, so transcends matter in its intellectual activities that it cannot originate from matter by a process of eduction (see soul, human, origin of).

Form passes out of existence when the whole of which it is the form is destroyed. When salt is broken down to its component chemical parts, the properties of salt cease to exist in them; similarly, the remains of a once living body act entirely according to their chemical natures and not as parts of living matter. Forms are physically inseparable from things; the act of apprehension, however, can separate them from matter and permit judgments about their nature, kinds, and characteristics.

From these considerations it may be seen that the causality of form is that of an intrinsic cause and, as such, one that requires the receptive action of some appropriate matter. Form and matter exercise their special causality by a mutual communication of their own being; their proper effect is the composite that results from their union. Both form and matter obtain their actual existence from the existence of this composite, even though the form may have preexisted potentially in the matter (and previous composite) from which it was educed. And neither form nor matter can exercise its causality unless there is a proper proportion between them, and unless an efficient cause acts to bring about the composite's formation. (see causality; efficient causality; final causality.)

Bibliography: f. j. collingwood, Philosophy of Nature (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1961). v. e. smith, The General Science of Nature (Milwaukee 1958). l. l. whyte, ed., Aspects of Form (New York 1951). j. goheen, The Problem of Matter and Form in the 'De Ente et Essentia' of Thomas Aquinas (Cambridge. Mass. 1940). p.h. j. hoenen, The Philosophy of Inorganic Compounds, tr. p. cohen (West Baden Springs, Ind. 1960).

[f. j. collingwood]