Pars Integralis in St. Thomas Aquinas and the Parts of Living Substances

379 The Thomist 78 (2014): 379-99 PARS INTEGRALIS IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS AND THE PARTS OF LIVING SUBSTANCES MICHAEL STORCK Ohio Dominican University Columbus, Ohio NY EXPLANATION of the nature of corporeal substances must account, not only for what we observe when we look at the things in the world around us, but also, since we are corporeal substances, for what we experience in ourselves. Saint Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, argues that the only way fully to account for all of the properties of corporeal substances is to see form and matter as the fundamental constituents of individual substances, a position known as hylomorphism. Matter and form explain the unity of a material substance in a way that is consistent with our experience, since the single substantial form makes the material thing really one, while the matter accounts for the possibility of change.1 With regard to 1 For Thomas on the union of soul and body as form and matter, see Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, a.1 (Opera omnia, vols. 4-12 [Rome: Commissio Leonina, 18881906 ]); Quaestio Disputata De Anima, aa. 1-2 (Opera omnia, vol. 24/1, ed. B. C. Bazán [Rome: Commissio Leonina; Paris: Éditions Du Cerf, 1996]); Quaestio Disputata De Spiritualibus Creaturis, a. 2 (Opera omnia, vol. 24/2, ed. J. Cos [Rome: Commissio Leonina; Paris: Éditions Du Cerf, 2000]); Summa contra Gentiles II, cc. 56-59, 68-72. Parenthetical numbers in references to critical editions of Thomas refer to paragraph or line numbers in the cited editions, as appropriate. Interested readers may consult the following: Anton C. Pegis, St. Thomas and the Problem of the Soul in the Thirteenth Century (Toronto: PIMS, 1934), 168-87; John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 295-378; John Goyette, “St. Thomas on the Unity of Substantial Form,” Nova et Vetera, English edition, 7 (2009): 781-90; Mark Johnston, “Hylomorphism,” Journal of Philosophy 103 (2006): 652-98; Gerald F. A 380 MICHAEL STORCK the human body, for example, Descartes’s dualism problematically makes the soul and the body two different substances ,2 and Plato posits that a human being is only the soul. Thomas's understanding of form and matter, in contrast, explains the soul and body as a single substance.3 And where the physicalism dominant in modern analytic philosophy cannot easily grant any greater unity to a corporeal substance than that of a system of material parts,4 understanding corporeal substances as composed of form and matter makes the whole more important than the parts, and clearly makes the human person one thing, thus sidestepping some of the problems concerning qualia, consciousness, and mental entities characteristic of analytic philosophy.5 Yet, while hylomorphism can explain the unity of material substances, it is not so clear how it explains their material complexity, particularly in the case of living things. Since this complexity is a part of our experience of the physical world, failure to account for it would make hylomorphism irrelevant Kreyche, “The Soul-Body Problem in St. Thomas,” New Scholasticism 46 (1972): 46684 . 2 Discussions of the union of soul and body in Descartes include Dan Kaufman, “Descartes on Composites, Incomplete Substances, and Kinds of Unity,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 90 (2008): 39-73; and Lisa Shapiro, "Descartes' Passions of the Soul and the Union of Soul and Body," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 85 (2003): 211-48. Also helpful is Frederick Copleston's discussion in A History of Philosophy, vol. 4, Descartes to Leibniz (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1958; repr., Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1965), 120-23. 3 See, for example, Aquinas, STh I, q. 75, a. 4. 4 For example, Daniel Dennett claims that “what you are is an assemblage of roughly a hundred trillion cells, of thousands of different sorts. . . . Each of your host cells is a mindless mechanism, a largely autonomous micro-robot. . . . Each trillion robot team is gathered together in a breathtakingly efficient regime” (Freedom Evolves [New York: Penguin, 2003], 2). 5 While an exploration of hylomorphism as it relates to qualia, consciousness, and mental entities is...

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