I introduced a somewhat unique conception of hylomorphism in the first part of this series and it is worth a basic recap before diving into more substantive issues. Form, as I described it, is the particular way that matter is arranged in any given individual. There is a tight nit dependency relationship between form and matter, form is dependent on matter for its realisation. Form is not reducible to the individual pieces of matter that make it up but it is entirely dependent on them for its realisation and existence in the world. Along these lines, for any substance there is a very tight metaphysical unity between form and matter. In fact, form and matter become one in any individual. We are only able to speak of form or matter as separate things through abstraction. That is, we can speak of form by mentally ignoring matter, and we can speak of matter by mentally ignoring form. As such the sheer intimate relationship between matter and form is different from the various forms of dualism, such as Cartesian Dualism, that takes the mental to be an entirely separate substance from the material.
This approach has some unique implications for reductionism and there is a way of looking at the latter which is not entirely at odds with hylomorphism. Remember that any substance is a special unity of form and matter in such a manner that form is just the organisational structure of the latter. Now how does this relate to reductionism? Take the example of a chair made of oak. The chair has the property of withholding my weight. What explains this property? No doubt it is the density of the oak that makes up the chair. So in a sense this property reduces to the property of the material components. Another example; a water molecule, H2O, has the ability to dissolve NaCl (Sodium Chloride) through the use of its electrons and the specific dipole structure of the molecule. It is the electrons doing the brunt of the work as it does in any bonding relationship. For dissolution to occur there is need for electrons but there is also need for a molecule with a bonding angle of 105°.
Would it be true to take the logical leap from these examples and say that there is nothing to these substances but there material components? No, because these functions are dependent on their respective parts being organised in specific ways. Take the chair example, it only make sense to ask the question as to whether my chair is capable of withholding my weight in the first place if the chair is suitably structured. Its the same with H2O which is structured in such a way that there are slight net negative and positive charges at either end of the molecule. In other words, the electron can only do its work in the bonding relationship because of the peculiar structure of the molecule.
Now within the physicalist literature it has become possible to tell the story about the success of physics whilst not attributing that success to the individual parts. This is a way of taking the exhaustive explanatory power of physics yet dispensing with the atomistic tendency to explain a whole in terms of its isolated constituents. This is brought out most clearly even by dyed-in-the-wool physicalists like Jaegwon Kim and David Papineau but it will take a bit of explaining to unpack this.
First, Kim distinguishes within the hierarchies of nature between "levels" and "orders". An example of "levels" might be that between the domain of physical particles like hydrogen and oxygen and the chemical domain encompassing molecules such as H2O. Obviously H2O as a molecule of water has properties and causal powers that the individual atoms of hydrogen and oxygen do not have. This was the worry that some critics like Lynne Rudder-Baker, William Lycan and Ned Block had when discussing Kim's take on mental causation - that is, if the physical properties of the brain usurp or preempt the mental properties of the mind, leaving the latter as superfluous in the causal process, then that would render all higher level causal powers as superfluous in nature and the end to the once considered autonomous fields of science such as chemistry, geology and biology. This is labelled by Kim as the "generalization" problem. The concern is that the reductive physicalist has bitten off more than he can chew!
Kim's response here is instructive. His method of avoiding generalisation is to say that within each individual the distinction of levels is irrelevant. Take his example of the sleeping pill and its property of dormitivity (the ability to induce sleep). What is this property except the chemical properties that actually cause sleep in a person? Dormitivity as a property is reducible to these chemical properties and it is hard to deny this. But if we talk about dormitivity 'reducing' to these chemical properties then that does not mean that one level has preempted another because we are talking about the same entity, namely the sleeping pill. As far as mental properties go the reason the reduction of mental properties to the physical properties of the brain is not a reduction from the psychological domain to the chemical domain is because we are talking about the same organism. That is, my mental state of desiring a drink of water, M1, may be realised by the brain state, B1, but this is not a reduction between levels because the same individual that is thinking M1 has the brain state B1.
What does this all mean? First, Kim thinks that levels talk relative to any individual is irrelevant. But he thinks that in any causal process the physical constituents are the main causal players. But Kim clearly doesn't want to eliminate the causal autonomy of the various levels in the sciences (1998; 83-85). His cites the familiar example of water which clearly has properties that its individual atoms do not have. But there are parts of the water molecule that are still involved in its causal activities. Take the bonding property, B, which for argument's sake we will say is instantiated by the micro-property, E, which stands for the electron. Kim thinks that the molecules having B is fixed once the micro-constituents - the protons, neutrons, electrons, etc., - and their properties and the relations between them are fixed. That is, the micro-property plays the role but only because it is part of a system of constituents that are related together in such a way that as a whole that system produces properties that the individual parts do not have on their own. So micro-based properties such as bonding are really macro-properties because although they involve the constituents they are really only possible as properties of the structure as a whole. Kim writes
"A micro-based property therefore is constituted by micro-constituents - that is, by the micro-parts of the object that has it and the properties and relations characterizing these parts. But we should be clear that such properties are macroproperties, not microproperties." (84)
This explanation isn't so different to the one I gave earlier of the relationship between form and matter since form is really just the relations or organisational structure of the matter. The hylomorphist believes in the causal autonomy of the non-physical sciences but where the form and matter is highly integrated. This is all the more evident on my take of hylomorphism where the form is just the organizational structure of the individual. The physical/material properties are still in use yet they are harnessed to the organisational power of the form.
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