Abstract

This chapter examines the question of how hylomorphists should conceive of the matter composing concrete particular objects. It considers three conceptions of matter: the traditional Thomistic doctrine of prime matter, as developed by David Oderberg; the matter-as-stuff hypothesis, as defended by Jeffrey Brower and Ned Markosian; and the hylomorphic conception of matter, according to which the matter of a concrete particular object is nothing other than its material parts and these are themselves conceived of as matter–form compounds, unless or until we reach an empirically confirmed level in the compositional hierarchy at which the hylomorphic analysis no longer applies. The chapter argues that the prime-matter hypothesis and the matter-as-stuff hypothesis give rise to a number of difficulties and concludes that the third, hylomorphic, conception of matter is therefore preferable to the previous two.