Abstract
Aristotle’s account of sensible substance is often taken to show that materially organized constituents cannot explain the unity of a natural whole without appeal to substantial form. This article argues for a narrower conclusion. Metaphysics Z.17 rejects an additive account on which a substance is merely an inventory of ingredients, and H.2–6 develops an account of organization, appropriate matter, potentiality, and actuality that culminates in the denial that matter and form require a further unifying bond. Yet these arguments do not by themselves establish the stronger claim that form is explanatorily prior to materially organized constituents and activities. I test that claim against mechanistic materialism: the view that an organism’s capacities, persistence, and organized unity are explained by hierarchically organized material entities and activities, without a distinct formally prior ground. The mechanistic alternative is not a return to atomism, since it allows relationally constituted powers, reciprocal dependence, and system-level organization. Its difficulty is instead whether it can identify privileged parts, functions, and norms of malfunction without presupposing the whole whose form it seeks to explain. Aristotle therefore defeats unstructured materialism, but the argument for formal priority depends on whether mechanistic explanation can meet these further demands without circularity. The remaining dispute concerns the grounding of organization and function, not interaction between matter and an immaterial entity.
Keywords: Aristotle; Metaphysics Z–H; hylomorphism; εἶδος; ὕλη; mechanistic explanation; materialism; substantial unity; explanatory priority; biological function.
Full article
Download the complete manuscript (DOCX) · Version dated September 17, 2026.
How to cite this working paper
George Skouras, Organization Without Formal Priority? Mechanistic Materialism in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z–H (working paper, September 2026), george-skouras.com/articles/aristotle-organization-without-formal-priority/.