What makes a living thing one thing rather than a heap of coordinated parts? This book revisits Aristotle’s account of form and matter in light of mechanism, biological organization, impairment, and the persistence of identity through change.
Its central proposal is that living unity does not require a separate ruling entity or a fixed hierarchy imposed from above. Organization can be real and causally significant while remaining distributed through the capacities and relations of a living system.
Questions at the center of the book
- How can a material basis acquire and exercise a capacity?
- What distinguishes possessing a capacity from exercising it?
- How should impairment and the loss of identity-relevant capacities be understood?
- Can mechanism explain unity without dissolving the organism into its parts?
- What remains valuable in Aristotle’s hylomorphism once formal priority is rejected?
Paperback ISBN: 979-8-1624-8753-1