According to Aristotle, all corporeal reality is composed of the same basic matter-prime matter-whereas all matter in the physical sense is composed of prime matter and substantial form.
As Aquinas later puts it in his De ente et essentia:…because matter is the principle of individuation, it would perhaps seem to follow that essence, which embraces in itself simultaneously both form and matter, is merely particular and not universal. From this it would follow that universals have no definitions, assuming that essence is what is signified by the definition. Thus, we must point out that matter understood in the way we have thus far understood it is not the principle of individuation; only signate matter is the principle of individuation. I call signate matter matter considered under determinate dimensions. Signate matter is not included in the definition of man as man, but signate matter would be included in the definition of Socrates if Socrates had a definition. In the definition of man, however, is included non-signate matter: in the definition of man we do not include this bone and this flesh but only bone and flesh absolutely, which are the non-signate matter of man.There is also, of course, the well-known Ship of Theseus problematic.
Moreover, since 'arrangement' and 'configuration' implicate and depend upon the notion of 'relation', and no one has thematized that notion better than John Poinsot, another good place to grapple with these issues is Poinsot's Cursus Philosophicus, in which he fleshes out the Boethian distinction-employed in Boethius' commentary upon Aristotle's Categories-between relation according to the manner of which being must be spoken (relatio secundum dici) and relation according to the way relation itself has being (relatio secundum esse). Unfortunately the English translation of the relevant passages is only to be found in the bilingual Tractatus de Signis, of which the first edition is hard to find and whose second edition's impending publication has been put on vexatious hold. So I say start with the presocratics and move on to Aristotle.
"According to Aristotle, all corporeal reality is composed of the same basic matter-prime matter-whereas all matter in the physical sense is composed of prime matter and substantial form."
Is there any extant corporeal reality other than matter in the physical sense?
Sorry, that should have read something more like this: According to Aristotle, all corporeal reality, all matter in the physical sense, is composed of the same basic stuff-i.e., prime matter (united to substantial form, which is not "stuff" but the determination thereof).
As Aquinas later puts it in his De ente et essentia:
…because matter is the principle of individuation, it would perhaps seem to follow that essence, which embraces in itself simultaneously both form and matter, is merely particular and not universal. From this it would follow that universals have no definitions, assuming that essence is what is signified by the definition. Thus, we must point out that matter understood in the way we have thus far understood it is not the principle of individuation; only signate matter is the principle of individuation. I call signate matter matter considered under determinate dimensions. Signate matter is not included in the definition of man as man, but signate matter would be included in the definition of Socrates if Socrates had a definition. In the definition of man, however, is included non-signate matter: in the definition of man we do not include this bone and this flesh but only bone and flesh absolutely, which are the non-signate matter of man.
There is also, of course, the well-known Ship of Theseus problematic.Moreover, since 'arrangement' and 'configuration' implicate and depend upon the notion of 'relation', and no one has thematized that notion better than John Poinsot, another good place to grapple with these issues is Poinsot's Cursus Philosophicus, in which he fleshes out the Boethian distinction-employed in Boethius' commentary upon Aristotle's Categories-between relation according to the manner of which being must be spoken (relatio secundum dici) and relation according to the way relation itself has being (relatio secundum esse). Unfortunately the English translation of the relevant passages is only to be found in the bilingual Tractatus de Signis, of which the first edition is hard to find and whose second edition's impending publication has been put on vexatious hold. So I say start with the presocratics and move on to Aristotle.
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Is there any extant corporeal reality other than matter in the physical sense?
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