The Scholastic perspective on action

The Scholastics had a different focus from the early moderns, but that musn't hide the fact that the two systems were in conflict. Hylomorphism understood the human being to be a parcel of matter given organisation and a path into the future by a 'form'. So much was Aristotelian. But the Scholastics betrayed their Aristotelian inspiration by identifying the form with a person's soul, a hopelessly unsuccessful aspect of the general merger they were attempting of Pauline and Aristotelian thought.

Part of the 'form' of an animal was the way of life, the behaviour, that was characteristic of it. That is to say, in virtue of its form the animal had a set of 'tendencies' - 'tendencies' to behave in certain ways. So in explaining why an animal did this or that it was often enough to insist that such behaviour was natural to it.

The stiuation was parallel to that which obtained in the sphere of physics. Things moved, according to Scholastic physics, because each had a tendency to find the region of the Creation that was natural to them.

The question of why such and such a thing had the natural tendencies that were attributed to it was thought of as a question about the character and powers of the Creator.

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Created 08:06:05

Prepared by VP

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