Incorporeality

Incorporeality

Incorporeal or uncarnate means without a body. In ancient Greece, a media such as air was said to be incorporeal, as opposed to solid earth, in so far as it offers less hindrance to movement, (so as not to presuppose the existence of perfect vacuum). In the problem of universals, universals are separable from any particular embodiment in one sense, while in another, they seem inherent nonetheless. Aristotle offered a hylomorphic account of abstraction in contrast to Plato's world of Forms. In modern philosophy, a distinction between the incorporeal and immaterial is not necessarily maintained: a body may be described as incorporeal if it is not made out of matter. The idea of the immaterial is often used in reference to the Christian God or the Divine.

Aristotle used the Greek terms soma (body) and hyle (matter, literally "wood").

Whereas modern readers often take "incorporeal" to be equivalent to "nonmaterial," this is not Aristotle's view. Having outlined various philosophical accounts of the soul, all of which identify it with some kind of stuff, Aristotle concludes: "But all, or almost all, distinguish the soul by three of its attributes, movement, perception, and incorporeality" (I. 2. 405b). In other words, the soul could be incorporeal and still be composed of "stuff". One could believe that the soul should not be called "body" but still understand it as occupying space, as having a "place" (I. 3. 406a). This means that the soul, though neither hyle nor soma, cannot be placed in the Cartesian category of nonmatter, since for Descartes (and for the traditional modern understanding) something is "matter" or "physical" if it occupies space. Furthermore, elements like water and air, taken by Aristotle to be what we would call "matter", are nonetheless "noncorporeal" (On Sense and Sensible Things 5.445a22-23). When Aristotle uses the word hyle, therefore, we misunderstand him if we translate it as anything like the modern term "matter".

But modern scholars seem unable to resist the temptation to read hyle as "matter" (in the modern sense), leading to all kinds of confusion. In one place, for example, where Aristotle is explaining why some theorists take fire to be the stuff of the soul, the English translation by W. S. Hett proceeds, "for this is composed of the lightest constituents, and of all the elements is the nearest to incorporeal" (I. 2. 405a, Loeb edition). The Greek, however, is kai malista ton stoicheion asomaton, more literally translated: "it is the most (or especially) noncorporeal of the elements." Hett's translation implies that Aristotle took fire to be corporeal (that is, material) but almost incorporeal, consisting of very "thin" matter. Aristotle actually seems to be saying that fire is incorporeal—even though he believes that fire is constituted by matter (in the modern sense of the term—that is... "stuff" of some sort). Elsewhere, Aristotle records the opinion of others that the soul is "composed of very light parts." Hett's translation continues: "or as corporeal but less so than any other body" (I. 5. 409b20). Aristotle's Greek, however, is to asomatotaton ton allon: "the most incorporeal of the others" (to translate woodenly). In other words, Aristotle is saying that certain people believe the soul to be composed of very light parts and yet still to be incorporeal. Hett's mistranslation is due to the fact that he reads hyle as "matter" in a Cartesian sense and sees "incorporeality" as belonging to the "immaterial" side of a material/immaterial dichotomy, which does not accurately reflect Aristotle's own categories. —Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body

The notion that a causally effective incorporeal body is even coherent requires the belief that something can effect what's material, without physically existing at the point of effect. A ball can directly effect another ball by coming in direct contact with it, and is visible because it reflects the light that directly reaches it. An incorporeal field of influence, or immaterial body could not perform these functions because they have no physical construction with which to perform these functions. Following Newton, it became acceptable to overlook action at a distance as brute fact:

It is inconceivable that inanimate Matter should, without the Mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon, and affect other matter without mutual Contact…That Gravity should be innate, inherent and essential to Matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance thro’ a Vacuum, without the Mediation of any thing else, by and through which their Action and Force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an Absurdity that I believe no Man who has in philosophical Matters a competent Faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an Agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this Agent be material or immaterial, I have left to the Consideration of my readers. —Isaac Newton, Letters to Bentley, 1692/3