Matter and Form
In Aristotle's writings, matter (hyle) is a relative term, for example, clay might be the matter of some brick, which in turn, become the proximate matter of a house. Aristotle defines X's matter as "that out of which" X is made. For example, letters are the matter of syllables.
Change is analyzed as a material transformation: matter is what undergoes a change of form. For example, consider a lump of bronze that's shaped into a statue. Bronze is the matter and the forms (literally, shapes) are lump and statue.
According to Aristotle's theory of perception, we perceive an object by copying its form with our sense organs. Thus, forms include complex qualia like colors, textures and flavors, not just shapes.
Read more about this topic: Hylomorphism
Famous quotes containing the words matter and/or form:
“Sir Richard cried in his English pride,
‘We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die—does it matter when?”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)