Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-sq2k7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-15T13:18:16.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hylomorphism without forms? A critical notice of Simon Evnine’s Making Objects and Events

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Michael J. Raven Open the ORCID record for Michael J. Raven [Opens in a new window]
Michael J. Raven*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Simon Evnine’s Making Objects and Events: A Hylomorphic Theory of Artifacts develops amorphic hylomorphism. I critically discuss three of its main themes. One theme is its attempt to do the work of form without forms. A second theme is the requirement that hylomorphs have ‘metabolisms at work’. A third theme is the use of artifacts as the paradigms for hylomorphs. I will raise some criticisms of each of these themes. Although the themes might at first appear disconnected, I believe the third underwrites the first two. So the criticisms of the third theme also bear on the rest.

Keywords

Hylomorphismartifactsobjectsorganismsactions

Information

Type
Critical Notice
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 49 , Issue 5 , August 2019 , pp. 652 - 669
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

§

Department of Philosophy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

References

Baker, Lynne Rudder. 2016. “Review of Making Objects and Events: A Hylomorphic Theory of Artifacts, Actions, and Organisms.” Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.Google Scholar
Benacerraf, Paul. 1965. “What Numbers Could Not Be.” The Philosophical Review, 74: 47–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evnine, Simon J., 2016. Making Objects and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Kit. 1999. “Things and Their Parts.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 23: 61–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Kit. 2017. “The Problem of Plenitude.” In 2017 Hylomorphism Conference. Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Eli. 1982. The Concept of Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Koslicki, Kathrin. 2007. “Towards a Neo-Aristotelian Mereology.” Dialectica, 61 (1): 127–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koslicki, Kathrin. 2008. The Structure of Objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kripke, Saul. 1972. Semantics of Natural Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1991. Parts of Classes. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Moore, G. E., 1925. “A Defence of Common Sense.” In Contemporary British Philosophy, Second Series, edited by Muirhead, J. H., 193–223. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Raven, Michael J., 2015. “Ground.” Philosophy Compass, 10 (5): 322–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomasson, Amie. 2014. Ontology Made Easy. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar