Quotes on Form (shape, figure, configuration, architecture, structure, pattern) by form I mean the essence of each thing, and its primary substance -- Aristotle, (Metaphysics) For the form cannot desert matter, because it is inseparable from it and matter itself cannot be deprived of form -- Robert Grosseteste (On Light) The first corporeal form is in my opinion light ---Grosseteste (On Light) The chief point of divergence is that for Grosseteste matter is not pure potency, as it was for Aristotle, but possesses in its own right a certain minimal reality. (Riedl, Clare C. (Translator) Notes on Grosseteste) Form, that is to say, the first corporeal form, or light, is in his view more than the form of corporeity, the principle of extension, it is also a principle of activity. . . The intrinsic principle from which this motion or activity proceeds must be the form . . . (From Notes on Grosseteste) Light furnishes therefore the principle of continuity in nature, for as the first corporeal form it is common to all things in the universe from the lowest of the elements, earth, up to and including even the firmament. Thus all things are one by the perfection of one light. (From Notes on Grosseteste) For where there is no shape nor order, nothing either cometh or goeth -- Augustine (Confessions, Book 12, Ch. 9) where there is no form there can be no distinction between this or that” -- Augustine (Confessions, Book 12, Ch. 13) The term body [object] therefore can signify that which has such a form as allows the determination of three dimensions in it, prescinding from everything else, so that from that form no further perfection may follow. If anything else is added, it will be outside the meaning of body thus understood. (Aquinas, On Being and Essence) [in other words there are extrinsic and artificial properties that we relate but these cannot define an object. Only form can define an object] The term body [object] can also be taken to mean a thing having a form such that three dimensions can be counted in it, no matter what the form may be . . . (Aquinas, On Being and Essence) Now matter and form are so related that form gives being to matter (Aquinas, On Being and Essence) [in other words all objects in the set named matter have the native-inherent property called form and this may qualify them under the category existence]. Matter then cannot exist without some form but there can be a form without matter (Aquinas, On Being and Essence) [in other words he realized that there is a first form that underlies the set of objects, i.e. matter]. As Avicenna says, The quiddity of a simple substance is the simple entity itself, (Aquinas, On Being and Essence) [in other words there is a fundamental object that belongs to all objects in the set of matter and this object is what is bound of itself] A boundary is that which is an extremity of anything. (Aristotle, Metaphysics) A figure is that which is contained by a boundary or boundaries.” (Euclid, Elements)
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:53:11 +0000
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