ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophical Instructions Lesson Forty-Four: Kinds of Substances Theories about the Kinds of Substances There are differences of opinion among philosophers about the kinds of material and immaterial substances. The Peripatetics divided substances into five types: Intellectual substances are completely immaterial, and in addition to having no spatial or temporal dimensions by nature, they are not attached to any material or corporeal existents.

It must be noted that the application of ‘intellect’ to such existents is unrelated to intellect in the sense of the power which perceives universal concepts, and the employment of the term ‘intellect’ regarding completely immaterial substances is a sort of homonymity, as is the employment of ‘intellect’ by scholars of ethics in yet a third sense.

Psychic substances are essentially immaterial, but are attached to bodies (corporeal existents), and without a body they have no possibility of coming about, although it is possible that after coming about their attachment to a body may be cut off, and after the death of the body they may persist. Corporeal substances have spatial and temporal dimensions, and we sense their appearances in the form of accidents of color and shape, while we prove their existences by reason.

The Peripatetics considered every corporeal substance to be composed of two other substances by the name of ‘matter’ and ‘form.’ Matter or hayūlā is also an indefinite substance without actuality according to the Peripatetics. It exists in all bodies, including the celestial spheres and the elements. However, the matter of each celestial sphere takes its own specific form, and for this reason, as they speculated, generation and corruption, and tearing and mending are impossible for them.

However, elemental matter takes different kinds of forms (except for that of the celestial spheres), and in this regard the world of elements is the world of alterations and transformations, of generation and corruption. Form is the aspect of actuality for every corporeal existent and is the source of the particular effects of every kind of matter. There are various kinds of forms, and among them is the form of corporeality which exists in all corporeal substances and is inseparable from hayūlā .