Motion, Dualism, and Modern
Physics (part 1)

O Creator ineffable, who of the riches of Thy wisdom didst
appoint three hierarchies of Angels and didst set them in
wondrous order over the highest heavens, and who didst
apportion the elements of the world most wisely: do Thou,
who art in truth the fountain of light and wisdom, deign to
shed upon the darkness of my understanding the rays of
Thine infinite brightness, and remove far from me the twofold
darkness in which I was born, namely, sin and ignorance. Do
Thou, who givest speech to the tongues of little children,
instruct my tongue and pour into my lips the grace of Thy
benediction. Give me keenness of apprehension, capacity for
remembering, method and ease in learning, insight in
interpretation, and copious eloquence in speech. Instruct my
beginning, direct my progress, and set Thy seal upon the
finished work, Thou, who art true God and true Man, who
livest and reignest world without end. Amen.

Regina Cœli Academy
Natural Philosophy – Physics
Lecturer: Mr. Alan Aversa

(St. Thomas Aquinas Oratio ante studium)
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Matter Discloses a Plurality of
Substances
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Humean reduction of substance to phenomena

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Psychophysiologist Kurt Goldstein popularized this
idea.

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“Everything endeavors to persist in its own being.”

Aquinas opposed the Pythagorean spirit of
using principles “extraneous to the natural.”
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His reason: If a thing has a finite velocity, it cannot
be moved completely from outside. (In De Cœlo et
Mundo III, cap. 3,4,7)
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We understand being first before knowing the
specific type of being it is.
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Spinoza: “Unumquodque in suo esse
preserverari conatur.”

Yet, we understand the more general before the
specific.

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a plural (not pluralistic) universe

Man has a supremely imminent character.

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Do we understand the inorganic world in terms
of ourselves?

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Realism holds there are many substances each
with their own unity

Matter Discloses a Plurality of
Substances

Although substantial character of man is most
evident, it also exists in inorganic matter.

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If atoms and molecules are the one and only
substance, we live in a monistic cosmos.

Bergson: “[M]atter has a tendency to constitute
isolable systems.”

Matter Discloses a Plurality of
Substances
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If not, we live in a pluralistic cosmos.

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Relativity theory’s space-time continuum made a
philosophical certitude
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Are atoms and molecules substances?
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Parmenides, Spinoza, Hegel, Marx, F. H. Bradley +
dialectical materialists Samuel Alexander, Alfred
North Whitehead: empiriological spirit tends toward
monism (or pantheism, if monistic reality is God).
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Wiliam James, George Santayana, Bertrand
Russell, Rudolf Carnap, Charles Marris thought
empiriological spirit tends toward pluralism.
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Matter Discloses a Plurality of
Substances

Is nature one or many? Monistic or pluralistic?
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Thus “law” of inertia is not 100% true.

Thus there are natures with inner principles.

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Matter Discloses a Plurality of
Substances
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No natures implies infinitely fast motion or
change.
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Infinitely fast motion would be indeterminate, ∴
unknowable.

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Natures or substances are the results of limits to
inertia.
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Matter Discloses a Plurality of
Substances

A “brake” or “bottleneck” to inertia

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Inertia + inertia ≠ less inertia.

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Potential + potential ≠ act.

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Alexander: Individuals are “pieces” of spacetime.

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Monism implies motion impossible.

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The monistic matter’s unity that it seeks would be a
greater good than even that of life.

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Monistic matter becomes God. This is pantheism.

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The Atom is a Substance
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Nature is “one-in-many” (hylemorphism).

Elements with atomic number Z = 1 (hydrogen,
H) to Z = 97 (Berkelium, Bk) and beyond have
a diversity of properties.

A material substance
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Cannot be its own passivity
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It would be prime matter, moved with infinite velocity, and
thus indeterminate.

Cannot be pure act
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Monism holds the converse: The whole universe is
more perfected than even the living human beings
in it.

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Nature is neither many (pluralism) nor one
(monism).
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“A single [living] tree is greater than the entire
mineral universe.”

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Proof: Monism means ∃ only one type of matter.
But nothing can move itself. ∴, motion is
impossible.

Matter Discloses a Plurality of
Substances
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Another disproof of monism: The living is more
perfected than the non-living.

Spinoza: “the world is natura naturata”

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Matter Discloses a Plurality of
Substances

Are the preceding arguments convincing to a
monist?

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∴ ∃ “a plurality of non-inertias:” substances.

Every divergence from inertia would constitute a
new being.

Matter Discloses a Plurality of
Substances
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Reply: “The inert cannot be differentiated.”
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Empiriological physicist’s objection: “Resisting
principles are themselves inertial.”
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Plurality of substances results from there being
multiple such “brakes” or “bottlenecks” to inertia.

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Aquinas: every nature a “prime mover” that moves
by participating in God’s “Prime Movership.”

It could not move; “motion toward the new” impossible.

Substance must be both active and passive.

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The Atom is a Substance
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Does a single type of subatomic substance
account for the differences of atoms?
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The Atom is a Substance
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That substance would have to be as immanent as
life itself in order to explain the elements’ diversity.

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If there are many types of subatomic
substances, can they explain the heterogeneity
of the various elements?
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Philosophical physicist would have to say that the
various combinations of them would not give rise to
the various motions observed in the world.
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Can man be reduced to a handful of subatomic
particles?
Charles Hartshorne: A dog is superior to a pillar
because a dog can relate itself in more ways to
the pillar than the pillar can to the dog.
Aquinas: Perfection measured by the ability to
receive accidents.
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Living domain higher than material domain.
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Aquinas: “the less a thing is immersed in matter, the
less it is finited.” (De natura accidentis, cap. 1)

Kierkegaard: greatness of a being measured by
how well it can relate itself to itself
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Man is the greatest of changing beings.

The fewer “subatomic principles” there are, the
greater their depth of being would have to be to
explain the macroscopic world.

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“And hence it is that the forms of elements which are the most
material of all are characterized by active and passive qualities, say
hot, cold, humid, dry, and so on as befits the disposition of the
matter. But the forms of compounds, namely of inanimate bodies
such as stones, metals, minerals, besides the powers and activities
which they participate from the elements of which they are
composed, have some other more noble powers and activities
characterizing the forms specific to them... and thus in a constant
ascension, the nobler the specific form, the more excellent the
powers and operations proceeding from it; so far forth that the
noblest form which is the rational soul has the intellectual power and
operation, that not only transcend the power and action of elements
but all corporeal power and action.”
–Aquinas, De occultis operibus materiæ
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“And therefore in the elements the matter is least perfect, because only one form of
one element is actuated at a time: and if sometimes the form of another element is
virtually present, there is no abiding of the first thing but a change, as for example
when the heat of fire acts on air inducing the quality of fire. In compounds, indeed,
matter is more perfect: for here, with the one form conferring actuality to the
compound there are present all the forms of the elements, virtually however and not
essentially because each of these requires its own determinate quantity...; hence
since there is one substratum for the compound and once existence, its form is one.
Some compounded substrata, however, are animated, and especially man whose
form is not produced from matter predisposed by the quantity of the compound;
hence it is fitting hat in the animate world the essences of some forms should be
without their full perfections; for this is the profoundest way in which animate things
transcend simple compounds, namely by perfecting their matter through the
acquisition of more than one form at a time, just as we see that in one way what is
simple is resolved from compounds and in another way from prime matter in which
prior to the becoming as such, there is nothing actual of the form to be produced...”
–Aquinas, De natura materiæ cap. 4
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Modern Research Argues to
Hierarchy

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Modern Research Argues to
Hierarchy

The Atom is a Substance
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Subatomic particles do not have this perfection to
the extent, e.g., we humans do.

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Modern Research Argues to
Hierarchy
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Einstein’s relativity mechanics: Matter is energy
(E=mc²), so even energy is inert.
Subatomic particles have meaning only in
relation to something extrinsic to them:
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According to empiriological physics, a single atom
has no temperature; only a collection does.
An electron by itself only has meaning with respect
to something else, e.g., a proton in a H atom.
An electron causes colored light, but it itself doesn’t
have a color.
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Modern Research Argues to
Hierarchy
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References

Oxygen (O), e.g., has more nature than a
subatomic particle because it has more being
or act.

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V. E. Smith’s Philosophical Physics
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It doesn’t combine with other atoms as easily
as an electron, e.g., combines with other
subatomic particles.

Please begin reading ch. 6 (Motion, Dualism, and
Physics).
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I will post PDF of the reading on the reginacoeli.box.com
page.

It is more “finited.”

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