Aristotle’s Hylomorphic Anti-Emergence

Abstract Aristotle’s hylomorphism, like many contemporary versions of emergentism, motivates the reality and causal autonomy of complex, macro-level substances. After explaining the meta-ontological background that motivates Aristotle’s understanding of matter’s role in hylomorphic composition in terms of potentiality, the chapter divides scholarly interpretations of Aristotle’s material potentiality into two broad strategies. Only one of these strategies is even superficially compatible with emergentism, and even it would require key modifications to certain contemporary articulations of emergence. Further, at a deeper level, the strategy that is potentially compatible with emergentism faces difficulties in maintaining Aristotle’s prohibition against substances being composed of substances—a prohibition which turns out to be related to the contemporary emergentist call for demystification. Adequately addressing these two issues on the ancient and contemporary scenes further reduces the number of compatible candidate interpretations of Aristotle’s hylomorphism, zeroing in on a specific way of interpreting hylomorphism with a meta-ontological background that greatly differentiates it from contemporary versions of emergence.