ABSTRACT
This chapter is dedicated to two things. First, it is dedicated to explicating a metaphysics that sits between substance dualism and physicalism. This is a view known as “hylemorphism,” and it is a view first advanced by Aristotle and baptized into Christian thinking by Thomas Aquinas. It offers thinkers a way to envisage a human person such that a given human is identical to her body but is not identical to the metaphysical parts that “make up” her body. These “parts” are, in the hylemorphic jargon, known as “form” and “prime-matter.” These are nuanced terms and much time is given to fleshing them out. The first part of this chapter helps give an account of human persons such that TA1 and TA3 are satisfied. It’s what the author calls a “broadly Thomistic hylemorphic model.” The second part of this chapter is devoted to arguing against Thomas Aquinas and his current advocates (e.g., Edward Feser, Eleonore Stump, Jeffrey Brower) who posit that human souls can exist apart from human bodies. The author argues that this is inconsistent with hylemorphic metaphysics. Human souls, if hylemorphism is true, cannot exist apart from their bodies. By arguing thus, the author aims to provide a metaphysics of human persons that accords with TA1.
