Substantial Form in Averroes’s Long Commentary on the

Metaphysics*
Giovanni_Averroes-Metaphys_2011.pdf
Matteo Di Giovanni

1. THE ARISTOTELIAN BACKGROUND

Aristotle’s Metaphysics is not entirely about the metaphysical. It is not so, if metaphysical
refers to the transcendent realm of the divine as opposed to the sublunar world of nature,
concrete substances, and material transformations. Nor is it about the physical in just
the same sense of Aristotle’s Physics. In his natural philosophy, Aristotle considers the
world of change in itself and in its inherent features: the order and constitution of the
universe, the different processes it goes through, and all sorts of natural phenomena. In
the Metaphysics, by contrast, the study of the physical world is preliminary to the inquiry
into God and the separate substances. The agenda of the metaphysician is set forth in
Met. Z 3, where Aristotle remarks that by relying on the common experience of the
sensible world one can acquire knowledge of divine beings, of the separate substances,
and of what is less known to us and more known in itself.1 The goal of metaphysics is to
arrive at a grasp of the separate substances, and ‘it is for the sake of this that we are trying
to determine the nature of perceptible substances’.2
Aristotle’s method a posteriori, from the experience of the natural world to the
knowledge of God, makes room for a large amount of physical investigations within the
ambit of metaphysics. A key role in this regard is played by the analysis of concrete objects
in terms of matter and form. First introduced in the Physics to account for the possibility
of substantial change, the hylomorphic model serves a number of purposes in a variety
of philosophical contexts. It helps us to understand generation as a process where a piece
of matter acquires a certain form; it is essential to explain the unity of sensible substances
as depending on the structuring action of substantial form upon the disunited elements
of matter. Finally, it makes it possible to articulate the definition of material substances,
which is an account of the thing defined in terms of its formal as opposed to its material
parts.3
Despite its crucial importance for so many philosophical contexts, however, the
hylomorphic model is not exempt from problems and obscurities. It is not clear in

* I am very grateful to P. Adamson, M. Rashed, and the other participants at the Conference ‘In the Age of
Averroes’ for helpful discussion on the topics of the present paper.
1. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Z 3, 1029b3–12.
2. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Z 11, 1037a13–4. All English translations of Aristotle are taken from The Complete
Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. J. Barnes, Princeton, 1984.
3. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Z 11, 1036a26–31. Sometimes Aristotle seems to suggest that definition has to
mention also the matter of the thing defined. See M. Frede, ‘The Definition of Sensible Substances in Metaphysics
Z’, in Biologie, logique et métaphysique chez Aristote, eds D. Devereux and P. Pellegrin, Paris, 1990, pp. 113–29.

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particular what, in concrete objects, corresponds to the philosophical notions of

matter and form. Aristotle gives the example of a statue, where matter is bronze and
form is the shape. But this example does not accord with a view expressed most clearly
in Physics B, where form is presented as a principle not only of constitution but also of
movement. Moreover, while matter and form are constituents of substances, statues
are not, or not paradigmatically, substantial beings.4 A more promising example
equates matter and form with the body and the soul of man and of the other animals.
Also in this case, however, the example proves problematic. For form is the actuality of
matter, which means that it is the same as matter though in a different state of being.
Body and soul, by contrast, are usually thought of as distinct components, such that
soul is what remains, at least conceptually, when body is removed. While the concepts
of body and soul suggest prima facie a ‘compositional’ account of the unity of matter
and form, the notions of actuality and potentiality point to some more intrinsic and
less accidental unity.
Elaborating on these different intuitions, scholars of Aristotle have developed two
main interpretations of the hylomorphic composition of material substances.
Although it is difficult to accommodate all positions under either one or the other
label, it has recently been proposed to group some of the most representative views
around two paradigms named accidentalism and holism.5 According to the former
paradigm, matter maintains a high degree of autonomy within the compound and
remains what it is independently of, and prior to, the supervenience of form. Form
relates to matter in a merely contingent way, similar to the way in which accidental
properties relate to substances. Neither accidents nor substantial forms affect the
essential identity of their subjects. Rather, they bring about in the latter a set of
properties that, in the case of substantial forms, define the natural kind to which a
substance belongs. As Michael J. Loux writes in Primary Ousia, one of the main
expositions of the accidentalist view,

Substantial forms are not particulars and so cannot be individual subjects for the metaphysical
predication of other things; unlike substance-kinds, they are not predicated essentially of anything
but themselves. A form is how matter is, not what it is; consequently it does not exhibit the sortal
logic of substance-kinds. It does, however, have a determinate conceptual content, and that
content can be identified without reference to anything else. Accordingly, we can say that form
is separable in formula. And the content we can independently identify is the right content. It is
a content such that in virtue of its being predicated accidentally of the appropriate matter there are
individual members of substance-kinds, things to which the relevant instantiations of the ‘this
something’ schema apply’.6

4. See Aristotle, Metaphysics, Z 17, 1041b28–31; H 2, 1043a2–5; H 3, 1043b21–23.

5. For the following discussion of accidentalism and holism, I rely on G. Galluzzo-M. Mariani, Aristotle’s
Metaphysics Book Zeta: the Contemporary Debate, Pisa, 2006, pp. 89–134.
6. M. J. Loux, Primary Ousia. An Essay on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z and H, Ithaca, 1991, p. 263. Emphasis
mine.

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Substantial form is joined to matter in a merely accidental way and it does not determine
‘what’ matter is. It does determine, however, the identity of the whole compound, at least
insofar as it places the latter under a natural kind.
Opposed to this interpretation is the view according to which matter and form do
not remain in the compound as really distinct entities because the identity of matter
is, in one way or another, dependent upon form. There are several versions of this
‘holistic’ conception. All concur in assuming that the compound is a fully unified
substance (that is, a holon, the Greek word for ‘whole’), but they involve different
accounts of the unity of the compound. Wilfrid Sellars argues that matter and form
are alternative ways to refer to an identical and undivided substance as we look at it
from the point of view of its purpose or of the conditions that make that purpose
realizable. Considered from the point of view of its purpose, the substance is form;
insofar as it matches the conditions required by its purpose, the same substance is
matter. In the example that W. Sellars gives,

The individual form of this shoe is the shoe itself; the individual matter of this shoe is also the
shoe itself, and there can scarcely be a real distinction between the shoe and itself. What, then,
is the difference between individual form and matter of this shoe if they are the same thing? The
answer should, by now, be obvious. The individual form of this shoe is the shoe qua (piece of
some appropriate material or other – in this case leather) serving the purpose of protecting and
embellishing the feet. The individual matter of the shoe is the shoe qua piece of leather (so worked
as to serve some purpose or other – in this case to protect and embellish the feet). Thus, the
‘parts’ involved are not incomplete individuals in the real order, but the importantly different
parts of the formula (piece of leather) (serving to protect and embellish the feet) projected on
the individual thing of which they are true.7

A different way of interpreting the matter-form distinction based on holistic premises

is put forward by Theodore Scaltsas. Matter and form are objectively distinct com-
ponents, but their distinction is viewed as merely potential. Said otherwise, matter and
form can be separated from one another not physically but only by means of a mental
process of abstraction that is based on the objective nature of the thing. As long as matter
and form are constituents of a composite substance, they exist as a single and fully unified
entity. Every component is re-defined by substantial form and acquires a new identity
that makes it other than what it was before entering into composition. As Scaltsas
expresses himself,

The unification of all the properties by the substantial form into a single whole makes them iden-
tity-dependent on the form, which establishes the sense in which the properties belong to the
form… A component of the whole belongs to the substantial form because it is integrated into
the whole by the form. To belong to the subject is to be identity-dependent on the subject, and

7. W. Sellars, ‘Aristotle’s Metaphysics: An Interpretation’, in Philosophical Perspectives, Springfield IL, 1967,

pp. 73–124 (118).

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identity dependence is not a relation that relates items in the world any more than identity is such
a relation.8

Leaving aside Sellars’ view, which is less relevant to the present inquiry, one can notice
that both the accidentalist and the holist options have good arguments in their support.
To begin with, the holists’ emphasis on the unity of compounds fits a number of texts
where Aristotle contrasts substances and accidents on the grounds that the latter, but
not the former, are thoroughly one.9 This seems to suggest that, contrary to what
accidentalists claim, the unity of substances cannot be explained as the result of a merely
accidental relation between matter and form.
After all, that matter and form are intrinsically related is also implied by another of
Aristotle’s doctrines generally known as the homonymy principle. According to this
principle, the material parts of a substance are spoken of by homonymy when the
substance’s form is not present in them. In other words, the material parts are no
longer what they used to be: a dead finger is no longer a finger nor a dead hand a
hand.10 This is usually taken as further evidence that what matter is in general is due
to form, as Aristotle himself suggests by an extensive application of the homonymy
principle: what is true of the part is also true of the whole, so that the whole body, not
only its single parts, must be affected by substantial form. Aristotle introduces the
extensive application in the following terms:

We must extend our consideration from the parts to the whole living body; for what the part is
to the part, that the whole faculty of sense is to the whole sensitive body as such.11

What is more, all kinds of matter are equally dependent upon substantial form: not only
organic matter, i.e. matter as the organic body, but also the so-called uniform matter
represented by the tissues and the material elements of which organs are constituted.
Organs are clearly defined by the functions that they perform and such functions depend
upon form. A finger, for example, is an organ of touch and touch is a function of the soul.
Now, according to De Generatione Animalium B 1, the same applies to the case of
uniform matter.12 Uniform and organic material parts come into being together.
Therefore, just as a dead finger is a finger by homonymy, so no flesh exists, as such,
independently of form. The matter of a composite substance, from its highest and

8. T. Scaltsas, Substances and Universals in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Ithaca, 1994, p. 152.

9. See e.g. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Γ 2, 1003b22–1004a2; ibid., Z 4, 1030b8–12.
10. See Aristotle, Metaphysics, Z 10, 1035b24–5; Z 11, 1036b30–2; De anima, B 1, 412b22–5; De Partibus
Animalium, A 1, 640b35. A keen analysis of the import and implications of the homonymy principle is provided
by M. L. Gill, Aristotle on Substance. The Paradox of Unity, Princeton, 1989, pp. 129–30, 162–3. Homonymy itself,
as a relation implying a difference in definition in the homonymous terms, is discussed in Aristotle, Categories, 1,
1a1–6.
11. Aristotle, De anima, B 1, 412b22–5. Transl. Ross, in The Complete Works of Aristotle (n. 2 above), p. 656.
12. Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, B 1, 734b22–31.

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organically structured constitution down to its lowest levels, is generated under the action
of soul and, to this extent, soul determines what all matter is.
Holists typically rely on a famous passage in Met. Θ 7 where matter is described as
something ‘indeterminate’ (ἀόριστον) in itself and, as seems to be implied, determined
by substantial form. Aristotle points to the linguistic habit of referring to matter by means
of adjectives instead of nouns. For example, while we say that a casket is wooden or that
wood is earthen (1049a18–25), we do not say that a casket is wood or that wood is earth.
In Met. Θ 7, Aristotle interprets this usage as an indication of the congenital
indeterminacy of matter. Being likewise morphologically indeterminate, adjectives can
best express the fact that matter does not remain in the composite substance as an
independent entity. Just as adjectives are made to agree with nouns, so the identity of
matter is determined by form. Ordinary language is taken to capture, as so often in
Aristotle, a deeper and fundamental metaphysical truth.13
Interestingly, it is from the idea of such a correlation between language and
metaphysics that accidentalists start off their counter-reply. Loux observes that Aristotle
employs the same adjectival logic to describe the relation between matter and form. For
the composite substance is sometimes called a τόδε τοιόνδε, i.e. a ‘this such’, where ‘such’
is an adjective and refers to form, while ‘this’ refers to matter.14 If linguistic usage can tell
us anything about the ontology of the world, it must indicate that form relates to matter
in the same contingent way as accidental properties relate to substances. Matter is only
accidentally modified by form, rather than being re-identified by it. For this reason one
does not say that a piece of matter is form, or that form is essentially related to matter,
but rather that matter, being what it is by virtue of itself, is disposed in the way required
by form. Contrary to what holists maintain, matter is a ‘this’ and a determinate being,
whereas form, as a ‘such’, confers to matter its non-essential, i.e. contingent, properties.
These opposite views result in irreconcilable concepts of substantial form. To the
extent that it re-identifies matter, form is responsible for the whole identity of the
13. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Θ 7, 1049a27–b3: ‘For the subject and substratum differ by being or not being a
“this”; the substratum of accidents is an individual such as a man, i.e. body and soul, while the accident is something
like musical or white. (The subject is called, when music is implanted in it, not music but musical, and the man is
not whiteness but white, and not ambulation or movement but walking or moving – as in the above examples of
“of” something.) Wherever this is so, then, the ultimate subject is a substance; but when this is not so but the
predicate is a form or a “this”, the ultimate subject is matter and material substance. And it is only right that the
“of” something locution should be used with reference both to the matter and to the accidents; for both are
indeterminates. We have stated, then, when a thing is to be said to be potentially and when it is not’. Transl. Ross,
in The Complete Works of Aristotle (n. 2 above), p. 1656. Notice that, in Met. Z 7, 1033a6–23, Aristotle has a differ-
ent explanation for the fact that adjectives are used to refer to matter. He assumes that this is due to the deficiency
of ordinary language, which is lacking in nouns that indicate privation in the case of substantial change. For an
interpretation of the different accounts in Z 7 and Θ 7, see M. L. Gill, Aristotle on Substance (n. 10 above), pp.
120–26.
14. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Z 8, 1033b20–24. See M. J. Loux’s analysis of substantial form as a ‘such’ in his
Primary Ousia (n. 6 above), pp. 127–46. A specific study on the notion of τόδε τοιόνδε is C. Cerami, ‘Le statut de
la forme substantielle et de l’universel comme τοιόνδε’, Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale, 18,
2007, pp. 37–49.

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compound. By contrast, if form affects matter in a merely accidental way, and so matter
retains its own identity, then the whole identity of the compound will result in part from
matter and in part from form. Consequently, while holists maintain that substantial form
determines the whole essence of concrete objects, in an accidentalist framework essences
make reference to both the form and the matter by which concrete objects are
constituted. The disagreement turns on the question of what form is with respect to the
essence of the compound, i.e. whether form is coextensive with the latter or only a
component of it.
Arguably, the origin of this disagreement can be traced back to the different epistemic
perspectives that underlie the two opposite paradigms. As a matter of fact, the strongest
support for the accidentalist view is provided by the analysis of change that we find in Physics
A 7, whereas the holistic theory fits in best with the logical framework that Aristotle sets
forth in the Organon. In what follows, I shall refer to the accidentalist notion of form as
physicaland to the holist as logical. Concurrently, I will try to explain how these contrasting
conceptions of substantial form are related to the different approaches that are distinctive
of Aristotle’s Physics, on one side, and of his logical writings, on the other.
In Physics A 7 Aristotle replies to the Parmenidean objections against the possibility
of change. Parmenides argued that coming to be is impossible on the basis of the fact that
coming to be is the emergence of a thing out of nothing, and things do not come to be ex
nihilo. Aristotle agrees with the second of these assumptions, but he questions
Parmenides’ account of coming to be as radical emergence. He shows that all coming to
be can be analysed as a process where a given substratum acquires a new property. This
analysis applies to substantial as much as accidental change, the only difference between
the two being that the subject of substantial change is a piece of matter rather than a fully
fledged substance. In all other respects, substantial and accidental change are structurally
identical. In both cases the new product is the result of some modification that the
substratum undergoes while it persists throughout the change. Now, as seems to be
implied, in those cases where what persists is matter, matter must remain what it is at
every stage of the process. And, if matter retains its identity both when it acquires and
when it loses a new form, clearly the identity of matter must be independent of form.15
On the one hand, then, the Physics provides strong evidence in favour of the acciden-
talist view. On the other, a distinctly holistic line is implied in other texts of the
Aristotelian corpus and, particularly, of the Organon. In Categories 5, while defining the
notions of species and genus, Aristotle suggests that the whole identity of a concrete

15. See, in particular, Aristotle, Physics, A 7, 191a7–12: ‘The underlying nature can be known by analogy. For
as the bronze is to the statue, the wood to the bed, or the matter and the formless before receiving form to any
thing which has form, so is the underlying nature to substance, i.e. the ‘this’ or existent’. Transl. Hardie and Gaye,
in The Complete Works of Aristotle (n. 2 above), p. 326. An analysis of this text can be found in D. Bostock, ‘Aristotle
on the Principles on Change in Physics I’, in Language and Logos, Cambridge, 1982, pp. 179–96. For an insightful
reading of Physics A 7 in line with the accidentalist view, see M. J. Loux, Nature, Norm, and Psyche. Explorations
in Aristotle’s Philosophical Psychology, Pisa, 2004, pp. 3–19.

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substance is in relation to one single entity. This entity is not described as a substantial
form in the Categories, but as something nevertheless so close to substantial form that
Aristotle uses the same word, εἶδος, to indicate both. Species, which is what Aristotle
refers to in the Categories, is a single entity that fully defines what a concrete or, as he
says, a primary substance is:

Of the secondary substances the species (εἶδος) is more a substance than the genus, since it is
nearer to the primary substance. For if one is to say of the primary substance what it is, it will be
more informative and apt to give the species than the genus. For example, it would be more
informative to say of the individual man that he is a man than that he is an animal.16

Moreover, species is related to the concrete substance according to the ‘said-of’ relation,
which Aristotle characterizes as follows:

It is clear from what has been said that if something is said of a subject both its name and its definition
are necessarily predicated of the subject. For example, man is said of a subject, the individual man,
and the name is of course predicated (since you will be predicating man of the individual man), and
also the definition of man will be predicated of the individual man (since the individual man is also
a man). Thus both the name and the definition will be predicated of the subject.17

Two remarks are in order here. In the first place, Aristotle observes that the species
man is predicated of individual concrete men. Since the latter are analysed, in the
Metaphysics, as compounds of matter and form, it seems natural to understand Aristotle’s
remark as implying that the species man refers to both the form and the matter of
concrete individuals. But Aristotle goes on and specifies, in the second place, that man is
predicated of concrete men in such a way that the definition of man is attributed to them.
In light of the hylomorphic analysis, again, this suggests that man is what defines not only
the form but also the matter by which concrete individuals are constituted. In other words
man identifies men’s matter and, conversely, the identity of matter is determined by an
entity which is expressed by the very term man. This term, clearly, indicates not so much
a substantial form, in the Categories, but a species. However, the general flavour of the
passage is, in itself, intrinsically holistic. One need only assume that species is identical
with substantial form to obtain a standard version of holistic hylomorphism and a logical
notion of form. This is the step that Averroes will take.18
16. Aristotle, Categories, 5, 2b8–12. Transl. Ackrill, in The Complete Works of Aristotle (n. 2 above), p. 5.
17. Ibid., 2a19–27. Transl. Ackrill, in The Complete Works of Aristotle (n. 2 above), p. 4.
18. This ‘conflating’ reading of the ontology of the Categories and of the Metaphysics is of course less viable to
recent, post-Jaegerian scholarship, which is well aware of the hiatus that separates the earlier and the later phases
of Aristotle’s development as a philosopher. In a compatibilist perspective like that within which Averroes and
most medieval interpreters work, a natural move is to read the assumptions that Aristotle sets out in the Categories
in the light of the further distinctions drawn in the Metaphysics. Another case where Averroes adopts a moderately
compatibilist view is his doctrine of primary substance, for which I take the liberty of referring to M. Di Giovanni,
‘Individuation by Matter in Averroes’ Metaphysics’, Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale, 18,
2007, pp. 187–210, esp. pp. 189–97.

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2. AVERROES’S NOTION OF SUBSTANTIAL FORM

I have dealt in a previous study with the important doctrine of the identity between
species and form in Averroes.19 It will be sufficient to recall here some of the main tenets
that are directly relevant to the present inquiry. Averroes’s basic intuition is that the
species of a thing is entirely derived, by abstraction, from its substantial form: all that is
expressed by species is included in form and, conversely, all that belongs to form is
reflected in species. This means that substantial form is responsible for all the properties
which make up the essence of a thing and place it under a natural kind. For, if species
makes known all essential properties, and species is derived from form, then the essential
properties must exist in form primarily and as in their original bearer. The holistic
implication of this view is clear: form, as the counterpart of species, is what determines
the whole identity of the compound, while matter has a purely subordinate role.
Averroes expresses the unity of species and form in different ways. Sometimes he refers
to species in terms of ‘essence’ (dhāt) or ‘quiddity’ (māhiyya), and he claims that essence
is the same being as form.20 Sometimes he speaks of species as the object of definition and
explains that defining a thing means defining its form.21 On a few occasions, finally,
Averroes attributes directly to form the properties that are peculiar to species. In his
commentary on Met. Z 10, for example, he leaves us with a rather baffling statement to
the effect that form is predicated of the compound.22 Now, we do predicate of Socrates
the species man, and so we say that Socrates is a man. But we would presumably not be
tempted to say that Socrates is a soul. Yet Averroes suggests precisely this, saying that
Socrates’ soul and his species are in some sense identical.
Species and form have different locations and modes of existence, respectively, in the
mind and in the extramental world. This is not to say that the species exists in some Platonic
19. M. Di Giovanni, ‘Averroes and the Logical Status of Metaphysics’, in Methods and Methodologies in Medieval
Aristotelian Logic. Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium ‘Aristotelian Logic East and West 500–1500: Methods
and Methodologies’, Cambridge University, 3–4 February 2007, eds M. Cameron and J. Marenbon, Leiden, forthcoming.
20. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 836 (In Z 6, 1032a9–10, c. 21/t): ‘The quiddity (māhiyya) of man is man in one sense
and it is not in another: that is, it is the form of man and not the man composed of matter and form’. See also ibid.,
p. 897 (In Z 10, 1035a1–7, c. 34/b): ‘The form of a substance is said to be the substance of the thing insofar as it
is what makes its essence (dhāt) known. Matter can be said to be a part of the substance with regard to the substance
composed of matter and form; whereas, with regard to the substance which makes known the essence of the thing,
it is not said to be a part of the substance but, rather, that which receives the form and its definition’. All translations
of Averroes’s Long Commentary on the Metaphysics are based on Averroès, Tafsīr mā baʿd at.-t.abīʿat. Texte arabe
inédit ètabli par M. Bouyges S.J., 4 vols, Beirut, 1938–48. Hereafter cited as Averroes, Tafsīr.
21. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 1035 (In H 2, 1042b9–11, c. 5/a): ‘Form is substance on account of the fact that what
definition indicates is substance and definition indicates form’.
22. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 897 (In Z 10, 1035a7–9, c. 34/c): ‘The difference between form and matter is that form
is what is predicated per se of that which has form on account of what it is (al-s.ūra hiya llatī tuh.mal bi-dhātihā ʿalā
dhī l-s.ūra min t.arīq mā huwa), i.e. that which makes known its substantial quiddity (māhiyyatahu l-jawhariyya);
whereas matter is not truly predicated of what has matter, let alone predicated of it per se’. The same idea is expressed
in other passages in the commentary where Averroes equates substantial form with the species that exists in the
mind. See e.g. Averroes, Tafsīr, pp. 845–6 (In Z 7, 1032b10–11, c. 23/k): ‘If this is so, it becomes clear that the
form of an art is spoken of in two senses: one is the form that exists in the soul, the other is that which exists outside
the soul, the two senses being one identical thing (wa-humā shayʾ wāh.id)’.

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world independent of form but, rather, that the concept of species is entirely derived, by
reflection, from the formal component of composite substances. In fact, to many
Aristotelians this sounds just as odd as a Platonic world. For Aristotle is clear that species is
not a form but a compound of matter and form taken in a universal way. In Met. Z 10 ‘man’
and ‘horse’ are described as compounds of matter and form that are ‘treated as universals’
(καθόλου), while in Met. Z 11 species-terms are described, likewise, as compounds of body
and soul ‘taken universally’ (ὡς καθόλου).23 However, in the Arabic version of the
Metaphysics both passages are somewhat disguised. In Z 10, the Greek negation is given by
the Arabic a different function. Thus, ‘man’ and ‘horse’ are no longer presented as
compounds that, quauniversals, are not substances (οὐκ ἔστιν οὐσία) but as compounds that
are composite substances precisely insofar as they are not universals (laysat bi-nawʿ kullī).
Similarly, in the Arabic text of Z 11 Averroes probably read that the composite man is a
‘whole’ (kull) compound and not, as in the Greek, a ‘universal’ (kullī) concept.24
At the same time, in the Arabic translation the Greek word εἶδος is rendered as ‘form’
(s.ūra) in a number of contexts where it clearly means ‘species’. For example, when
Aristotle explains that things can be one either in number, in species, in genus, or by
analogy, ‘in species’ (τῷ εἴδει) is translated as ‘in form’ (bi-l-s.ūra). The same happens when
Aristotle analyses the logical relation of non-identity. While Aristotle argues that things
can differ either is genus or in species, the Arabic again has ‘in form’.25 All this may have
easily suggested to the Commentator that no real distinction obtains between species

23. Aristotle, Metaphysics Z 10, 1035b27–31; ibid., Z 11, 1037a5–7. Transl. Ross, in The Complete Works of
Aristotle (n. 2 above), pp. 1635, 1637.
24. See the Arabic translations of Met. Z 10, 1035b27–31 and of Met. Z 11, 1037a5–7 as preserved in the
lemmata of Averroes, Tafsīr, pp. 911 and 933 (c. 35/n and c. 39/q). Notice that, judging by his commentary on
Met. Z 11, Averroes seems to have read in his text al-kull (‘whole’) instead of al-kullī (‘universal’), which is the
reading attested by almost all the manuscript tradition for both the textus and the lemma. Averroes’s quoting al-
kull instead of al-kullī has a parallel in the reading of the Hebrew manuscript Paris, Bibl. Nat. man. hébr. 887 (Or.
114), ‘d’ in Bouyges’s edition. See Bouyges’s apparatus, ad loc., p. 933, n. 37.
25. See e.g. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 544 (In Δ 6, 1016b31–2, t. 12/n): wa-ayd.an min al-ashyā’ mā huwa wāh.id bi-
l-ʿadad wa-minhā mā huwa wāh.id bi-l-s.ūra wa-minhā wāh.id bi-l-musāwā, corresponding to the Greek ἔτι δὲ τὰ
μὲν κατ’ ἀριθμόν ἐστιν ἕν, τὰ δὲ κατ’εἶδος, τὰ δὲ κατὰ γένος, τὰ δὲ κατ’ ἀναλογίαν; ibid., p. 662 (In Δ 25, 1023b22–4,
t. 30/h-i): wa-ayd.an allatī fī l-kalima al-dālla ʿalā kull wāh.id min al-ashyāʾ hiya ayd.an ajzāʾ al-kull wa-li-dhālika
al-jins yuqāl juzʾ al-s.ūra, cf. the Greek: ἔτι τὰ ἐν τῷ λόγῳ τῷ δηλοῦντι ἕκαστον, καὶ ταῦτα μόρια τοῦ ὅλου. διὸ τὸ γένος
τοῦ εἴδους καὶ μέρος λέγεται, ἄλλως δὲ τὸ εἶδος τοῦ γένους μέρος; ibid., p. 1297 (In I 3, 1054b27–8, t. 12/e): fa-inna
kull mukhālif yukhālif bi-jins aw bi-s.ūra, cf. the Greek: πᾶν γὰρ τὸ διαφέρον διαφέρει ἢ γένει ἢ εἴδει; ibid., p. 1362 (In
I 8, 1057b37, t. 24/d-e): fa-mud.t.arr [...] an takūn allatī hiya ukhar bi-l-s.ūra fī jins huwa huwa, cf. the Greek: ἀνάγκη
ἄρα ἐν γένει τῷ αὐτῷ εἶναι τὰ ἕτερα τῷ εἴδει. Apart from the Graeco-Arabic translation of the Metaphysics, other
developments should be evaluated which may have exerted some influence on Averroes’s treatment of the unity of
species and form. A key role was probably played by the tradition of Greek and Arabic Peripateticism and,
particularly, by the doctrine of the indifference of essence as found in Alexander of Aphrodisias, reinterpreted in
tenth-century Baghdad by Yah.yā b. ʿAdī (d. 974 AD), and fully developed by Avicenna. See, on this issue, M. Rashed,
‘Ibn ‘Adī et Avicenne: sur les types d’existants’, in Aristotele e i suoi esegeti neoplatonici. Logica e ontologia nelle
interpretazioni greche e arabe, eds V. Celluprica and C. D’Ancona, Napoli, 2004, pp. 109–71. M. Rashed has also
recently called attention to the isomorphism between form and species that characterizes Alexander of Aphrodisias’s
essentialism and qualifies it as an endeavour to ‘rapprocher sans confondre forme et espèce’: see M. Rashed,
Essentialisme. Alexandre d’Aphrodise entre logique, physique et cosmologie, Berlin and New York, 2007, p. 327.

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and form. Although species is a mental concept and not a substance, the content of species
is, with no residue, the same content of substantial form.
One implication of this assumption is that parts of species are as well parts of form.
As Averroes puts it, there is no difference between genus and differentia except that the
former is a generic (ʿāmma) and the latter a specific (khās.s.a) form.26 In Met. Z 11 Aristotle
considers that whoever defines a substance must be able to distinguish between formal
and material parts, because the definition of the substance is ‘of the universal and of the
form’ (1036a28–29). Averroes expands on Aristotle’s thought and explains that defining
a form means spelling out what he himself calls the ‘generic’ and the ‘specific’ forms by
which the thing is composed.27 The compositional nature of form becomes the subject
of recurrent and specific remarks in Averroes. While commenting on Anaxagoras’
doctrine of matter, for example, Averroes draws an analogy between matter, in substances,
and genus, in definitions. Genus is a ‘generic form’ (al-s.ūra al-ʿāmma) whereas matter
is deprived of all forms, which it receives subsequently by receiving first the generic
form and then, ‘through the intermediary of the generic form, all the other forms up
to the individual ones’ (innamā taqbal awwalan al-s.ūra al-ʿāmma thumma taqbal bi-
tawassut. al-s.ūra al-ʿāmma sāʾir al-s.uwar h.attā l-s.uwar al-shakhs.iyya).28 As it appears,
substantial form is what results from the combination of other, more elementary forms
which supervene on prime matter and give rise to the ultimate form of the composite
substance.
A similar view is also implied in Averroes’s commentary on a passage reminiscent of
Met. Z 12, where the unity of definition, as a conglomerate of differentiae, is traced back
to what is called ‘last differentia’ by Aristotle and ‘last form’ by Averroes.29 In Averroes’s
words, although not in Aristotle’s own, this means that the composite substance possesses
a number of forms which are somehow unified by the last, and most perfect, of them.
Even more explicit, in this regard, are the Epitome and the Long Commentary on Met. Λ,
where this conception of substantial form as a compound of different layers is openly set
forth. In the Epitome Averroes distinguishes between two kinds of beings, in accordance
with what ‘becomes clear in the physical science’: (i) beings endowed with ‘simple forms’

26. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 953 (In Z 12, 1038a8–9, c. 43/k): ‘There is no difference between genus and differentia
for [Aristotle] except that the genus is, for him, a generic form and the differentia a specific form’. Given the
correlation between parts of species and parts of form, the term ʿāmm has both a logical and an ontological
connotation. It indicates both the ‘generic’ components of species and the more ‘general’ levels of forms. The same
applies to khās.s. as referred to species and substantial form.
27. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 919 (In Z 11, 1036a28–9, c. 37/c): ‘The reason for this is that definition is of the univer-
sal entity and of the form, that is of the generic form and of the specific one, not of the entity composed of matter
and form’.
28. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 97 (In A 8, 989b11–3, c. 17/d).
29. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 1067 (In H 3, 1044a7, c. 10/k): ‘We say that the one thing which is indicated by one
definition is “one” with regard to the substance that is form, i.e. the ultimate form and the ultimate differentia (bi-
l-s.ūra al-akhīra wa-l-fas.l al-akhīr)’. Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Z 12, 1038a26–7: ‘If then a differentia of a differentia
be taken at each step, one differentia – the last – will be the form and the substance’. Transl. Ross, in The Complete
Works of Aristotle (n. 2 above), p. 1639.

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(s.uwar basīt. a), that is the forms of the elements, and (ii) those which have ‘forms
composed’ (s.uwar murakkaba) and are composed themselves.30 In this way, the com-
positional nature of forms is explicitly mentioned and it is even introduced as a criterion
to distinguish between different kinds of existents.
The other text, from the Long Commentary on Met. Λ, is simply so dense and
important that it is worth quoting it extensively and making it the basis of our following
analysis. Averroes comments on Aristotle’s claim that the principles of being are the same
only by analogy. He explains this with reference to the structure of substances and of
their formal constituents:

It is as if he wanted to make known that the proximate principles are not of the same nature in
all substances. On the contrary, the forms of simple elements are other than the forms of
compounds, and the proximate matter of the former is other than the matter of the latter, even
though they are the same by analogy. The reason is that these [i.e. the proximate principles] are,
in the case of simple elements, prime matter and the contrary substantial forms, and, in the case
of the compound of simple elements, the potentiality that is found in the simple elements to
receive forms composed of proximate and perfective forms and these forms (al-s.uwar al-
murakkaba min al-s.uwar al-qarība wa-l-tamāmiyya wa-hādhihi l-s.uwar)’.31

As in the Epitome, in the Long Commentarysubstances are divided into two categories: those
composed of matter and elemental forms, and those composed of matter and composite
forms which result from the forms of the elements plus other ‘proximate and perfective’
forms. At the same time, Averroes clarifies that the forms of the four elements (earth, fire,
water, and air) enter as such into the composition of more complex substantial forms.
This inclusion of the forms of the elements among those which make up the
substantial forms of composite bodies is of the highest significance. It is clear by now that
Averroes views forms as the extramental counterparts of the concept of species: a part of
the species picks out a part of the form. The question remains what counts as a part of
the species itself. The species man, for example, is rational animal, where animal
corresponds to man’s proximate genus and rational to his specific differentia; yet, this is
not the only information that the species conveys. A complete analysis would have to
mention other essential characterizations of man, such as the fact that he is a living being,
a body, and, primarily, a substance. Our initial question, then, translates into the
following: are all these characterizations of man also parts of his substantial form? And
are they the only parts of his species?

30. Averroes, Compendio de Metafísica, II 74, pp. 76–7 of the Arabic text. All quotations from the Epitome of
the Metaphysics are based on C. Quirós Rodríguez, Averroes: Compendio de Metafísica, Presentación J. Puig
Montada, Cordoba, 1998.
31. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 1520 (In Λ 4, 1070b14–16, c. 22/f ). I agree with C. Genequand that the emendation
proposed by M. Bouyges (al-ghāʾiyya in place of al-qarība) is unnecessary. See C. Genequand, Ibn Rushd’s
Metaphysics. A Translation with Introduction of Ibn Rushd’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book Lām,
Leiden, 1986, p. 119, n. 105.

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Tackling these issues requires some caution. First of all, it is not clear that body is a
part of substantial form as well as a part of the species. In fact Averroes rejects this view
both in his De Substantia Orbis and in the Epitome of the Metaphysics, where he criticizes
Avicenna for thinking that body, as a corporeal form, is also a substantial form.32 Averroes
is concerned with the consequences that Avicenna’s position would entail for a number
of metaphysical issues, such as the unity of the concrete substances and the divisibility of
forms. If body were a substantial form, this would make all transformations that bodies
undergo accidental. Bodies, as endowed with substantial forms, would be fully fledged
substances, and so the forms that they receive would relate to them precisely as accidental
properties. Moreover, if the form body were immediately received in prime matter as a
substantial form, it would actualize all matter as a single, undivided substratum; and the
actualization of all matter would prevent the divisibility of forms, their plurification and,
ultimately, their mutual replacement through substantial change.
If the property of being a body does not count as a substantial form, however, it is clear
that at least the higher functions of living beings, such as their rational, sentient, and
nutritive powers, do contribute to such forms. They are what qualifies the different souls
as rational, sentient, or nutritive, and all souls are unquestionably substantial forms. All
Aristotelians, including Averroes, adhere to this doctrine and there is no doubt that a
soul is fundamentally what substantial form is supposed to be: i.e. the actuality and the
unifying principle of the body. Problems arise when it comes to the nature of the matter
by which the body is constituted. Is such matter conceivable independently of substantial
form, as is assumed by accidentalists? Or is it unintelligible, as holists argue, except with
reference to form itself? On this crucial issue Averroes is faced with the very same options
that are taken in contemporary literature by the supporters of the relative autonomy of
matter, on the hand, and by the assertors of the re-identifying action of form, on the
other. He would have good reasons to uphold either position, and to embrace a more
accidentalist or a more holistic view. He could on equally good grounds look at the bodily
constitution of animals either as matter or as a formal characterization of what animals
are.
The key to Averroes’s solution is contained in the above texts concerning the
compositional nature of substantial form. There Averroes assumes that some of those
parts by which substantial forms are constituted are the forms of the elements. And this
indicates that elemental constitution is regarded more as a component of form than as
matter. Earth, in a man, is not so much part of his matter as of his form: it is that part
which is responsible for the specific properties that man possesses by virtue of his earthly
components. Averroes argues that the elements are preserved as ‘dimidiate’ forms within

32. Averroes, De Substantia Orbis, ed. A. Hyman, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Jerusalem, 1986, pp. 63–5;
id., Compendio, II 78, pp. 78–9 of the Arabic text. For a general account of the whole issue, see A. Hyman,
‘Aristotle’s First Matter and Avicenna’s and Averroes’ Corporeal Form’, Harry A. Wolfson Jubilee Volume,
Jerusalem, 1965, English Section, I, pp. 385–406.

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the composite substance. He defends this view especially in Book III of his Long
Commentary on Aristotle’s De Caelo, where he states that the elements remain, in the
product of generation, as forms reduced in intensity (secundum medietatem).33 After all,
he reasons, that the elements cannot completely lose their original forms is shown by the
fact that, if this happened, they would become undistinguishable from prime matter. On
the other hand, if their original forms were preserved in full measure, then all non-
elemental forms would relate to the elements as accidental properties, and substantial
change would no longer be possible. The conclusion that Averroes draws is that the
elements remain as forms diminished, from which the new substantial forms of the
composite bodies result (ex collectione earum alia forma).
The ultimate implication of this doctrine concerning what Averroes himself calls
formae fractae or formae remissae is crucial to his overall conception of substantial form.
If the elemental matter of a composite substance receives its nature from some parts of
the substance’s form, then the same is presumably true of all the kinds of matter that a
substance possesses. It will turn out, for example, that what flesh and bones are, in a man,
is a part of his substantial form. This is the view that Averroes upholds in the Epitome of
the Metaphysics, precisely where he elucidates the notions of matter and form. ‘Form’, he
says, can indicate (i) the forms of organic bodies, i.e. souls; (ii) the forms of simple bodies,
i.e. the elements; or (iii) the forms that result from the mixture of elements, like gold.
‘Matter’ is, accordingly, spoken of in three different ways: (i) as prime matter, which is
completely devoid of forms; (ii) as matter endowed with the forms of the elements; and
(iii) as the uniform matter of bodies which are most properly said to be the subjects of
souls.34 In the same vein, in the Long Commentary on the Metaphysics Averroes elaborates
on Aristotle’s account of matter and form as given in Chapter 17 of Book Zeta. Here, he
clearly takes ‘flesh’ and ‘bones’ to be forms or parts of forms: as he points out, flesh and
bones are other than matter in that they are neither material elements nor just entities
compounded from them.35

33. Averroes, Commentum Magnum Super Libro De Celo et Mundo Aristotelis, in lucem edidit R. Arnzen, 2
vols, Leuven, 2003, vol. 2, pp. 631–6. It should be noticed that, even though Averroes takes elemental forms to be
components of substantial forms, he maintains that they are, in themselves, intermediate between substantial and
accidental forms and can, as such, admit of some variation in degree: ‘Dicemus quod forme istorum elementorum
substantiales sunt diminute a formis substantialibus perfectis, et quasi suum esse est medium inter formas et accidentia;
et ideo non fuit impossibile ut forme eorum substantiales admiscerentur, et proveniret ex collectione earum alia forma,
sicut cum albedo et nigredo admiscentur fiunt ex eis multi colores medii’ (ibid., pp. 634–5). See also M. Rashed,
Essentialisme (n. 25 above), pp. 133–41. The problem of elemental forms in Averroes and in the later tradition is
made the object of specific analyses by H.-G. Listfeldt, ‘Some Concepts of Matter of Avicenna, Averroes, St. Thomas
and Heisenberg’, Aquinas, 18, 1974, pp. 310–21; and by J. F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas.
From Finite Being to Uncreated Being, Washington D.C., 2000, pp. 348–51.
34. Averroes, Compendio (n. 30 above), I 60, 61, pp. 68–9 of the Arabic text.
35. See, in particular, Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 1018–19 (In Z 17, 1041b25–8, c. 60/n): ‘It appears that there is a
substance other than the material elements which is also an element and a cause of existence for the thing (I mean
a primary cause); that this is that cause which is form; and that it is flesh for one thing, bone for another, and syllable
for yet another’.

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Averroes believes that ‘matter’ is, in fact, a label for levels of form. A concrete man is
essentially constituted by flesh, bones, and elements just as much as by his nutritive,
sentient, and rational faculties. All these features belong to his species and all, accordingly,
belong to his form. As we do not say that the soul itself thinks but, rather, that the
concrete man does,36 so we do not say that the soul is made of flesh but that the whole
man is. Hence, just like thinking, also having flesh depends upon man’s substantial form
and it is, in this sense, a part of his form; as a property, however, it belongs not to form
alone but to the whole composite substance. Generally speaking,37 all properties that
belong to a concrete object by virtue of its essence and as a part of its species are, as such,
also parts of its form.
This principle applies to all kinds of matter that a substance possesses. In man,
elemental, uniform, and organic matter all correspond to the distinct layers of his
substantial form. Elements remain in the compound at least as diminished forms. Flesh
and bones are, in their turn, formal constituents of men. Organic matter, finally, is defined
in terms of substantial form in that it constitutes those very organs through which the
soul operates. As we have seen, for a hand to be a hand means performing certain
functions which originate precisely in the soul: in Aristotle’s words, a dead hand is a hand
only ‘by homonymy’. Averroes subscribes to this view in a number of texts, where he
openly embraces the homonymy principle:

A hand is not a part of man in just any way it is found but only when it performs the function
of a hand and not when it is separated from the animal.38

Likewise, in his commentary on Met. Z 10 Averroes refers to the material parts of an

animal and specifies that, ‘when form is not present, their name is said of them only by
homonymy (bi-shtirāk al-ism)’.39 What is more, not just the single parts but the organic
body as a whole is so intrinsically related to substantial form. The soul provides it with
those capacities with regard to which the body is defined precisely as ‘organic’. In this
case, too, Averroes makes his point clear:

36. Aristotle, De Anima, A 4, 408b1–13.

37. An exception, as we have seen, is represented by the corporeal form body, which is no part of substantial
form and no substantial form itself, although it is certainly a part of the species of bodies. Similarly, the kinds of
elemental matter that are essentially connected with a species retain, in the object, a status intermediate between
that of a substantial and that of an accidental form (see n. 33 above). It is noteworthy that what Averroes sets forth
here is precisely a non-realist account of ‘bodiliness’ where being a body has no substantive reality independently of
its further specifications such as being fire or being earth. Said otherwise, nothing exists just as a body without
existing as the particular kind of body it is. I thank P. Adamson for drawing my attention to this implication of
Averroes’s doctrine.
38. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 931 (In Z 11, 1036b30–31, c. 39/i).
39. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 911 (In Z 10, 1035b25–7, c. 35/m). See also ibid., p. 910 (In Z 10, 1035b22–23, c.
35/k): ‘When the soul separates, [the parts of animals] are not called by their true name but by homonymy’; ibid.,
p. 931 (In Z 11, 1036b32, c. 39/k): ‘As regards animals’ organs, like e.g. a hand and the like, when they are ensouled,
they are parts of animals; whereas, when they are not, they are no longer such parts’.

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Whoever posits that soul and body are two different things will have to say what the cause of
the connection between soul and body is. For those who say, by contrast, that the soul is the
actuality of the body and that the body does not exist unless ensouled (al-badan lā yūjad ghayr
mutanaffis), these will no longer be two different things and this difficulty will not be incumbent
upon them.40

Averroes’s doctrine of substantial form presupposes an holistic understating of

hylomorphism and a logical notion of form. Form is a principle consisting of all that is
essentially found in, and predicated of, the concrete object. All kinds of matter are parts
of form just to the same extent that they are parts of the species. Precisely as ‘kinds’, kinds
of matter are not parts of matter itself. Within the whole compound, finally, no parts of
essence are given by ‘matter’, since what ‘matter’ is, is ultimately due to the lower
components of form.
The specificity of Averroes’s position emerges most clearly when contrasted with the
opposite view that we find in one of his earliest readers, Thomas Aquinas. In several
exegetical and philosophical contexts, Aquinas refers to flesh and bones as the matter,
not the form, of the composite substance. In this connection, he distinguishes between
the kind of matter that a thing possesses (caro et os) and the concrete matter that makes
up a fully fledged individual (haec caro et hoc os). While the former is ‘matter’ in the sense
of being such-and-such a component of the thing, the latter is concrete matter, endowed
with certain dimensions and occupying a given region of space. Only the former, called
‘materia communis’, is part of the essence (or species) whereas dimensional matter
(‘materia signata quantitate’) is what individuates essence and falls outside it. However,
even when they are taken in the sense of common matter and under their general
characterization, flesh and bones are, for Aquinas, the matter of man. Body and soul, by
the same token, are called without qualifications the matter and the form of the
composite substance.41
40. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 1099 (In H 6, 1045b7–8, c. 16/i).
41. See Thomas Aquinas, De Ente et Essentia, Ch. 2, in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, iussu Leonis
XIII P.M. edita, t. 43, Rome, 1976, p. 370.1–2: ‘In substantiis igitur compositis forma et materia nota est, ut in homine
anima et corpus’. English transl. in St. Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence, transl. A. Maurer, 2nd edn, Rome,
1968, p. 34: ‘Form and matter are found in composite substances, as for example soul and body in man’. See also
Thomas Aquinas, De Ente et Essentia, p. 371.80–84: ‘In diffinitione autem hominis ponitur materia non signata:
non enim in diffinitione hominis ponitur hoc os et hec caro, sed os et caro absolute que sunt materia hominis non signata’.
English transl. in St. Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence, p. 37: ‘The definition of man, on the contrary, does
include undesignated matter. In this definition we do not put this particular bone and this particular flesh, but
bone and flesh absolutely, which are the undesignated matter of man’. Cf. id., In Duodecim Libros Metaphysicorum
Aristotelis Expositio, Lib. VII, lec. 10, n. 1492, eds M.-R. Cathala-R. M. Spiazzi, Turin and Rome, 1950, p. 363:
‘Cum enim ostensum sit quae partes sunt speciei et quae partes individui, quia materia communiter sumpta est pars
speciei, haec autem materia determinata est pars individui: manifestum est, quod solum illae partes sunt partes rationis,
quae sunt partes speciei; non autem quae sunt partes individui. In definitione enim hominis ponitur caro et os, sed non
haec caro et hoc os’. English transl. in St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Translated
by J. P. Rowan, 2 vols, Chicago, 1961, vol. 2, p. 563: ‘For since it was shown which parts are parts of the species as
well as which are parts of the individual (because matter taken commonly is part of the species, whereas this definite
matter is part of the individual), it is evident that only those parts which are parts of the species are parts of the

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Such statements make little concession to the holistic treatment of hylomorphism

that we find in Averroes. Admittedly, in some of his writings Aquinas seems to take a
different view according to which substantial form joins to prime matter directly and all
that supervenes on prime matter is a part of substantial form. It has also been suggested
that speaking of ‘body’ and ‘soul’ is for Aquinas a non-technical way to refer to prime
matter and to the all-embracing form that is added to it.42 However, when Aquinas
discusses the essence of composite substances, he is firm that essence includes something
more than just substantial form. In Chapter 2 of the De ente et essentia, he clarifies that
what constitutes the essence of material substances cannot simply be something indeter-
minate such as prime matter. His argument points to the fact that, when flesh and bones
are mentioned in the definition of man, it is man’s matter, not his form, that is being
mentioned. Flesh and bones are not formal constituents of man, nor is there any evidence
in these texts that they are parts of substantial form in the sense used by Averroes. Most
remarkably, the disagreement between Averroes and Aquinas ultimately derives from the
fact that, while Averroes entertains a logical notion of form, Aquinas sticks to a more
physical view. For Averroes substantial form extends beyond the faculties of the soul; for
Aquinas the form of man is, most properly, his soul.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
I began the present inquiry by pointing to the intrinsic complexity of the notion of
form. Aristotle’s treatment allows of at least two interpretations, depending on
whether one opts for a physical or a logical line. Taken as a physical notion, form is a
disposition that is added to matter and is distinct from it. As a logical notion, by
contrast, form is the counterpart of species and determines the whole identity of the
composite substance. The latter is the view that Averroes endorses. He assumes that
the predicates which make up a species pick out as many layers of form. Although this
correspondence is not absolute, it is clear that at least the psychic faculties and the
kinds of matter that are inscribed in man’s species are, for Averroes, also parts of his
form. This applies to all kinds of matter that are recognizable in the composite
substance: not only elemental, but also uniform and organic matter. Substantial form

intelligible expression, and not those which are parts of the individual; for flesh and bones, and not this flesh and
these bones, are given in the definition of man’. A detailed analysis of Aquinas’s conception of essence and form is
provided by J. A. Aertsen, Nature and Creature. Thomas Aquinas’s Way of Thought, Leiden, 1988, pp. 7–91. See
also J. F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (n. 33 above), pp. 327–33.
42. A discussion of this different line, connected with Aquinas’s doctrine of the unity of substantial form, can
be found in J. F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (n. 33 above), pp. 333–51. For some caveats
on the body-soul terminology, see F. Van Steenberghen, Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism, Washington
D.C., 1980, pp. 73–4. Notice also that, contrary to Averroes, Aquinas distinguishes between what he calls the ‘form
of the whole’ (forma totius), corresponding to the species, and the ‘form of the part’ (forma partis), which is substan-
tial form as a constituent of the concrete substance (see Thomas Aquinas, De Ente et Essentia (n. 41 above), esp.
Ch. 2). In light of this distinction, the fact that flesh and bones are part of the form of the whole does not mean
that they are, for Aquinas, also part of substantial form.

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is a whole compounded of parts, or layers, which correspond to the essential

properties that belong to the composite substance.
The present account of Averroes’s doctrine requires, in conclusion, some important
qualifications. First, Averroes is not very consistent when he discusses kinds of matter.
Sometimes, in line with his general attitude, he speaks of formal principles of the
compound; other times, rather surprisingly, he refers to them as the matter, not the form,
of the composite substance. This happens, for example, when Averroes addresses the
question of the object of definition and suggests that definitions have to make reference
to both form and matter.43 On occasions, he goes so far as to say that matter is precisely
what genus, in definitions, denotes.44 I have analysed in a previous study the motivations
for this contention and its implications for Averroes’s thought.45 What is worth noting
here is that these formulae do not seem to represent Averroes’s most refined, and
distinctive, notion of substantial form. Leaving aside the few places where matter is
described as a constituent of definitions, but not of species,46 it is clear that Averroes is
not very consistent with his own premises whenever he describes species as inclusive of
matter. Such premises are given by the doctrine that species is really identical with form,
and the logical notion of form is the most coherent development of this doctrine. On
the other hand, Averroes is not committed to his identity thesis to the point of avoiding
any alternative terminologies. On occasions, in fact, he feels the need to appeal to a more
intuitive version of hylomorphism and a more immediate distinction between matter
and form. This he does based on the natural distinction between psychic faculties, on the
one hand, and the material that sustains them, on the other. Strictly speaking, flesh and
bones are parts of form just as much as sensation and reason; however, while the latter
are psychic faculties, flesh and bones are, rather, the conditions of their operations. This
allows Averroes to speak sometimes in a less logical and more physical way, especially
when the context or the line of his argument make this language convenient.

43. Averroes, Compendio (n. 30 above), II 32, p. 53 of the Arabic text: ‘The quiddities of sensible things are
nothing more than their form and their matter’.
44. Ibid., II 68, p. 73 of the Arabic text: ‘Genera are nothing more than expressions of composite matters
(mufahhimāt al-mawādd al-murakkaba), which are, in one respect, actuality and, in another respect, potentiality’.
45. M. Di Giovanni, ‘Averroes on the Species of Celestial Bodies’, Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 33, 2006, pp. 438–
66.
46. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 907 (In Z 10, 1035b14–16, c. 35/e): ‘The things in the definitions of which matter
appears are those in the definitions of which something other than them appears’. Cf. ibid., p. 939 (In Z 11,
1037a29–32, c. 40/f ): ‘In such things [i.e. in the things composed of matter and form], the definition of the
compound of that substance which is form and of that where the latter is found, i.e. matter, is like [the definition
of] snubness’. In these and in other similar texts, Averroes alludes to the fact that composite substances admit of a
definition analogous to the definitions of accidents, where matter falls outside the essence and the species of the
thing defined. There are reasons to doubt that the matter Averroes refers to, in this case, is the same matter that
constitutes a part of the form and of the species. For a discussion of this problem I take the liberty of referring to
M. Di Giovanni, ‘La definizione delle sostanze sensibili nel Commento Grande (Tafsīr) di Averroè a Metafisica Z
10’, Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale, 14, 2003, pp. 27–63. Averroes’s doctrine of definition
is also examined by A. Maurer, ‘Form and Essence in the Philosophy of St. Thomas’, in Being and Knowing. Studies
in Thomas Aquinas and Later Medieval Philosophers, Toronto, 1990, pp. 3–18.

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Second, we should clearly distinguish between Averroes’s notion of form and that
which is implied in other similar theories. Recently M. Frede has proposed an inter-
pretation quite close to Averroes’s: the definition of a sensible substance has to mention
only form, but it conveys at the same time some information about the kind of matter
that the substance possesses.47 On Frede’s account, this does not mean that the kind of
matter is anything like a form or a part of a form. His point is rather that the kind of
matter can be extrapolated from the definition of form when this is fully spelled out. In
contrast to such a view, Averroes is of the opinion that, strictly speaking, the kind of
matter is itself a part of form. To define the species of a substance, including the suppos-
edly material parts, is in fact to define its substantial form. Matter is not just inferred
from form, it is to some extent the same as form itself.
Finally, and particularly noteworthy, to say that substantial form, like species, has a
compositional nature is not to say anything about the long-debated issue of the unity
of form in Averroes. This controversy heated up in Latin Scholasticism, where it
polarized the Franciscan and the Dominican schools into opposite camps.48 While
Franciscans embraced the view that composite substances have many substantial
forms, Dominicans, especially in the wake of Thomas Aquinas, objected that the unity
of substance requires the unity of form. The debate has its origins in Aristotle’s rather
diverging claims. In Met. Z 12 the unity of form is presupposed and contrasted with
the plurality of differentiae, of which only the last one is said to pick out ‘the form and
the substance’ (1038 a 26). In De Gen. Anim. B 3, by contrast, the faculties acquired
by animals in generation are described as a plurality of principles that are really
distinct and succeed one another in time.49 In the Middle Ages these opposite claims
were associated with two representatives of Arabic philosophy, namely Ibn Sīnā (d.
1037 AD) and Ibn Gabirol (d. 1058 AD), known in the Latin West as Avicebron. Ibn
Sīnā was generally credited with the view that substantial form is one, whereas Ibn
Gabirol, as translated into Latin and made known by Dominicus Gundissalinus, was
considered a supporter of the plurality thesis.
The exact position of Averroes is difficult to determine. In her study on the debate on
the plurality of forms, Emily Michael points out that Averroes was often quoted by

47. M. Frede, ‘The Definition of Sensible Substances in Metaphysics Z’ (n. 3 above).

48. This representation is, however, somewhat simplistic. See G. Théry, ‘L’Augustinisme médiévale et le
problème de l’unité de la forme substantielle’, in Acta Hebdomadae Augustinianae-Thomisticae, Turin, 1930, pp.
140–200. See also R. Zavalloni, Richard de Mediavilla et la controverse sur la pluralité des formes. Textes inédit et
étude critique, Louvain, 1951; D. A. Callus, ‘The Origins of the Problem of the Unity of Form’, The Thomist,
24, 2–4, 1961, pp. 121–43; J. F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (n. 33 above), pp. 333–
51.
49. Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, B 3, 736b1–5: ‘As they develop they also acquire the sensitive soul
in virtue of which an animal is an animal. For e.g. an animal does not become at the same time an animal and a
man or a horse or any other particular animal. For the end is developed last, and the peculiar character of the species
is the end of the generation in each individual’. Transl. Platt, in The Complete Works of Aristotle (n. 2 above),
p. 1142.

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medieval authors in support of the plurality thesis.50 On the other hand, Dag N. Hasse
has recently argued that there are good reasons to dispute the historical association
between Averroes and pluralism.51 Averroes himself, in Chapter I of the De Substantia
Orbis, seems to defend the view that one subject must have only one form. Just a few years
earlier, however, Averroes’s mentor and supporter at the Caliphal court, Ibn T.ufayl (d.
1185 AD) in his philosophical novel H . ayy b. Yaqz. ān describes the soul as a dynamic
principle which unfolds into a multiplicity of forms.52 It is not possible, within the limits
of the present study, to advance an adequate answer to such a difficult question. I shall
limit myself to a few cautionary remarks suggesting that there is, at least, no necessary
implication between the compositional nature of substantial form, in Averroes, and the
more radical thesis of the plurality of forms.
Averroes, overall, tends to avoid the language of plurality. On occasions, indeed, he
portrays concrete substances as resulting from the gradual stratification of many forms.
What this stratification gives rise to, however, is made clear in a number of texts where
concrete substances turn out to have, in the end, only one compounded form.53 The usual
contrast that one finds in Averroes is not between things with one form and things that
have many, but between simple and composite forms. And, clearly, having one composite
form is not the same as having a plurality of forms. This inclination towards the unity of
form emerges most clearly in his Long Commentary on Met. Z 4–6. Devoted to a general
elucidation of the notion of essence, these chapters are interpreted by Averroes as an
extensive treatment of the unity of definitions. Aristotle would draw a contrast between
accidental and essential unity and he would mention as an instance of the latter the unity
that is enjoyed by substantial forms. Essential unity is viewed precisely as the factor that
discriminates between the definition of a composite form, such as rational animal, and an
accidental compound like white man. Only the former is a single, fully unified entity
(wāh.id), and its definition refers to ‘the substance of one simple thing in actuality’ (jawhar
shayʾwāh.id basīt. bi-l-fiʿl).54 These and other similar claims seem to imply that the different
layers that make up a substantial form do not remain within the form as independent
components. They merge with each other, originate a unitary principle, and thus become

50. E. Michael, ‘Averroes and the Plurality of Forms’, Franciscan Studies, 92, 1992, pp. 155–82.
51. D. N. Hasse, ‘The Early Albertus Magnus and his Arabic Sources on the Theory of the Soul’, Vivarium,
46.3, 2008, pp. 232–52.
52. See Averroes, De Substantia Orbis (n. 32 above), p. 50. On Ibn T.ufayl, see S. Hawi, ‘Ibn Tufayl’s Appraisal
of His Predecessors and Their Influence on His Thought’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 7.1, 1976,
pp. 89–121.
53. See nn. 29 and 30 above. See also Averroes, Tafsīr, 1455 (In Λ 3, 1070a2–3, c. 12/d), where simple forms
are implicitly contrasted with composite forms: ‘This view [i.e. the view that matter and form are themselves gener-
ated] is not impossible in the case of composite matters like bronze, but only in the case of prime matter and simple
forms (al-s.uwar al-basīt.a)’.
54. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 788 (In Z 4, 1029b18, c. 11/h); ibid., p. 793 (In Z 4, 1029b30–31, c. 12/f ). Along the
same lines ibid., p. 786 (In Z 4, 1029b14, c. 11/b): ‘The essential predicates, i.e. the substantial ones, are those
which, contrary to accidents, make up a unity (tattah.id) with the subject and with one another’.

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one ‘in the same way as rationality is the quiddity of animal when we say: rational animal
(kamā anna al-nut.q huwa māhiyya al-h.ayawān fī qawlinā h.ayawān nāt.iq)’.55
On the difficult issue of the unity of form, as well as on the other features of his con-
ception of hylomorphism, Averroes appears to be consistently guided by his assumption
of a real identity between species and form. Just as species is composed of many predicates,
so form is constituted by a number of layers; just as within species all predicates are unified
into a single concept, so the unity of form is not undermined by its inner complexity.
Finally, to the same extent as species, substantial form determines the whole essence of
the compound in such a way that even what is relative to ‘matter’ receives its identity
from form. In the end, substantial form turns out to be a pivot of Averroes’s ontology. It
is responsible for both the existence and the intelligibility of the composite substance
and, in this sense, Averroes does not hesitate to portray the bulk of Aristotle’s metaphysics
as a ‘demonstrative examination (al-fah.s. al-burhānī) of form’.56 At the same time, the
specific characterization that emerges from the Long Commentary on the Metaphysics is
connected with another pillar of Averroes’s thought. I have referred to it in a previous
study as the logical status of the Averroean metaphysics.57 The intimate link that the
Cordoban philosopher establishes between logic and metaphysics is transparently
reflected in his own view of substantial form. It is in the broader context of this correla-
tion between logic and metaphysics that Averroes’s logical notion of form turns out to
be not just some erratic view but an organic element of the whole. A distinct conception
of metaphysics underlies, and inspires, Averroes’s doctrine of substantial form.

55. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 788 (In Z 4, 1029b17–18, c. 11/g). The unity of substantial form is a doctrine that
Averroes finds already embedded in the Arabic text of the Metaphysics, where unity ‘in species’ is translated as unity
‘in form’ (see n. 25 above). Precisely this emphasis on the notion of unity appears to be the holistic claim that ulti-
mately distinguishes Averroes from the supporters of accidentalism. Although the characterization of substantial
form as a combination of layers might at times suggest that Averroes subscribes to an ‘aggregational’ account of
the composite substance along accidentalist lines, Averroes strongly denies that, in a given substance, a lower
constituent can stand by itself apart from a higher one. Both prime matter and lower layers of forms exist only as
potentialities towards the last and most perfect form, which is a source of unity and actuality for the whole
compound. See e.g. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 975 (In Z 13, 1039a22–23, c. 50/d): ‘Definitions indicate many substances
in potentiality (bi-l-quwwa) and one in actuality’; ibid., p. 890 (In Z 10, c. 33/a): ‘Definition and the thing defined
are one and the same in actuality, while the multiplicity in the parts exists only in potentiality (bi-l-quwwa)’; ibid.,
p. 944 (In Z 12, 1037b8–9, c. 42/a) ‘The last differentia given in definitions is the differentia that contains the
form by virtue of which the existent is actually one and actually existent (wāh.idan bi-l-fiʿl wa-mawjūdan bi-l-fiʿl);
and the reason is because the differentiae preceding the last one exist in potentiality (bi-l-quwwa) in the thing
defined, and so the thing defined is not made multiple by the multiplicity of the parts of the definition’. The
language of ‘potentiality’ is intended to indicate that all the inner components of substances are governed and
determined by a single and simple metaphysical principle. This is not to say anything about the possibility that
other elements can be found in Averroes which point to a more accidentalist line of thought. Such evidence in fact
surfaces in several, if secondary, exegetical and philosophical contexts which I will analyse in a further study.
56. Averroes, Tafsīr, p. 777 (In Z 3, 1029a27–30, c. 8/o). Form is the principle in terms of which substance
and, ultimately, being qua being are to be understood. For a similar characterization of the metaphysical discourse,
see M. Frede, ‘The Unity of General and Special Metaphysics: Aristotle’s Conception of Metaphysics’, in M. Frede,
Essays in Ancient Philosophy, Minneapolis, 1987, pp. 81–95.
57. M. Di Giovanni, ‘Averroes and the Logical Status of Metaphysics’ (n. 19 above).

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