This model, put forward by Aristotle, is also known as the hylomorphic scheme (where “hylomorphic” is composed of ὕλη and μορφή). As we have seen, it is neither strictly materialist, nor strictly idealist, but it represents instead a problematic effort to bridge the difference between existence and essence. “This”, writes de Beistegui, “is the discourse in the wake of which much of Western metaphysics will come to be engulfed.”. In “The Origin of the Work of Art” Heidegger had already brought attention to the significant historical legacy of this particular way of understanding the conjunction of form and matter:

The distinction between matter and form is the conceptual scheme deployed in the greatest variety of ways by all art theory and aesthetics. This indisputable fact, however, proves neither that the matter-form distinction is adequately grounded, nor that it belongs, originally, to the sphere of art and the artwork.

P. 9

¶ 10:13 PM