Aquinas and the Basic Principles of the Material World – Prof. Michael Gorman

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Religion &Amp; Spirituality, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

Prof. Michael Gorman explores Aquinas’s foundational philosophy of the material world, detailing key concepts such as the four causes, hylomorphism, act and potency, matter and form, and the distinction between substantial and accidental change.

This lecture was given on July 17th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Michael Gorman is Professor of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He has doctorates in philosophy and theology, and his work covers both areas, with a special emphasis on metaphysical themes. He is the author of over thirty-five scholarly articles, a book entitled Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and a book that will appear in the spring of 2024 entitled A Contemporary Introduction to Thomistic Metaphysics (The Catholic University of America Press, 2024).

Keywords: Act and Potency, Aristotle, Final Causality, Hylomorphism, Matter and Form, Metaphysics, Natural Philosophy, Prime Matter, Nicomachean Ethics, Substantial Change

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.
0:06.2	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.7	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.3	To learn more and to attend these events,
0:21.7	visit us at to mystic institute.org.
0:25.3	So first I'm going to make some introductory remarks.
0:29.1	Then I'm going to take a first look
0:32.3	at what the material world is,
0:34.6	what it means to talk about the material world. Then I'm going to go through
0:39.0	a series of topics. The four causes, which you may or may not have heard of, in the
0:45.7	snapshot version. There's two versions. So the first is the snapshot version. Then I'm going to
0:50.9	look at holomorphism. Hyloomorphism. Then I'm going to look at holomorphism.
0:57.5	Then I'm going to look at the four causes,
0:59.9	the movie version or the cinema version.
1:04.9	Then I'm going to look at matter, form, and privation.
1:06.9	Matter form, privation.
1:10.3	Then I'm going to look at the distinction between the substantial and the accidental, substantial and accidental.
1:16.8	Then I'm going to look at act and potency. And then finally, I'm going to come back and take a second look at the material realm, what we mean by the material realm. Okay? So introductory
1:30.3	remarks, first look at the material realm. First, four causes snapshot version, hyalomorphism,
1:37.5	four causes movie version, matter form, privation, substantial and accidental, act and potency,
1:43.2	and then second look.
1:45.3	And that'll be it.
	...

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