His principle argument in this section is found in the statement, “In fact, the form is more nature than the matter is.” He avoids saying that the matter from which a thing is made is absolutely not it’s nature, but he argues that it is the form which primarily makes an object what it is. A bed is a bed because of the form it takes, regardless of whether it’s made of wood or iron or stone. If Aristotle saw a bed made of modern materials entirely unknown to him, he could still recognize it as a bed because of the nature of its design. Also, the wood from which a bed might be made could just as easily be made into any number of other things. You could even argue that wood being made into a bed is not simply wood in the abstract, but individual planks or logs or blocks made of wood. That’s not to say that matter and form are entirely independent. Certain kinds of materials are necessary for certain kinds of forms, and other materials will be unsuitable. A bed must be made of something solid. In our day we might have “air beds” and “water beds”, but air and water obviously wouldn’t work very well on their own.
All correct. I get your point in the last: the form of a bed requires a certain kind of matter, because else it won’t serve its function properly. The point was rather similar to the idea of a snub nose (see II.2): snubness has a certain shape, but only when it is in the flesh of a nose can it be called (this kind of) “snubness.”
I would hasten to add (not that you were denying this) that Aristotle thought that water and air were elements that, qua water and air, have innate principles of change in themselves.
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