Considerable backlash erupted from Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) members and fans after player Sophie Cunningham made commonsensical remarks about the participation of biological males in women’s sports. This backlash, in turn, led to a re-evaluation of the WNBA’s policies.

It seems we have yet another instance where we must ponder Matt Walsh’s infamous question, “What is a woman?” Yet there’s a question even more foundational to the whole transgenderism controversy, namely, “Do bodies determine the nature of a substance?”

Form and Matter, Matter

Those promoting transgenderism largely assume that one’s identity is unrelated to one’s body. Thus, the “modification” of that body to “fit” one’s identity is not just acceptable, but commendable.

Yet if one’s body is integral to one’s identity, then the destruction of properly functioning parts of that body damage one’s identity as well.

There are strong emotions associated with both sides of this issue, yet the reasons for both sides are philosophical. So what does philosophy say about the connection between the nature of a substance and its body?

The earliest treatment of this question comes from Plato, specifically in his “Phaedo” dialogue and his famous “Allegory of the Cave.” He presents a theory called Dualism, which describes how physical objects do not contain the nature (form) of a substance, but only reflect it. For example, the chair we see does not have the essence of chair-ness, but is rather a shadow of the true form of chair-ness. The true form exists in a separate space – the realm of the forms. Our souls then give our bodies form and unique identity. Therefore, when they are in our bodies, they are not where they are supposed to be, but trapped, only released upon the death of the body.

Aristotle believed in the distinction between the soul and the body, and that the soul is the form of the body. However, Aristotle also understood the relationship between the soul and the body as integrally united in determining the substance of a thing. This unity comes from the relationship the form has to the matter as its acting principle. The form initially acts upon the matter to form it and keeps acting on it for the substance to keep that form. This idea is called hylomorphism and means that the form and matter cannot be separated in a substance.

Found in the World

This comes from observation of every substance in existence (even “observed” in the mind through our imagination). One cannot imagine triangle-ness itself, the form, for example, only examples of triangles, the matter. This is true even if the triangles only exist in your imagination. They are still bodies of triangles. Even an abstract idea like justice cannot exist just as a definition, which is the form, but can only be found in specific examples of just actions, which are the matter.

If this is true of triangles and justice, then it would also be true for the substances “man” and “woman.” In the same way that the substance “human” is distinct from other animals, so too are substances within a species.

A good analogy for the “form” of biological species can be understood in DNA. We distinguish between human DNA and non-human DNA by a specific code. This code acts as the way we measure the form in this case. DNA and the form, in the philosophical sense, are not the same. The DNA is a physical representation of the difference.

We recognize the difference of form between human and non-human in the difference of bodies, the matter. It works similarly for the forms of men and women. Just as the matter, the human body, cannot be separate from the form, human nature, in a substance, so too is it for the male or female body, the matter, and the male or female nature, the form.

What Is “It” For?

Unfortunately, when trying to simplify these questions one runs the risk of reducing a substance unfairly. Often people will try to move to describe “what makes a man/woman” and give one or two actions that are culturally associated with either. This is usually unhelpful and reductionistic. It also misunderstands the relationship between being and doing. One is not a man or woman because of what he or she can do. What one does proceeds from what one is.

However, what this language usually denotes is another Aristotelian philosophical concept known as teleology, the study of final causes, the intrinsic purpose built into a substance. When we see something do something enough times, we naturally conclude that this is what the thing is supposed to do. It is the substance’s nature to do that thing, therefore it does it, naturally.

The final cause can be helpful when determining a substance (a hammer is something that hits nails), but it follows from something’s form, which is united to something’s body (matter). This connection between form and matter is fundamental to knowing what something is. Since we cannot separate the body from the form, we must consider both the body and the form in determining the nature of a substance.

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This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News.

Image credit: Flickr-John Mac, CC BY-SA 4.0