HYLOGLOB aimed to reconstruct the specificities of a long-forgotten philosophical debate on the metaphysical constitution of nature that took place in 16th-century Europe. The main figures in this debate were all Aristotelian philosophers, and, like their medieval predecessors, they envisioned nature as hylomorphically structured. For them all natural things are made of two metaphysical constituents: matter and form. The form serves as the blueprint of the natural object, expressing its rules of behaviour and, by joining with matter, causing its existence. In turn, matter, especially in its metaphysical state of “prime matter”, serves as a substrate for the reception of forms. Inherited from Aristotle, the hylomorphic model underwent significant updates during the Middle Ages, and the centuries-long debate, starting in the late 12th century, reached early modern Europe in a constant process of emendation and refinement.
The 16th century witnessed a remarkable array of cultural, social, and philosophical transformations – an age of discovery for Europeans, deeply marred by reprehensible acts of violence and conquest. The colonisation of the Americas brought forth an immense collection of new data on the natural world and its functioning to Europe. Similarly, the expeditions to Asian countries, including India and particularly China, though deplorable, led to the discovery of cultural and philosophical traditions. On the one hand, these traditions traced back to the origins of European philosophy itself; on the other, they exhibited profound differences in their conceptions of nature and human beings. Concurrently, a new approach to methodical practices in the study of nature steadily emerged from the refinement of natural and mathematical sciences such as alchemy and astronomy – the initial seeds of a scientific revolution that would reach its peak in the 17th century but whose de-structuring influence appears to have already impacted 16th-century Aristotelianism, albeit gradually.
Given this context, HYLOGLOB’s primary objective was the reconstruction of how 16th-century philosophers emended the hylomorphic model to align it with the new data, theories, and trends that emerged from the gradual turn to modernity. In doing so, the project also aimed to shed light on the use of the hylomorphic models in two crucial philosophical ventures: the European attempts to understand the theories proposed by the 宋明理学 and the establishment of “colonial scholasticism” in New Spain.
