Form Theories: My New Book

I have a new book! It’s titled “Form Theories: From Aristotle to Merleau-Ponty.” Paperback copies are printed and shipped by Amazon for 14.99 USD. It is also available to buy in the Kindle store for 5.99 USD.

Why I Wrote It

One reason I wrote this book was my desire to trace the history of the concept of “gestalt” or “form.” I was intrigued by the concept of gestalt and its history before it led me to the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and once I read Merleau-Ponty’s The Structure of Behavior, many interests of mine converged: Greek philosophy of matter and form, emergence, phenomenology, psychology and the intersection of mind and body. Ever since reading that first book, I have been avidly interested in the writings of Merleau-Ponty. My book traces a history of the philosophy of forms, and culminates in an exploration of the main works of Merleau-Ponty, proposing that his life work contributed to building an ontology of sense and non-sense.

When I read The Visible and the Invisible, this thesis struck me and I realized upon research that Ted Toadvine himself proposed that Merleau-Ponty’s work featured an “ontology of sense” (see Toadvine, “Singing the World in a New Key”). The last chapter of my book explores how I conceptualize this ontology of sense (and non-sense).

I hope others might find my book useful, whether you are interested in the history of hylomorphism, emergentism, phenomenology, or gestalt psychology.

Now I’ll tell you a little bit about the thinkers I chose for my book:

Aristotle

We start with the hylomorphism of Aristotle in his Metaphysics and De Anima, acknowledging the confusion and unanswered questions his works raise, and the depth of the issues he tackled which are still relevant today.

Alexander of Aphrodisias, Ockham and Aquinas

Aristotle’s concepts were taken up in different ways by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham, and I take a look at a little-known work of Ockham’s which reveals his own perspective on hylomorphism.

Goethe and Franz Brentano

Goethe was interested in “morphology,” the shifting of biological forms, themes of holism, and questions of causality. He was influential on the thought of many German thinkers, one of whom was Kurt Goldstein who we look at in Chapter 5. After Goethe we look at the legacy of Franz Brentano, whose school of thought birthed both the phenomenologists and also the gestalt theorists. Brentano, a Thomist, continues the Aristotelian legacy in philosophy.

Max Wertheimer

I look at Max Wertheimer, the founder of gestalt theory who was a student of Stumpf (Brentano’s student), and whose ideas were influential on Kurt Goldstein and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Kurt Goldstein and Merleau-Ponty

I look at the strong parallels between Goldstein’s book “The Organism” and Merleau-Ponty’s first book, “The Structure of Behavior.” It is known that Merleau-Ponty was influenced by the gestalt psychology, and in particular by Goldstein’s developments of gestalt ideas which he applied to organismic wholeness. The gestalt concept of a “structured form” is a thread of connection between the Aristotelian beginnings and through Germany into the work of Merleau-Ponty, who raises the concept of gestalt, or “form” as the key to his thesis in his book. And this work of his is the most explicit (up there with Alexander of Aphrodisias) of all these works in discussing forms in a way that aligns with current concept of emergentism, or emergent levels/properties. Merleau-Ponty’s first work is an underrated presentation of many themes academics are interested in articulating today: the balance of objectivity and subjectivity and the descriptive usefulness of hylomorphic terms to describe the emergent levels or structures of our world. I find this lesser-known work of his to be a full-circle exploration of the same topics Aristotle explored in his Metaphysics and De anima; a hierarchy of forms and substrate, what causes the wholeness we perceive in the world, and the role of the soul/mind.

After exploring Merleau-Ponty’s first book, I then explore Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of sense and non-sense, a theme which encapsulates his later work as well as kernels of thought that were present all throughout his life work. The main works of his I explore include The Structure of Behavior, Phenomenology of Perception, The Visible and the Invisible, Sense and Non-Sense, and Adventures of the Dialectic.

Below you can download the full PDF of this chapter on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy from my book, for no cost.

Related Topics

In the concluding remarks, and throughout the book, I also raise the topic of “emergentism” and how it relates to physics, and share my thoughts and questions about how we use language of “top-down” and “bottom-up” to convey ideas about causality. I think there are many unanswered questions about how to best use the language of emergent phenomena to encapsulate the concepts these thinkers were trying to untangle in their work.