Aristotle's Hylomorphism: What Makes Us Real?

The question of what is real and what makes us real has been a philosophical question with many different answers. Aristotle’s theory of Hylomorphism explains the reality of the universe, objects, and people in a materialistic way. Hylomorphism is the depiction that every physical thing is composed of two things: Matter and Form. Matter is the potency, or the potential of the physical object or being and the Form is its essence. Aristotle describes substance or Form as the truest and primary sense of the word. It is not predicable or present of a subject. In Aristotle’s work Organon I, he describes substance in the terms of the individual ‘man’ which is also included in the species ‘man’ but of the genus ‘animal’. So that the species ‘man’ is primary and the genus ‘animal’ is the secondary substance (Organon, 2012). Aristotle explains that the color of ‘man’s’ body which may be white could only exist in the individual’s body. However, if the individual did not exist then the color white could not be present in the body. Substance and the Primary Sense of Being in Aristotle, a scholarly journal by Angus Brook, includes the theory of Hylomorphism and gives insight to the idea that substance is
The essence is the substantial realty, as Aristotle writes, and that the Form is the source of mobility. This is in reference to his Motion Theory in which the Earth changed and evolved by the ‘Prime Mover’ which is Form without Matter. Though, Matter must have Form in order to exist. He goes on to state that the essence is the cause of anything but some things may be produced from one another such as the four elements: Earth, air, fire, and water. They may be created by combination or separation and this makes a difference in the “posteriority”. This means that combining the elements, or destroying these elements can create a new