Etymology of material
mid-14c., “real, ordinary; earthly, drawn from the material world” (contrasted with spiritual, mental, supernatural), a term in scholastic philosophy and theology, from Old French material, materiel (14c.) and directly from Late Latin materialis (adj.) “of or belonging to matter,” from Latin materia “matter, stuff, wood, timber” (see matter (n.)).
From late 14c. as “made of matter, having material existence; material, physical, substantial.” From late 15c. as “important, relevant, necessary, pertaining to the matter or subject;” in the law of evidence, “of legal significance to the cause” (1580s).
Etymology of matter
matter (n.)
c. 1200, materie, “the subject of a mental act or a course of thought, speech, or expression,” from Anglo-French matere, Old French matere “subject, theme, topic; substance, content; character, education” (12c., Modern French matière) and directly from Latin materia “substance from which something is made,” also “hard inner wood of a tree.” According to de Vaan and Watkins, this is from mater “origin, source, mother” (see mother (n.1)). The sense developed and expanded in Latin in philosophy by influence of Greek hylē (see hylo-) “wood, firewood,” in a general sense “material,” used by Aristotle for “matter” in the philosophical sense.
The Latin word also is the source of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian materia, Dutch, German, and Danish materie, vernacular Spanish madera, Portuguese madeira “wood” (compare Madeira). The Middle English word also sometimes was used specifically as “piece of wood.”
From c. 1200 as “a subject of a literary work, content of what is written, main theme;” sense of “narrative, tale, story” is from c. 1300. Meaning “physical substance generally” is from mid-14c.; that of “substance of which some specific object is or may be composed” is attested from late 14c. Meaning “piece of business, affair, activity, situation; subject of debate or controversy, question under discussion” is from late 14c. In law, “something which is to be tried or proved,” 1530s.
Matter of course “something expected” attested from 1739 (adjectival phrase matter-of-course “proceeding as a natural consequence” is by 1840). For that matter “as far as that goes, as far as that is concerned” is attested from 1670s. What is the matter “what concerns (someone), what is the cause of the difficulty” is attested from mid-15c., from matter in the sense of “circumstance or condition as affecting persons and things.” To make no matter to “be no difference to” also is mid-15c., with matter in the meaning “importance, consequence.”
Historical perspectives
Why history?
It is difficult to write anything comprehensive on the matter of matter, given the breadth and scope in the ways it has been dealt with. I’d like to spend some time demonstrating the historical differences in thought, not only to illustrate the complexity of the question, but to offer answers at different ‘resolutions’ and between different ways of thinking.
Ancient philosophers
The ancient philosopher’s view on matter was based on certain arguments primarily regarding the way matter logically must be. That is, it was focused on deductive reasoning from axioms, not inductive reasoning from observations.
What Plato claimed
Plato’s dialogues, such as “The Phaedo”, “The Timaeus” and possibly “The Parmenides”#todo/research argue for an idea called the theory of forms
What Aristotle claimed
Aristotle made more effort describing and explaining physical phenomena. Here are same claims he made about the subject of matter in his Physics
1. He doesn’t agree with the theory of forms
Here he says he doesn’t thing “natural scientists” agree with it
Now these are contraries, which taken universally are excess and deficiency, as are the great and the small in Plato, except that he makes these be matter, and the one be form (eidos), whereas they make the one the underlying matter and the contraries be differentiae (diaphora), that is, forms (eidos).
Here he says outright that “substance is an underlying things”, and claiming “Each and every one of them” implies it’s the only underlying thing.
The things which have a nature are those which have the kind of source I have been talking about. Each and every one of them is a substance, since substance is an underlying thing, and only underlying things can have a nature.
2. He believes matter may not be arbitrarily small or large
if a part can be of any size whatsoever in the direction of greatness and of smallness, then it must also be possible for the thing itself be so (by “parts” I mean components present in the whole into which the whole can be divided). If, on the other hand, it is impossible for an animal or a plant to be of any size whatsoever, in the direction of greatness and of smallness, it is evident that none of its parts can be either. For if it could, so similarly could the whole. But flesh and bone and things of that sort are parts of an animal, and fruits are parts of plants. It is clear, therefore, that it is impossible for flesh or bone or any other such thing to be of any size whatsoever,
It’s unclear whether he’s speaking of the material here. It seems not to be material, but based on observed nature of plants an animals, except later, he says, seemingly building on this conclusion:
if all such things are already present in each other, and do not come to be but instead, being present within, are segregated out; and if they are called [what they are] after whatever there is more of; and if anything can come to be from anything (for example, if water can be segregated out from flesh, and flesh from water); and if every limited body is done away with by [subtracting] a limited body: it is evident that it is not possible for everything to be present in everything. For if flesh is subtracted from water, and if this is done again by segregation from what remains, even if what is subtracted is always smaller, still it will not be smaller than a certain magnitude.
Physics, I, 187b21 - 30 This certainly seems material, since flesh extracted from just any volume of water would not be part of a whole organism.
Regardless of his reasoning, his opinion on the matter is clear.
there is no smallest magnitude
3. He argues for the existence of “Prime Matter”
Aristotle makes the claim in the beginning of this argument, at the end of his deconstruction of opposing arguments
from what is not nothing can come to be. For there must be some underlying subject [for it to come from].
This seems to be him paraphrasing the axioms of his opposition, but he doesn’t disagree, he merely thinks they made a mistake in how limited they were considering being. He believes that the natural sciences require this kind of axiom (Lost the source on this, it’s probably in the beginning of book 1 or 2) something cannot come from nothing 1
Footnotes
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Aristotle holds this to be a major axiom in natural sciences, Physics, I, 191a29 - 191a30 ↩