Luca Gasparinetti
University of Italian Switzerland
The main tenet of hylomorphism is that concrete particular objects are compounds of matter and form. So far, hylomorphism has mostly been applied in the context of biology, and at most chemistry, to explain the nature of complex objects. On the other hand, very little attention has been given to hylomorphism in the context of physics and only recently philosophers are considering hylomorphism as a competitive option on the table (see Robert C. Koons, e.g., 2018; Matteo Morganti 2019; William M. R. Simpson, e.g., 2021 for hylomorphic accounts in quantum mechanics). In this presentation I put forward and develop a hylomorphic account of the elementary particles of the Standard Model.
I provide a model where elementary particles are structured wholes constituted by (i) a material component, viz. a spacetime region, and (ii) a formal/structural element, viz., a collection of dispositional properties (e.g., charge, mass and spin) that are triggered by the interaction of quantum fields and whose manifestation occurs in terms of assignment of precise values to that properties.
More carefully, for every elementary particle p, there is a bare spacetime region r and a collection of fields f1, …, fn defined on r such that:
r = M(p) and d1,…,dn = F(p)
where M(p) is the hylomorphic matter of p, F(p) is the form of p, and d1,…,dn are the collection of trigger dispositions. Hence, an elementary particle p is the composition Σ, of M(p) and F(p): p = ΣM(p),F(p)
Chair: Josef Kohlmaier
Time: September 8th, 10:40-11:10
Location: SR 1.007
SOPhiA 2026 