Matter and Predication in Aristotle

Abstract

In describing the basic matter of things, Aristotle removed from it all determinations and so all direct intelligibility. Yet he regarded the basic matter just in itself as a subject for predication. You can say things about it. You can say, for instance, that it is ingenerable and indestructible, and that it is the persistent substrate of generation and corruption. Still more strangely, Aristotle means that a substance or substantial form, like that of a man, of a plant, of a metal, can be predicated of matter.¹ How can this be, if matter is in itself wholly undetermined and entirely unintelligible?