Hylomorphism and Persons in Odd Situations

Hylomorphism – a view of material composition on which the unity of material objects is explained by appeal to form and matter – is often alleged to be an alternative not easily distinguished from other accounts of material composition and personal identity, collapsing into either dualism or some form of reductionism. I apply a hylomorphic account to questions of personal identity, highlighting that this view holds that persons are individuals of a given natural kind (a composite material object of the kind ‘homo sapiens’) and that whatever comes to compose a substance as a part undergoes intrinsic changes in its nature or essence. I employ a hylomorphic framework to address three related problems for personal identity: mereological pairing problems, ‘remnant persons’ and transplant cases, and problems resulting from the apparently indeterminate identity of developmentally plastic zygotes.