Formaterialism

Everything that we experience is both a unity and a multiplicity. Each particular item is a whole with parts, and the whole is both one and many. So, insofar as the fundamental principles of a philosophical theory must account for the most basic features of experience, principles that have something to do with Unity and Multiplicity are well-qualified to be fundamental. One traditional pair of terms denoting Unity and Multiplicity are Form and Matter, so everything that we experience possesses both Form and Matter. The principles which produce them can thus be called the Formal Principle and the Material Principle, and, hence, these are well-qualified to serve as the fundamental principles of a philosophical theory. This is hardly an original observation, but as I've argued previously, traditional efforts to present a legitimate 'Formaterialism', to coin a term, have fallen short, because Unity, e. g. God, the One, Being, etc., have seemingly always been accorded priority over Multiplicity, e. g. Creation, the Many, Becoming, etc., if not ontologically, then morally. Here, they are regarded as equiprimordial, equipollent, and irreducible to one another, as befits a pair of 'fundamental' principles. More precisely, I define the Formal Principle as 'Becoming-the-same', and the Material Principle as 'Becoming-diverse'. I will elaborate on these in forthcoming postings.