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15264
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The notorious substratum results from substance-with-qualities; individuals-with-powers solves this [Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
Chemical analysis either arrives at a qualityless substance, the notorious substratum, or is obliged to declare certain qualities primary and inexplicable. Substituting individuals-with-powers for substance-with-qualities removes these difficulties.
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From:
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.II)
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A reaction:
Any account gives you something as basic, and that something is always going to seem inherently and deeply mysterious. I prefer powers to substrata, but what has the powers? They like 'fields'.
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7929
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A substance is either a bundle of properties, or a bare substratum, or an essence [Macdonald,C]
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Full Idea:
The three main theories of substance are the bundle theory (Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Ayer), the bare substratum theory (Locke and Bergmann), and the essentialist theory.
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From:
Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.3)
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A reaction:
Macdonald defends the essentialist theory. The essentialist view immediately appeals to me. Properties must be OF something, and the something must have the power to produce properties. So there.
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7941
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Each substance contains a non-property, which is its substratum or bare particular [Macdonald,C]
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Full Idea:
A rival to the bundle theory says that, for each substance, there is a constituent of it that is not a property but is both essential and unique to it, this constituent being referred to as a 'bare particular' or 'substratum'.
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From:
Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.3)
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A reaction:
This doesn't sound promising. It is unclear what existence devoid of all properties could be like. How could it 'have' its properties if it was devoid of features (it seems to need property-hooks)? It is an ontological black hole. How do you prove it?
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7942
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The substratum theory explains the unity of substances, and their survival through change [Macdonald,C]
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Full Idea:
If there is a substratum or bare particular within a substance, this gives an explanation of the unity of substances, and it is something which can survive intact when a substance changes.
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From:
Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.3)
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A reaction:
[v. compressed wording] Many problems here. The one that strikes me is that when things change they sometimes lose their unity and identity, and that seems to be decided entirely from observation of properties, not from assessing the substratum.
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7943
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A substratum has the quality of being bare, and they are useless because indiscernible [Macdonald,C]
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Full Idea:
There seems to be no way of identifying a substratum as the bearer of qualities without qualifiying it as bare (having the property of being bare?), ..and they cannot be used to individuate things, because they are necessarily indiscernible.
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From:
Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.3)
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A reaction:
The defence would probably be a priori, claiming an axiomatic necessity for substrata in our thinking about the world, along with a denial that bareness is a property (any more than not being a contemporary of Napoleon is a property).
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