Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Immanuel Kant, Keith Campbell and D.J. O'Connor

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these philosophers

display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers


4 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance
A substance could exist as a subject, but not as a mere predicate [Kant]
     Full Idea: A substance is something that could exist as a subject but never as a mere predicate.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B149)
     A reaction: Interesting to see Kant asserting the idea of substance a century after many philosophers thought they had dispensed with this Aristotelian notion (e.g. Ideas 3628 and Idea 2714). It has crept back into modern metaphysics too (e.g. in Wiggins).
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
All appearances need substance, as that which persists through change [Kant]
     Full Idea: All appearances contain that which persists (substance) as the object itself, and that which can change as its mere determination (i.e. the way in which the object exists). ...[2nd ed] In all change of appearances substance persists.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B224/A182)
     A reaction: This is a full-blooded commitment by Kant to the traditional Aristotelian concept of a substance which endures through the change in its accidental features. Though in Kant's case the commitment is 'transcendental', not realist.
Substance must exist, as the persisting substratum of the process of change [Kant]
     Full Idea: Since all effect consists in that which happens, consequently in the changeable, which indicates succession in time, the ultimate subject of the changeable is therefore that which persists, as the substratum of everything that changes, i.e. the substance.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B250/A205)
     A reaction: The idea that 'something' changes seems to involve a commitment to substances, but not if one thing is replaced by another. It is not clear that the abandonment of the concept of substance leads to a total collapse of our metaphysics.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / e. Substance critique
The substance, once the predicates are removed, remains unknown to us [Kant]
     Full Idea: It has long since been noticed that in all substances the subject proper, namely what is left over after all the accidents (as predicates) have been taken away and hence the 'substantial' itself, is unknown to us.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 333)
     A reaction: This is the terminus of the process of abstraction (though Wiggins says such removal of predicates is a myth). Kant is facing the problem of the bare substratum, or haecceity.