Single Idea 10710

[catalogued under 9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / b. Need for substance]

Full Idea

Wittgenstein is the most renowned modern proponent of substance, and argued that sense must be determinate ...and that any conceptual scheme which genuinely represents a world cannot contain infinite backward chains of meaning.

Gist of Idea

We accept substance, to avoid infinite backwards chains of meaning

Source

report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (works [1935]) by Michael Potter - Set Theory and Its Philosophy 03.3

Book Reference

Potter,Michael: 'Set Theory and Its Philosophy' [OUP 2004], p.40


A Reaction

This is a key idea for explaining the somewhat surprising revival of the notion of substance in modern times, when it appeared to have been buried by atomism in the seventeenth century. The new argument is a semantic one.