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Single Idea 13424

[filed under theme 9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / e. Substance critique ]

Full Idea

The peripatetic philosophers carry their fictions still further, and both suppose a substance supporting, which they do not understand, and an accident supported, of which they have as imperfect an idea. The whole system is entirely incomprehensible.

Gist of Idea

Aristotelians propose accidents supported by substance, but they don't understand either of them

Source

David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.3)

Book Ref

Hume,David: 'A Treatise of Human Nature', ed/tr. Selby-Bigge/Nidditch [OUP 1978], p.222

A Reaction

It seems to me that if you put it to Aristotle that he didn't understand 'substantial form', he would concede the point, but nevertheless say that it was ideal at which knowledge aimed. Locke is much more astute than Hume on this.

The 20 ideas with the same theme [objections to the very concept of substances]:

3628 Substance cannot be conceived or explained to others [Gassendi on Descartes]
16774 Descartes thinks distinguishing substances from aggregates is pointless [Descartes, by Pasnau]
12485 We don't know what substance is, and only vaguely know what it does [Locke]
7931 If a substance is just a thing that has properties, it seems to be a characterless non-entity [Leibniz, by Macdonald,C]
16636 A die has no distinct subject, but is merely a name for its modes or accidents [Berkeley]
12048 The only meaning we have for substance is a collection of qualities [Hume]
13424 Aristotelians propose accidents supported by substance, but they don't understand either of them [Hume]
11833 The substance, once the predicates are removed, remains unknown to us [Kant]
18981 'Substance' is just a word for groupings and structures in experience [James]
14733 An object produces the same percepts with or without a substance, so that is irrelevant to science [Russell]
6465 We need not deny substance, but there seems no reason to assert it [Russell]
6471 The assumption by physicists of permanent substance is not metaphysically legitimate [Russell]
15304 We can escape substance and its properties, if we take fields of pure powers as ultimate [Harré/Madden]
7046 Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil]
12252 Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg]
7932 A phenomenalist cannot distinguish substance from attribute, so must accept the bundle view [Macdonald,C]
7937 When we ascribe a property to a substance, the bundle theory will make that a tautology [Macdonald,C]
7939 Substances persist through change, but the bundle theory says they can't [Macdonald,C]
7940 A substance might be a sequence of bundles, rather than a single bundle [Macdonald,C]
16775 For corpuscularians, a substance is just its integral parts [Pasnau]