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Single Idea 16774
[filed under theme 9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / e. Substance critique
]
Full Idea
Descartes thinks it is a pointless relic of scholastic metaphysics to dispute over the boundaries between substances and mere aggregates.
Gist of Idea
Descartes thinks distinguishing substances from aggregates is pointless
Source
report of René Descartes (works [1643]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 25.6
Book Ref
Pasnau,Robert: 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' [OUP 2011], p.604
A Reaction
This is Pasnau's carefully considered conclusion, with which others may not agree. It presumably captures the attitude of modern science generally to such issues.
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]
|