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Single Idea 16667

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

Full Idea

In the view of Suárez, substances are radically incomplete entities that cannot exist at all until determined in various ways by things of another kind, modes. …Modes are regarded as completers for their subjects.

Gist of Idea

Substances are incomplete unless they have modes

Source

report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3

Book Ref

Pasnau,Robert: 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' [OUP 2011], p.257

A Reaction

This is correct. In order to be a piece of clay it needs a shape, a mass, a colour etc. Treating clay as an object independently from its shape is a misunderstanding.

Related Ideas

Idea 16665 There are entities, and then positive 'modes', modifying aspects outside the thing's essence [Suárez]

Idea 16666 A mode determines the state and character of a quantity, without adding to it [Suárez]

The 18 ideas from Francisco Suárez

16667 Substances are incomplete unless they have modes [Suárez, by Pasnau]
17007 Forms must rule over faculties and accidents, and are the source of action and unity [Suárez]
16780 Partial forms of leaf and fruit are united in the whole form of the tree [Suárez]
16758 The best support for substantial forms is the co-ordinated unity of a natural being [Suárez]
16682 Other things could occupy the same location as an angel [Suárez]
16743 We can get at the essential nature of 'quantity' by knowing bulk and extension [Suárez]
16742 We only know essences through non-essential features, esp. those closest to the essence [Suárez]
16665 There are entities, and then positive 'modes', modifying aspects outside the thing's essence [Suárez]
16666 A mode determines the state and character of a quantity, without adding to it [Suárez]
22143 Identity does not exclude possible or imagined difference [Suárez, by Boulter]
22146 Minor Real distinction: B needs A, but A doesn't need B [Suárez, by Boulter]
22145 Major Real distinction: A and B have independent existences [Suárez, by Boulter]
22144 Real Essential distinction: A and B are of different natural kinds [Suárez, by Boulter]
22147 Conceptual/Mental distinction: one thing can be conceived of in two different ways [Suárez, by Boulter]
22148 Modal distinction: A isn't B or its property, but still needs B [Suárez, by Boulter]
22149 Scholastics assess possibility by what has actually happened in reality [Suárez, by Boulter]
7563 The old 'influx' view of causation says it is a flow of accidental properties from A to B [Suárez, by Jolley]
13074 Only natural kinds and their members have real essences [Suárez, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]