structure for 'Objects'    |     alphabetical list of themes    |     unexpand these ideas

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 7. Substratum

[an object's underlying aspect, apart from surface features]

22 ideas
It is unclear whether Aristotle believes in a propertyless subject, his 'ultimate matter' [Aristotle, by Lawson-Tancred]
     Full Idea: A subject which has no properties of its own at all is called by Aristotle 'ultimate matter', and it is hotly disputed whether Aristotle acknowledges that such matter exists.
     From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029a) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Introductions to 'Metaphysics' p.174
If you extract all features of the object, what is left over? [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If you extract all other features of the object, what is revealed as being left over?
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029a10)
     A reaction: This seems to be the key question in matters of identity, which leads us to talk of substrata, or essences, or substance, none of which seem graspable.
Something must pre-exist any new production [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is impossible that anything should be produced if there were nothing existing before. Obviously then some part of the result will pre-exist of necessity.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1032b30)
     A reaction: This is arguing for a substrate on the basis of the ex nihilo principle. Creation needs raw materials as a basis. This may be the obscure 'prime matter'.
A substrate is either a 'this' supporting qualities, or 'matter' supporting actuality [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: There are two ways of being a substrate [to hupokeimenon], either as possessor of thisness (as the animal is a substrate for its properties) or as matter is a substrate for the actuality.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b05)
     A reaction: A bit confusing, since the possessor of thisness will obviously have what we call 'identity', whereas matter cannot have identity on its own (because it also needs form).
A subject can't be nothing, so it must qualify as separate, and as having a distinct identity [Aristotle, by Gill,ML]
     Full Idea: To avoid the outcome (possible in 'Categories') that the subject might be nothing at all, Aristotle insists that a legitimate subject must be separate and a 'this' [tode ti]. Forms and composites satisfy the revised criterion in different ways.
     From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Z.3) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.3
     A reaction: I take it that we would say that a 'this' is an entity which possesses 'identity', and is perhaps countable. For Aristotle being a 'this' seems to require a possibility of definition. This is a powerful Aristotelian thought, needed in modern metaphysics.
If we remove surface qualities from wax, we have an extended, flexible, changeable thing [Descartes]
     Full Idea: After taking away what does not belong to the wax, let us see what is left: surely, it is nothing other than a thing that is extended, flexible and changeable.
     From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], (VII:30-1)), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.2
     A reaction: Aristotle worried about nothing being left when you 'stripped' an object, so this could be seen as a positive contribution to scholastic philosophy. Why is the substrate 'flexible'? He talks elsewhere of taking the clothes off the wax and seeing it naked.
Complex ideas are collections of qualities we attach to an unknown substratum [Locke]
     Full Idea: The complex ideas that our names of the species of substances properly stand for are collections of qualities, as have been observed to co-exist in an unknown substratum which we call 'substance'.
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.06.07)
     A reaction: Locke refers to a substratum, but this is not actually a 'bare' substratum, as he believes in real essences (see other quotations), but believes we have absolutely no chance of knowing them.
A 'substratum' is just a metaphor for whatever supports several predicates [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: From the beginning we conceive several predicates in a single subject, and that is all there is to these metaphorical words 'support' and 'substratum'. So I do not see why it is made out to involve a problem.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.23)
     A reaction: The question is whether the substratum is 'bare' if you remove all the predicates, and clearly Leibniz believes you are left with true essential substance (although the removal process is presumably only possible in thought, thanks to God).
A peach is sweet and fuzzy, but it doesn't 'have' those qualities [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: Our idea of a peach is not an idea of something that 'has' those particular qualities, but the concrete thing that 'is' sweet and round and fuzzy.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Person and Object [1976], 1.6)
     A reaction: This is the beginnings of his 'adverbial' account of properties, with which you have to sympathise. It tries to eliminate the possibility of some propertyless thing, to which properties can then be added, like sprinkling sugar on it.
I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB]
     Full Idea: I favour the old idea of substratum: the haver of properties not itself had as a property. Space-time might itself be the bearer of properties, not itself borne as a property.
     From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6)
     A reaction: A very nice idea. The choice is between saying either that fundamentals like space-time and physical fields are the propertyless bearers of properties, or that they purely consist of properties (so properties are fundamental, not substrata).
The notorious substratum results from substance-with-qualities; individuals-with-powers solves this [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Chemical analysis either arrives at a qualityless substance, the notorious substratum, or is obliged to declare certain qualities primary and inexplicable. Substituting individuals-with-powers for substance-with-qualities removes these difficulties.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.II)
     A reaction: Any account gives you something as basic, and that something is always going to seem inherently and deeply mysterious. I prefer powers to substrata, but what has the powers? They like 'fields'.
Models nicely separate particulars from their clothing, and logicians often accept that metaphysically [Kaplan]
     Full Idea: The use of models is so natural to logicians ...that they sometimes take seriously what are only artefacts of the model, and adopt a bare particular metaphysics. Why? Because the model so nicely separates the bare particular from its clothing.
     From: David Kaplan (Transworld Heir Lines [1967], p.97)
     A reaction: See also Idea 11970. I think this observation is correct, and incredibly important. We need to keep quite separate the notion of identity in conceptual space from our notion of identity in the actual world. The first is bare, the second fat.
For the bare particular view, properties must be features, not just groups of objects [Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: If we are to make sense of the bare particular theory, a property must be not just a rule for grouping individuals, but a feature of individuals in virtue of which they may be grouped.
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.76)
     A reaction: He is offering an objection to the thoroughly extensional account of properties that is found in standard possible worlds semantics. Quite right too. We can't give up on the common sense notion of a property.
Possible worlds allow separating all the properties, without hitting a bare particular [Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: The possible worlds framework suggests a way to express the idea that a particular is conceptually separable from its properties without relying on the rejected picture of a bare particular.
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 5)
     A reaction: As I read him, Stalnaker's proposal just comes down to replacing each property in turn with a different one. 'Strip away' red by making it green. It being green in w1 doesn't throw extra light. Can it be a bare particular in w37?
A substance is either a bundle of properties, or a bare substratum, or an essence [Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: The three main theories of substance are the bundle theory (Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Ayer), the bare substratum theory (Locke and Bergmann), and the essentialist theory.
     From: Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Macdonald defends the essentialist theory. The essentialist view immediately appeals to me. Properties must be OF something, and the something must have the power to produce properties. So there.
Each substance contains a non-property, which is its substratum or bare particular [Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: A rival to the bundle theory says that, for each substance, there is a constituent of it that is not a property but is both essential and unique to it, this constituent being referred to as a 'bare particular' or 'substratum'.
     From: Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: This doesn't sound promising. It is unclear what existence devoid of all properties could be like. How could it 'have' its properties if it was devoid of features (it seems to need property-hooks)? It is an ontological black hole. How do you prove it?
The substratum theory explains the unity of substances, and their survival through change [Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: If there is a substratum or bare particular within a substance, this gives an explanation of the unity of substances, and it is something which can survive intact when a substance changes.
     From: Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: [v. compressed wording] Many problems here. The one that strikes me is that when things change they sometimes lose their unity and identity, and that seems to be decided entirely from observation of properties, not from assessing the substratum.
A substratum has the quality of being bare, and they are useless because indiscernible [Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: There seems to be no way of identifying a substratum as the bearer of qualities without qualifiying it as bare (having the property of being bare?), ..and they cannot be used to individuate things, because they are necessarily indiscernible.
     From: Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: The defence would probably be a priori, claiming an axiomatic necessity for substrata in our thinking about the world, along with a denial that bareness is a property (any more than not being a contemporary of Napoleon is a property).
If a substrate gives causal support for change, quite a lot of the ingredients must endure [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: When the substratum thesis is grounded on the idea that the ingredients must endure through the change, if they are to play a causal role, then it is natural to suppose that quite a lot of the ingredients must endure.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 02.5)
     A reaction: Aristotle sharply distinguishes alteration from substantial change, but as the substrate gets thinner, the boundary between those two would blur.
A substrate may be 'prime matter', which endures through every change [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: The 'conservation thesis' about substrates says that there is a single, most basic substrate that endures through every material change, something we call 'prime matter'.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 02.5)
There may be different types of substrate, or temporary substrates [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: The substratum thesis says …perhaps there is a different subject for different kinds of changes, and perhaps what endures through one kind of change will be corrupted by another.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 02.5)
A substratum can't be 'bare', because it has a job to do [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: A completely bare substratum seems not just incoherent but also unable to carry out the function for which it is intended - to be a substratum.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 03.3)