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9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance

[general ideas about notion of unified substances]

40 ideas
Is primary substance just an ultimate subject, or some aspect of a complex body? [Aristotle, by Gill,ML]
     Full Idea: 'Categories' treats something's being an ultimate subject as a test for being a primary substance, but it does not treat its primary objects as complex bodies consisting of matter and form. In that case, is the composite or a feature the ultimate subject?
     From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.1
     A reaction: Gill is trying to throw light on the difference between 'Categories' and 'Metaphysics'. Once you have hylomorphism (form-plus-matter) you have a new difficulty in explaining unity. The answer is revealed once we understand 'form'.
Primary being is 'that which lies under', or 'particular substance' [Aristotle, by Politis]
     Full Idea: In 'Categories' Aristotle argues the primary being (proté ousia) is the ultimate subject of predication (to hupokeimenon, meaning 'that which lies under'), nowadays referred to as the 'particular substance' view.
     From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 4.4
     A reaction: Politis says that Aristotle shifts to the quite different view in 'Metaphysics', that primary being is essence, rather than mere subject of predication.
Substances have no opposites, and don't come in degrees (including if the substance is a man) [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: There is nothing contrary to substances,…. and a substance does not admit of a more and a less. If this substance is a man, it will not be more a man or less a man either than itself or than another man.
     From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03b33)
A single substance can receive contrary properties [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It seems distinctive of substance that what is numerically one and the same is able to receive contraries. ...For example, an individual man - one and the same - becomes pale at one time and dark at another.
     From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 04a10/20)
If substance is the basis of reality, then philosophy aims to understand substance [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If, in the case of things that are, the primary object is substance, then we can state the fundamental duty of the philosopher: it is to gain possession of the principles and causes of substances.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1003b19)
The baffling question of what exists is asking about the nature of substance [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Philosophers have endlessly discussed and been baffled by the question 'What is that which is?' Now this question just is the question 'What is substance (ousia)?'
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1028b04)
     A reaction: Vasilis Politis says 'ousia' is 'primary being'. 'Substance' is a theory about the nature of primary being.
The Pre-Socratics were studying the principles, elements and causes of substance [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The enquiries of the pre-Socratic philosophers were really into the principles, elements and causes of substance.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1069a20)
'Ousia' is 'primary being' not 'primary substance' [Aristotle, by Politis]
     Full Idea: We choose to translate 'proté ousia' (often simply 'ousia') as 'primary being' and not as 'primary substance'.
     From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.3
     A reaction: His point, explained later, is that the idea that 'ousia' is substance is a theory being proposed by Aristotle, not the meaning of the word.
Substance is prior in being separate, in definition, and in knowledge [Aristotle, by Witt]
     Full Idea: Aristotelian substance is prior in three ways: it is prior to nonsubstance in being separate, it is prior in definition, and it is prior in knowledge.
     From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 2.4
     A reaction: 'Being separate' means it doesn't dependent on anything else, so it is prior because it is fundamental, in relations of ontological dependence.
It is wrong to translate 'ousia' as 'substance' [Aristotle, by Politis]
     Full Idea: It is wrong to translate 'ousia' as 'substance', or 'proté ousia' as 'primary substance'. 'Substance' is a particular answer to the question 'What is proté ousia?' The Latin 'substantia' means 'that which lies under', translating 'to hupokeimenon'.
     From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], subst) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.1
     A reaction: This seems to be rather important in the exegesis of Aristotle's metaphysics, but Politis seems to hold a minority view, even though what he says here is very persuasive.
Substance is not predicated of anything - but it still has something underlying it, that originates it [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The only thing which is not predicated of some underlying thing is substance, while everything is predicated of it. But the same goes for substances too: there is something underlying them too, which they come from. Plants from seeds, for example.
     From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 190b01)
     A reaction: [compressed] I presume 'substance' here is 'ousia'. Aristotle's quest is to pin down 'that which lies under', but this shows that if he identified it, he wouldn't have located what is ultimate. The explanation of a plant extends beyond the plant.
We only infer underlying natures by analogy, observing bronze of a statue, or wood of a bed [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The underlying nature is an object of knowledge, by an analogy. For as bronze is to a statue, wood to a bed, or matter and the formless before receiving form to any thing which has form, so is the underlying nature of substance, the 'this' or existent.
     From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 191a08)
     A reaction: Scholastics were perfectly aware of this cautious approach. It is only the critics who jeer at Aristotelians for claiming to know all about the essences of things. Essence is like the Unmoved Mover, inferred but unknown.
Stoics say matter has qualities, and substance underlies it, with no form or qualities [Stoic school, by Chalcidius]
     Full Idea: Stoics distinguish matter and substance; they say that matter is that which underlies those things which have qualities; however, the primary matter of all things or their most primeval foundation is substance, which is without qualities and unformed.
     From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Chalcidius - Commentary on Plato's 'Timaeus' 290
     A reaction: In this account, substance begins to sound like Kant's 'noumenon', which is a theoretical concept which has retreated beyond all experience. Stoics were under pressure to cover everything for which the Atomists offered explanations.
Substance is only grasped under the general heading of 'being' [Duns Scotus]
     Full Idea: No substance is understood in its own right, except in the most universal of concepts, namely of 'being'.
     From: John Duns Scotus (In Metaphysics [1304], III n. 116), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.3
     A reaction: This is a fairly standard scholastic pessimism about knowing anything about substance. The modern view suggests that actually scientists know 'substance' pretty well.
Substance is an intrinsic thing, so parts of substances can't also be intrinsic things [Duns Scotus]
     Full Idea: Substance ...is an ens per se. No part of a substance is an ens per se when it is part of a substance, because then it would be a particular thing, and one substance would be a particular thing from many things, which does not seem to be true.
     From: John Duns Scotus (In Praed. [1300], 15.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 26.1
     A reaction: The tricky bit is 'when it is a part of a substance', meaning a substance must cease to be a substance when it is subsumed into some greater substance. Maybe. Drops of water? Molecules? Bricks? Cells?
Substances are incomplete unless they have modes [Suárez, by Pasnau]
     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.
     From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3
     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.
Knowing the attributes is enough to reveal a substance [Descartes]
     Full Idea: I have never thought that anything more is required to reveal a substance than its various attributes.
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 360)
If we perceive an attribute, we infer the existence of some substance [Descartes]
     Full Idea: Based on perceiving the presence of some attribute, we conclude there must also be present an existing thing or substance to which it can be attributed.
     From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.52), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.1
     A reaction: A rainbow might be a tricky case. This illustrates the persistent belief in substances, even among philosophers who embraced the new corpuscular and mechanistic view of matter.
Powers are part of our idea of substances [Locke]
     Full Idea: Powers make a great part of our complex ideas of substances.
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.23.08)
     A reaction: This is quoted by Shoemaker, and is very important in modern thinking about properties and causation. I think it is a crucial idea, which got relegated into obscurity by Hume's unnecessarily ruthless empiricism.
The complete notion of a substance implies all of its predicates or attributes [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The nature of an individual substance or of a complete being is to have a notion so complete that it is sufficient to contain and to allow us to deduce from it all the predicates of the subject to which this notion is attributed.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Discourse on Metaphysics [1686], §8)
     A reaction: This is the unusual Leibnizian view of such things, which he takes to extremes. I think it depends on whether you are talking of predicates, or of real intrinsic properties. I don't see how what happens to a substance can be contained in the subject.
Individuality is in the bond substance gives between past and future [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Within each substance there is a perfect bond between the future and the past, which is what creates the identity of the individual.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.01)
     A reaction: I'm not quite sure if this means anything, but the idea that a bond across time is a necessity for intrinsic identity is interesting. The 'bond' would, I take it, have to be a causal one.
The concept of forces or powers best reveals the true concept of substance [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The concept of forces or powers ..for whose explanation I have set up a distinct science of dynamics, brings the strongest light to bear upon our understanding of the true concept of substance.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (De primae philosophiae emendatione [1694], G IV 469), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
     A reaction: My own experience was that as soon as I encountered the notion of a 'power' in the metaphysics of science (see Molnar on this) the whole thing began to form a coherent picture. Powers rule.
A body is a unified aggregate, unless it has an indivisible substance [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: One will never find a body of which it may be said that it is truly one substance, ...because entities made up by aggregation have only as much reality as exists in the constituent parts. Hence the substance of a body must be indivisible.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.11)
     A reaction: Leibniz rejected atomism, and he evidently believed that pure materialists must deny the real existence of physical objects. Common sense suggests that causal bonds bestow a high degree of unity on bodies (if degrees are allowed).
Unity needs an indestructible substance, to contain everything which will happen to it [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Substantial unity requires a complete, indivisible and naturally indestructible entity, since its concept embraces everything that is to happen to it, which cannot be found in shape or motion.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.11.28/12.8)
     A reaction: Hence if a tile is due to be broken in half (Arnauld's example), it cannot have had unity in the first place. To what do we refer when we say 'the tile was broken'?
Every bodily substance must have a soul, or something analogous to a soul [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Every bodily substance must have a soul, or at least an entelechy which is analogous to the soul.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.10.09)
     A reaction: He routinely commits to a 'soul', and then pulls back and says it may only be an 'analogy'. He had deep doubts about his whole scheme, which emerged in the late correspondence with Des Bosses. This not monads, says Garber.
The notion of substance is one of the keys to true philosophy [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I consider the notion of substance to be one of the keys to the true philosophy. ....I imagine that philosophers will one day know the notion of substance a bit better than they do now.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomas Burnett [1703], 1699.01.20/30)
     A reaction: This is a controversial remark at this historical moment, when the apparent Aristotelian commitment to substances was becoming discredited. Personally I would eliminate substance, but not just because physicists don't refer to it.
Every substance is alive [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Every substance is alive.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1712.02.05)
     A reaction: The most charitable interpretation of this is that substances are what have unity, and the best model of unity that we can grasp is the unity of an organism. The less charitable view is that he literally thinks a pebble is 'alive'. Hm.
A substance could exist as a subject, but not as a mere predicate [Kant]
     Full Idea: A substance is something that could exist as a subject but never as a mere predicate.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B149)
     A reaction: Interesting to see Kant asserting the idea of substance a century after many philosophers thought they had dispensed with this Aristotelian notion (e.g. Ideas 3628 and Idea 2714). It has crept back into modern metaphysics too (e.g. in Wiggins).
The one substance is formless without the mediation of dialectical concepts [Hegel]
     Full Idea: As intuitively accepted by Spinoza without a previous mediation by dialectic, substance is as it were a dark shapeless abyss which engulfs all definite content as radically null, and produces from itself nothing that has a positive substance of its own.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §151Z p.215), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.6
     A reaction: This seems to be an expression of idealism, since only what is conceptualised can exist.
We can retain the idea of 'substance', as indestructible mass or energy [Heisenberg]
     Full Idea: One could consider mass and energy as two different forms of the same 'substance' and thereby keep the idea of substance as indestructible.
     From: Werner Heisenberg (Physics and Philosophy [1958], 07)
Apart from the facts, there is only substance [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: Substance is what remains independently of what is the case.
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 2.024)
     A reaction: He sees what is the case as comprised of objects, so substance is even more basic. It seems close to Spinoza's single-substance view.
Traditional substance is separate from properties and capable of independent existence [Crane]
     Full Idea: The traditional concept of substance says substances bear properties which are distinct from them, and substances are capable of independent existence.
     From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.9)
     A reaction: Put like that, it sounds ridiculous as a physical theory. It is hard to dislodge substance, though, from a priori human metaphysics.
Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil]
     Full Idea: Substances, as property bearers, must be simple; substances of necessity lack constituents that are themselves substances.
     From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 01.3)
     A reaction: How can he think that this is a truth of pure metaphysics? A crowd has properties because we think of it as a simple substance, not because it actually is one. Can properties have properties? Are tree and leaf both substances?
Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3)
     A reaction: They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously.
Substances, unlike aggregates, can survive a change of parts [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Substances can survive a change in their parts in a way that a mere aggregate of parts.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 3)
     A reaction: A simple but very important idea. If we then distinguish between 'substances' and 'aggregates' we get a much clearer grip on things. Is the Ship of Theseus a substance or an aggregate? There is no factual answer to that. What do you want to explain?
Unlike bundles of properties, substances have an intrinsic unity [Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: Substances have a kind of unity that mere collocations of properties do not have, namely an instrinsic unity. So substances cannot be collocations - bundles - of properties.
     From: Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: A team is a unity. Compare a similar thought, Idea 1395, about personal identity. How can something which is a pure unity have more than one property? What distinguishes substances? Why can't a substance have a certain property?
Corpuscularian critics of scholasticism say only substances exist [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: Corpuscularian critics of scholasticism tend to think that only substances exist.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 06.2)
     A reaction: Pasnau treats this as an extreme 17th C reaction which was hopelessly inadequate as metaphysics. We have been struggling with the nature of 'properties' ever since, while losing our grip on the concept of a unified 'substance'.
Corpuscularianism promised a decent account of substance [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: One of the great attractions of corpuscularianism is that it promises to put our acquaintance with substances on a solid foundation.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 07.3)
     A reaction: This is why the seventeenth century did not abandon 'substance', even though they banished 'substantial form'.
Scholastics wanted to treat Aristotelianism as physics, rather than as metaphysics [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: There is a broad scholastic tendency to understand Aristotelianism not in abstract, metaphysical terms, but as a concrete, physical theory of the world.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 23.5)
     A reaction: This seems to give a good explanation of why Aristotelianism plummeted to oblivion in the 17th C. Pasnau obviously wants to revive it, by drawing a sharp line between metaphysics and science. I doubt the line.
If crowds are things at all, they seem to be Substances, since they bear properties [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: Crowds seem to be the bearers of properties, and if they are things at all, then there is no place for them other than in the category of Substance.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 26.1)
     A reaction: It is tempting to say, based on Aristotle, that a substance is whatever 1) bears properties, and 2) endures in spite of change, but a crowd is a nice problem case, because it looks too disunited to be a 'substance'.