Ideas from 'Substance' by David Wiggins [1995], by Theme Structure

[found in 'Philosophy: a Guide Through the Subject' (ed/tr Grayling,A.C.) [OUP 1995,0-19-875157-5]].

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8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 4. Formal Relations / c. Ancestral relation
An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect
                        Full Idea: x bears to y the 'ancestral' of the relation R just if either x bears R to y, or x bears R to some w that bears R to y, or x bears R to some w that bears R to some z that bears R to y, or.....
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.10.1)
                        A reaction: A concept invented by Frege (1879).
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity
                        Full Idea: Substances are things that have a source of change or principle of activity within them.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.4.1)
                        A reaction: A vey significant concession. I think we can talk of 'essences' and 'powers', and drop talk of 'substances'. 'Powers' is a much better word, because it immediately pushes the active ingredient to the forefront.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind
We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other'
                        Full Idea: What is singled out is never a bare this or that, but this or that something or other.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.5.1)
                        A reaction: I like, in ontological speculation, to contemplate the problem of the baffling archaeological find. 'This thing I have dug up - what the hell IS it?'. Wiggins is contemptuous of the term 'thisness', and the idea of bare particulars.
Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?'
                        Full Idea: Predications which answer the question 'what is x?' are often called 'sortal predications' in present-day philosophy.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.10.1)
                        A reaction: The word 'sortal' comes from Locke. Wiggins is the guru of 'sortal essentialism'. I just can't believe that in answer to the question 'what really is David Wiggins?' that he would be happy with a sequence of categorisations.
A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river
                        Full Idea: To say that the river is changing constantly in every respect is not to say that it is changing in respect of being a river.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.11.2)
                        A reaction: Can't a river become a lake, or a mere stream? Wiggins's proposal does not help with the problem of a river which sometimes dries up (as my local river sometimes does). At what point do we decide it is no longer a river?
Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals
                        Full Idea: The sense of the sortal term under which we pick out an individual expands into the scientific account of things of that kind, where the account clarifies what is at issue in questions of sameness and difference of specimens of that kind.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.13.1)
                        A reaction: This is how the sortal approach is supposed to deal with individuals. So the placid tiger reveals much by falling under 'tiger', and a crucial extra bit by falling under 'placid'. See Idea 12053 for problems with this proposal.
If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances
                        Full Idea: Substance are what the world is articulated into when the segments of kinds corresponds to the real divisions in reality.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.5.1)
                        A reaction: This is very helpful in clarifying Wiggins's very obscurely expressed views. He appears to be saying that if we divide the sheep from the goats correctly, we reveal sheep-substance and goat-substance (one substance per species). Crazy!
Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations
                        Full Idea: A system of secondary substances with a claim to separate reality into its genuine primary substances must arise from an understanding of a set of principles of activity on the basis of which identities can be glossed in terms of determinate relations.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.5.1)
                        A reaction: I translate this as saying that individual essences are categorised according to principles which explain behaviour and relations. I'm increasingly bewildered by the 'secondary substances' Wiggins got from 'Categories', and loves so much.
'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees
                        Full Idea: One person can be more or less of a poet than another, so 'poet' is not a conclusory answer to the question 'What is it that is singled out here?' 'Poet' rides on the back of the answer 'human being'.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.5.1)
                        A reaction: So apparently one must assign a natural kind, and not just a class. Wiggins lacks science fiction imagination. In the genetic salad of the far future, being a poet may be more definitive than being a human being. See Idea 12063.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding
                        Full Idea: A substance is a persisting and somehow basic object of reference that is there to be discovered in perception and thought, an object whose claim to be recognized as a real entity is a claim on our aspirations to understand the world.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.1)
                        A reaction: A lot of components are assigned by Wiggins to the concept, and the tricky job, inititiated by Aristotle, is to fit all the pieces together nicely. Personally I am wondering if the acceptance of 'essences' implies dropping 'substances'.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 3. Matter of an Object
Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be
                        Full Idea: Matter ex hypothesi is what ultimately underlies (to huperkeimenon) a thing; it is that from which something comes to be and which remains as a non-coincidental component in the thing's make-up.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 192a30)
                        A reaction: This is an interesting prelude to the much more comprehensive discussion of matter in Metaphysics, where he crucially adds the notion of 'form', and gives it priority over the underlying matter.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology
                        Full Idea: For us the importance of the category of substance, if it has any importance, is not so much ontological as relative to our epistemological circumstances and the conditions under which we have to undertake inquiry.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.13.2)
                        A reaction: This seems to be a rather significant concession. Wiggins has revived the notion of substance in recent times, but he is not quite adding it to the furniture of the world. Personally I increasingly think we can dump it, in ontology and epistemology.
Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information
                        Full Idea: Answering 'what is it?' with the secondary substance identifies an object with a class of continuants which survive certain changes, come into being in certain ways, are qualified in certain ways, behave in certain ways, and cease to be in certain ways.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.3.3)
                        A reaction: Thus the priority of this sort of answer is that a huge range of explanations immediately flow from it. I take the explanation to be prior, and the primary substance to be prior, since secondary substance is inductively derived from it.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 4. Objectification
Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation
                        Full Idea: It seems mandatory to an observer of soldiers to give 'the final touch of unity' to their aggregate entity (the army). ...Similar claims arise with the ontological and explanatory claims of other corporate entities.
                        From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.13.3)
                        A reaction: Wiggins must say (following Leibniz Essays II.xxiv,1) that we add the unity, but I take the view that an army has powers, and hence offers explanations, which are lacking in a merely group of disparate soldiers. So an army has an essence and identity.