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9 ideas
11040 | 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) |
16091 | 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'. |
11280 | 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. |
1694 | 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) |
16140 | Secondary substances do have subjects, so they are not ultimate in the ontology [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: The concept of substance applies to secondary substances only with some deletions; ..it is not true that they have no subjects, and hence they are not ultimate subjects for all other elements of the ontology. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
A reaction: It increasingly strikes that to treat secondary substance (roughly, species) as essence is a shocking misreading of Aristotle. Frede says they are substances, because they do indeed 'underlie'. |
10965 | In earlier Aristotle the substances were particulars, not kinds [Aristotle, by Lawson-Tancred] |
Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Aristotle changed his view, as in 'Categories' the substances, the basic realities, were particular items, notably individual men, horses, cabbages etc. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Introductions to 'Metaphysics' p.178 | |
A reaction: The charge is that having successfully rebelled against Plato, Aristotle gradually succumbed to his teacher's influence, and ended up with a more platonist view. For anti-platonists like myself, the 'Categories' seems to be the key text. |
11036 | A 'primary' substance is in each subject, with species or genera as 'secondary' substances [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A substance, in its most primary sense, is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject, e.g. the individual man or horse. The species in which things primarily called substances are, are called secondary substances, as are the genera. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02a11) | |
A reaction: This distinction between 'primary' and 'secondary' substances is characteristic of Aristotle's earlier metaphysical view, with the later view (more unified and Platonic) in the 'Metaphysics'. |
8287 | Earlier Aristotle had objects as primary substances, but later he switched to substantial form [Aristotle, by Lowe] |
Full Idea: In 'Categories' primary substances are individual concrete objects, such as a particular horse, whereas in 'Metaphysics' such things are combinations of matter and substantial form, with the latter being the primary substances. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 9.1 | |
A reaction: Lowe claims there is no real difference. Aristotle came to think that matter was not part of primary substance, so the shift seems to be that substance was concrete, but then he decided it was abstract. Physicists will prefer 'Metaphysics'. |
12350 | Things are called 'substances' because they are subjects for everything else [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is because the primary substances are subjects for everything else that they are called substances [ousiai] most strictly. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03a04) | |
A reaction: This points to a rather minimal account of substance, as possibly the 'bare particular' which has no other role than to have properties. This expands in 'Metaphysics' to be matter which has form, making properties possible. |