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3 ideas
| 6729 | Material substance is just general existence which can have properties [Berkeley] |
| Full Idea: The most accurate philosophers have no other meaning annexed to 'material substance' but the idea of being in general, together with the relative notion of its supporting accidents. | |
| From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §17) | |
| A reaction: This is part of the attack on Aristotle's concept of 'substance', and is a nice way of dissolving the concept. 'Substance' will never reappear in physics, but modern philosopher have returned to it, as possibly inescapable in metaphysics. |
| 16636 | A die has no distinct subject, but is merely a name for its modes or accidents [Berkeley] |
| Full Idea: To me a die seems to be nothing distinct from those things which are termed its modes or accidents. And to say a die is hard, extended and square is not to attribute those qualities to a distinct subject, but only an explication of the word 'die'. | |
| From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], n 49) | |
| A reaction: This is apparently a reaction to Locke, and a final rejection of the medieval idea of a 'substance'. Unfortunately it leaves Berkeley with a 'bundle' view of objects (a typical empiricist account), which is even worse. |
| 8443 | Mereological essentialism says an entity must have exactly those parts [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: Mereological essentialism says that nothing else could have been the unique entity composed of certain parts except the very thing that is composed of those parts. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], 2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds initially implausible. It means the ship of Theseus ceases to be that ship if you change a single nail of it. Whether we say that seems optional, but if we do, it leads to the collaps of all our normal understanding of identity. |