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| {{Aristotelianism}}
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| '''Substance theory''', or '''substance attribute theory''', is an [[ontology|ontological]] theory about [[Object (philosophy)|objecthood]], positing that a ''substance'' is distinct from its [[property (philosophy)|properties]]. A ''thing-in-itself'' is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears.<ref name=Langton>
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| {{cite book |title=Kantian humility: our ignorance of things in themselves |author=Rae Langton |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=DpHUgZzu0EkC&pg=PA28 |page=28 |isbn=0-19-924317-4 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2001}}
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| ''Substance'' is a key concept in ontology and [[metaphysics]]. Philosophies may be divided into [[monist]], [[dualist]], or [[pluralism (philosophy)|pluralist]] varieties according to the number of substances they consider the world to comprise. According to Monistic views, such as those of [[stoicism]] and [[Spinoza]], there is only one substance, often identified as [[God]] or [[Being]]. These modes of thinking are sometimes associated with the idea of [[immanence]]. Dualism sees the world as being composed of two fundamental substances, while Pluralism, a feature of [[Platonism]], for example, and [[Aristotelianism]], states that more substances exist, and often that these substances can be placed into an ontological [[hierarchy]].{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}} | | '''MathML''' |
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| == The concept of substance in Western philosophy ==
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| In the millennia-old [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian tradition]], as well as [[17th-century philosophy|early modern]] traditions that follow it, substances or ''[[ousia]]'' are treated as having [[Wiktionary:attribute|attribute]]s and [[Wiktionary:mode|modes]] or [[Object (philosophy)|things]].
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| This concept helps to explain, for instance, state transitions. Let us take a quantity of water and freeze it into ice. Substance theory maintains that there is a "substance" which is unchanged through this transition, which ''is'' both the liquid water and also the frozen ice. It maintains that the water is not ''replaced'' by the ice – it is the same "stuff," or substance. If this is true, then it must be the case that the wetness of water, the hardness of ice, are not essential to the underlying substance. (Essentially, matter does not disappear, it only changes form.)
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| The [[Aristotelian view of God]] considered God as both ontologically and causally prior to all other substance; others, including [[Spinoza]], argued that God is the only substance. Substance, according to Spinoza, is one and indivisible, but has multiple modes; what we ordinarily call the natural world, together with all the individuals in it, is [[immanence|immanent]] in God: hence the famous phrase ''Deus sive Natura'' ("God, or Nature"). Aristotle was creating his theory of substance in response and counter to Plato's theory of framework or structures called the [[theory of forms]].
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| The [[Roman Catholic Church]] has adopted substance theory as part of its theology of [[transsubstantiation]].
| | ==Demos== |
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| == Criticisms of the concept of substance ==
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| {{see also|Noumenon|Phenomenon}}
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| The idea of substance was famously critiqued by [[David Hume]],{{Citation needed|date=July 2011}} who held that since substance is not able to be perceived, it should not be assumed to exist. [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] and, after him, [[Martin Heidegger]], [[Michel Foucault]] and [[Gilles Deleuze]] also rejected the notion of "substance", and in the same movement the concept of [[subject (philosophy)|subject]] contained with the framework of [[Platonic idealism]]. For this reason, [[Althusser]]'s "anti-humanism" and Foucault's statements were criticized, by [[Jürgen Habermas]] and others, for misunderstanding that this led to a fatalist conception of [[social determinism]]. For Habermas, only a subjective form of [[liberty]] could be conceived, to the contrary of Deleuze who talks about "''a'' life", as an impersonal and [[immanence|immanent]] form of liberty.
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| For Heidegger, [[Descartes]] means by "substance" that by which "we can understand nothing else than an entity which ''is'' in such a way that it need no other entity in order to ''be''." Therefore, only God is a substance as ''ens perfectissimus'' (most perfect being). Heidegger showed the inextricable relationship between the concept of substance and of subject, which explains why, instead of talking about "man" or "humankind", he speaks about the ''[[Dasein]]'', which is not a simple subject, nor a substance. <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www20.uludag.edu.tr/~kadir/Roma.pdf |author=A. Kadir Cucen |title=Heidegger's Critique of Descartes' Metaphysics |publisher=Uludag University |date=2002-01-18 |accessdate=2011-12-28}}</ref>
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| Roman Catholic theologian [[Karl Rahner]], as part of his critique of transsubstantiation, rejected substance theory and instead proposed the doctrine of ''transfinalization'', which he felt was more attuned to modern philosophy. However, this doctrine was rejected by Pope [[Paul VI]] in his encyclical [[Mysterium Fidei (encyclical)|Mysterium Fidei]].
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| ==Primitive concepts of substance theory== | | ==Test pages == |
| {{see also|Accident (philosophy)}}
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| Two primitive concepts (i.e., genuine notions that cannot be explained in terms of something else) in substance theory are the ''bare particular'' and the ''inherence relation''.
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| ===Bare particular===
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| In substance theory, a bare particular of an [[object (philosophy)|object]] is the element without which the object would not exist, that is, its substance, which exists independent from its properties, even if it is physically impossible for it to lack properties entirely. It is "bare" because it is considered without its properties and "particular" because it is not [[Abstraction|abstract]]. The properties that the substance has are said to inhere in the substance.
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| In substance theory of the mind, the objects are minds. <!-- "Substance theory of the mind" needs a reference. -->
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| ===Inherence relation===
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| Another primitive concept in substance theory is the [[Inherence|inherence relation]] between a substance and its properties. For example, in the sentence, "The apple is red," substance theory says that red inheres in the apple. Substance theory considers to be clear the meaning of the apple having the property of redness or the property of being juicy, and that a property's inherence in a substance is similar to, but not identical with, being part of the substance. Thus, Aristotle wrote: <blockquote>
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| "By being 'present in a subject' I do not mean present as parts are present in a whole, but being incapable of existence apart from the said subject."'' (''[[Categories (Aristotle)|The Categories]] 1<sup>a</sup> 24-26)
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| </blockquote>
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| The inverse relation is [[Participation (philosophy)|participation]]. Thus in the example above, just as red inheres in the apple, so the apple participates in red.
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| ==Arguments supporting the theory== | |
| Two common [[argument]]s supporting substance theory are the argument from grammar and the argument from conception.
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| ===Argument from grammar===
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| The argument from grammar uses [[traditional grammar]] to support substance theory. For example, the sentence, "Snow is white," contains a grammatical subject, "snow", and the assertion that the grammatical subject is white. The argument holds that it makes no grammatical sense to speak of "whiteness" disembodied, without snow or some other grammatical subject that ''is'' white. That is, the only way to make a meaningful claim is to speak of a grammatical subject and to predicate various properties of it. Substance theory calls this grammatical subject of predication a substance. Thus, in order to make claims about physical objects, one must refer to substances, which must exist in order for those claims to be meaningful.
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| Many ontologies, including [[bundle theory]], reject the argument from grammar on the basis that a grammatical subject does not necessarily refer to a metaphysical subject. Bundle theory, for example, maintains that the grammatical subject of statement refers to its properties. For example, a bundle theorist understands the grammatical subject of the sentence, "Snow is white", as a referent to a bundle of properties, including perhaps the containing of ice crystals, being cold, and being a few feet deep. To the bundle theorist, the sentence then modifies that bundle of properties to include the property of being white. The bundle theorist, then, maintains that one can make meaningful statements about bodies without referring to substances that lack properties.
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| ===Argument from conception===
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| Another argument for the substance theory is the argument from conception. The argument claims that in order to conceive of an object's properties, like the redness of an apple, one must conceive of the object that has those properties. According to the argument, one cannot conceive of redness, or any other property, distinct from the thing that has that property. The thing that has the property, the argument maintains, is a substance. The argument from conception holds that properties (e.g. redness or being four inches wide) are inconceivable by themselves and therefore it is always a substance that has the properties. Thus, it asserts, substances exist.
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| A criticism of the argument from conception is that properties' being of substances does not follow from inability to think of isolated properties. The bundle theorist, for example, says that properties need only be associated with a bundle of other properties, which bundle is called an ''object''. The critic maintains that the inability for an individual property to exist in isolation does not imply that substances exist. Instead, he argues, bodies may be bundles of properties, and an individual property may simply be unable to exist separately from such a bundle.
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| ==Bundle theory==
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| In direct opposition to substance theory is bundle theory, whose most basic premise is that all concrete particulars are merely constructions or 'bundles' of attributes, or qualitive properties:
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| :Necessarily, for any concrete entity, <math>a</math>, if for any entity, <math>b</math>, <math>b</math> is a constituent of <math>a</math>, then <math>b</math> is an attribute. | |
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| The [[bundle theory|bundle theorist's]] principal objections to substance theory concern the [[bare particular]]s of a substance, which substance theory considers independently of the substance's properties. The bundle theorist objects to the notion of a thing with no properties, claiming that one cannot conceive of such a thing and citing John Locke, who described a substance as "a something, I know not what." To the critic, as soon as one has any notion of a substance in mind, a property accompanies that notion. That is, to the critic it is not only physically impossible to encounter a bare particular without properties, but the very notion of a thing without properties is so strange that he cannot even form such a notion.
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| <!--The contents of the foregoing section is also found at [[bare particular]]. Please keep these articles consistent.-->
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| ===Indiscernibility=== | |
| The [[indiscernible|indiscernibility]] argument from the substance theorist targets those bundle theorists who are also metaphysical realists. Metaphysical realism uses repeatable entities known as ''universals'' exemplified by concrete particulars to explain the phenomenon of attribute agreement. Substance theorists then say that bundle theory and metaphysical realism can only coexist by introducing an [[identity of indiscernibles]] creed, which substance theorists suggest is incoherent. The '''identity of indiscernibles''' says that any concrete particular that is numerically different from another must have its own qualitive properties, or attributes.
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| Since bundle theory states that all concrete particulars are merely constructions or 'bundles' of attributes, or qualitive properties, the substance theorist's indiscernibility argument claims that the ability to recognize numerically different concrete particulars, such as concrete objects, requires those particulars to have discernible qualitative differences in their attributes and that the metaphysical realist who is also a bundle theorist must therefore concede to the existence of 'discernible (numerically different) concrete particulars', the 'identity of indiscernibles', and a 'principle of constituent identity'.
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| ===Discernible concrete particulars===
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| :Necessarily, for any complex objects, <math>a</math> and <math>b</math>, if for any entity, <math>c</math>, <math>c</math> is a constituent of <math>a</math> if and only if <math>c</math> is a constituent of <math>b</math>, then <math>a</math> is numerically identical with <math>b</math>.
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| The indiscernibility argument points out that if bundle theory and discernible concrete particulars theory explain the relationship between attributes, then the identity of indiscernibles theory must also be true:
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| ===Identity of indiscernibles===
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| :Necessarily, for any concrete objects,<math>a</math> and <math>b</math>, if for any attribute, Φ, Φ is an attribute of ''a'' if and only if Φ is an attribute of ''b'', then ''a'' is numerically identical with ''b''.
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| The indiscernibles argument then asserts that the identity of indiscernibles is false. For example, two different pieces of printer paper can be side by side, numerically different from each other. However, the argument says, all of their qualitive properties can be the same (e.g. both can be white, rectangular-shaped, 9 x 11 inches...). Thus, the argument claims, bundle theory and metaphysical realism cannot both be correct.
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| However, bundle theory combined with [[Trope (philosophy)#Trope theory in philosophy (metaphysics)|trope theory]] (as opposed to metaphysical realism) is immune to the indiscernibles argument. The immunity stems from the fact that each trope (attribute) can only be held by one concrete particular, thus qualitively indiscernible objects can exist while being numerically identical and the ''identity of indiscernibles'' therefore does not hold.
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| The argument also becomes more complex when it is considered whether "position" should be considered an attribute. It is after all through the differing positions that we in practice differentiate between otherwise identical pieces of paper.
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| ==Stoicism==
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| The [[Stoicism|Stoics]] rejected the idea that [[incorporeal]] beings inhere in matter, as taught by [[Plato]] and Aristotle. They believed that all being is [[Matter|corporeal]]. Thus they developed a scheme of [[Categories (Stoic)|categories]] different from [[Categories (Aristotle)|Aristotle's]] based on the ideas of [[Anaxagoras]] and [[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]].
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| ==See also==
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| {{multicol}}
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| *[[Bundle theory]]
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| *[[Categories (Stoic)]]
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| *[[Dualism]]
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| *[[History of chemistry]]
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| *[[History of molecular theory]]
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| *[[Hyle]]
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| {{multicol-break}}
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| *[[Hypokeimenon]]
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| *[[Hypostasis]]
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| *[[Inherence]]
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| *[[Materialism]]
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| *[[Matter]]
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| *[[Metaphysics]]
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| {{multicol-break}}
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| *[[Monism]]
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| *[[Ontology]]
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| *[[Ousia]]
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| *[[Physical ontology]]
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| *[[Trope (philosophy)]]
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| *[[Universals]]
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| {{multicol-end}}
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| ==References==
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| {{refimprove|date=October 2010}}
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| <references/>
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| ==External links==
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| * {{sep entry|substance|Substance|Howard Robinson}}
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| * [http://www.friesian.com/essence.htm Friesian School on Substance and Essence]
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| {{metaphysics}}
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| {{DEFAULTSORT:Substance Theory}}
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| [[Category:Ontology]]
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| [[Category:Metaphysical theories]]
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