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| {{Aristotelianism |ideas}}
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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>{{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}}</ref> | | If you would like use the '''MathML''' rendering mode, you need a wikipedia user account that can be registered here [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UserLogin/signup]] |
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| ''Substance'' is a key concept in ontology and [[metaphysics]], which may be classified into [[monist]], [[dualist]] or [[pluralism (philosophy)|pluralist]] varieties according to how many substances or individuals are said to populate, furnish or exist in the world. According to Monistic views, such as those of [[stoicism]] and [[Spinoza]], there is only one substance, [[pneuma]] or [[God]], respectively. These modes of thinking are sometimes associated with the idea of [[immanence]]. Dualism sees the world as being composed of two fundamental substances, for example, the Cartesian [[substance dualism]] of mind and matter. Pluralist philosophies include [[Plato]]'s [[Theory of Forms]] and [[Aristotle]]'s [[hylomorphic]] [[categories (Aristotle)|categories]].
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| ==Ancient Greek philosophy==
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| [[Aristotle]] used the term in a secondary sense for [[genus|genera]] and [[species]] understood as [[hylomorphism|hylomorphic forms]]. Primarily, however, he used it with regard to his [[Categories (Aristotle)|category]] of [[substance theory|substance]], the specimen ("this person" or "this horse") or [[identity (philosophy)|individual]], ''qua'' individual, who survives [[accident (philosophy)|accidental change]] and in whom the [[essence|essential properties]] inhere that define those [[problem of universals|universals]]. In contrast, [[Plato]] and later [[Neoplatonism]], spoke of the objective reality of a thing or its [[theory of forms|inner reality]] (as opposed to outer appearance or [[allegory of the cave|illusion]]).
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| {{quote|A substance—that which is called a substance most strictly, primarily, and most of all—is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject, e.g. the individual man or the individual horse. The species in which the things primarily called substances are, are called secondary substances, as also are the genera of these species. For example, the individual man belongs in a species, man, and animal is a genus of the species; so these—both man and animal—are called secondary substances.<ref name="Ackrill1988">{{cite book |first=J.L. |last=Ackrill |year=1988 |title=A New Aristotle Reader |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9781400835829 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Cz8-DgxETuAC&pg=PA7 |page=7}}</ref>|Aristotle|''Categories'' 2a13, (trans. J.L. Ackrill)}}
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| In chapter 6 of the ''[[Physics]]'' Aristotle argues that any change must be analysed in reference to the property of an invariant subject as it was before the change and thereafter. Thus, in his hylomorphic account of change, ''matter'' serves as a relative substratum of transformation, i.e., of changing form. In the ''Categories'', properties are predicated only of substance, but in chapter 7 of the ''Physics'', Aristotle discusses substances coming to be and passing away in the "unqualified sense" wherein a primary substance is generated from (or perishes into) a material substratum by having gained (or lost) the essential property that formally defines a substance of that kind (in the secondary sense). However, because an essential property remains invariant during an [[accident (philosophy)|accidental]] change in form, by identifying the substance with its formal essence, substance may thereby serve as the relative subject matter or property-bearer of change in a qualified sense (i.e., barring matters of life or death).
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| Neither the "bare particulars" nor "property bundles" of modern theory have their antecedent in Aristotle, according to whom, all matter exists in some form. There is no ''prime matter'' or pure [[classical elements|elements]], there is always a mixture: a ratio weighing the four potential combinations of primary and secondary properties and analysed into discrete one-step and [[gray code#Motivation|two-step]] abstract transmutations between the elements.
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| However, according to [[Aristotelian view of God|Aristotle's theology]], a form of invariant form exists without matter, beyond the [[cosmos]], powerless and oblivious, in the eternal substance of the [[unmoved movers]].
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| ==Early Western philosophy== | | ==Demos== |
| [[Descartes]] means by "substance" an entity which exists in such a way that it needs no other entity in order to exist. Therefore, only God is a substance is the strict sense. But he extends the term to created things, which need only the concurrence of God to exist. Of these there are two and only two: mind and matter, each being distinct from the other in their attributes and therefore in their essence, and neither needing the other in order to exist. This is Descartes' dualism. Spinoza denied Descartes' 'real distinction' between mind and matter. Substance, according to [[Spinoza]], is one and indivisible, but has multiple 'attributes'. But an 'attribute' is 'what we conceive as constituting the [single] essence of substance'. We may conceive of the single essence of the one substance as material and also, consistently, as mental. 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").
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| [[John Locke|Locke]] defined substance as follows: {{quote|The idea that we have, to which we give the general name substance, being nothing but the supposed, but unknown, support of those qualities we find existing, which we imagine cannot subsist ''sine re substante'', without something to support them, we call that support ''substantia''; which, according to the true import of the word, is, in plain English, standing under or upholding.|John Locke|"[[An Essay Concerning Human Understanding]]"; book 2, chapter 23; ''Of our Complex Ideas of Substances''}} | | Here are some [https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListFiles/Frederic.wang 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 cannot be perceived, it should not be assumed to exist. But the claim that substance cannot be perceived is neither clear nor obvious, and neither is the implication obvious.
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| [[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. | | * accessibility: |
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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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| [[Alfred North Whitehead]] has argued that the concept of substance has only a limited applicability in everyday life and that metaphysics should rely upon the concept of process.<ref>See, e.g., Ronny Desmet and Michel Weber (edited by), ''[https://www.academia.edu/279940/Whitehead._The_Algebra_of_Metaphysics Whitehead. The Algebra of Metaphysics. Applied Process Metaphysics Summer Institute Memorandum]'', Louvain-la-Neuve, Éditions Chromatika, 2010 (ISBN 978-2-930517-08-7).</ref>
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| Roman Catholic theologian [[Karl Rahner]], as part of his critique of transubstantiation, 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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| ==Irreducible concepts==
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| Two irreducible concepts encountered in substance theory are the ''bare particular'' and ''inherence''.
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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 independently from its properties, even if it is 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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| ===Inherence===
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| Another primitive concept in substance theory is the [[inherence]] the properties within a substance. For example, in the sentence, "The apple is red," substance theory says that red inheres in the apple. Substance theory takes the meaning of an apple having the property of redness to be understood, and likewise that of a property's inherence in substance, which is similar to, but not identical with, being part of the substance.
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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==
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| 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 predicate "is white", thereby asserting ''snow is white''. The argument holds that it makes no grammatical sense to speak of "whiteness" disembodied, without asserting that snow or something else ''is'' white. Meaningful assertions are formed by virtue of a grammatical subject, of which properties may be predicated, and in substance theory, such assertions are made with regard to a substance.
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| [[Bundle theory]] rejects 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", to be a bundle of properties such as white. Accordingly, one can make meaningful statements about bodies without referring to substances.
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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 substance that has that property.
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| ==Bundle theory== | |
| {{Main|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 qualitative 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.<ref name="Loux2002"/>
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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 such a thing is inconceivable and citing John Locke, who described a substance as "a something, I know not what." To the bundle theorist, as soon as one has any notion of a substance in mind, a property accompanies that 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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| ===Identity of indiscernibles===
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| The [[indiscernible|indiscernibility]] argument from the substance theorist targets those bundle theorists who are also metaphysical realists. Metaphysical realism uses the identity of ''universals'' to compare and identify particulars. Substance theorists say that bundle theory is incompatible with metaphysical realism due to the [[identity of indiscernibles]]: particulars may differ from one another only with respect to their attributes or relations.
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| The substance theorist's indiscernibility argument against the metaphysically realistic bundle theorist states that numerically different concrete particulars are discernible from the self-same concrete particular only by virtue of qualitatively different attributes.
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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>.<ref name="Loux2002"/>
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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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| :Necessarily, for any concrete objects, <math>a</math> and <math>b</math>, if for any attribute, Φ, Φ is an attribute of <math>a</math> if and only if Φ is an attribute of <math>b</math>, then <math>a</math> is numerically identical with <math>b</math>.<ref name="Loux2002">{{cite book |first=M.J. |last=Loux |year=2002 |title=Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction |series=Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy Series |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9780415140348 |lccn=97011036 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=vgxkGIgPlooC&pg=PA106 |page=106-107,110}}</ref>
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| The indiscernibles argument then asserts that the identity of indiscernibles is violated, for example, by identical sheets of paper. All of their qualitative properties are the same (e.g. white, rectangular, 9 x 11 inches...) and 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) avoids the indiscernibles argument because each attribute is a trope if can only be held by only one concrete particular.
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| The argument does not consider whether "position" should be considered an attribute or relation. It is after all through the differing positions that we in practice differentiate between otherwise identical pieces of paper.
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| ==Stoicism== | |
| The [[Stoicism|Stoics]] rejected the idea that [[incorporeal]] beings inhere in matter, as taught by [[Plato]]. They believed that all being is [[Matter|corporeal]] infused with a creative fire called [[pneuma]]. 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 (philosophy and religion)]]
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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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| *[[Process philosophy]]
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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:Aristotelianism]]
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| [[Category:Metaphysical theories]]
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