PH354 Aristotle Week 9. Substance.

PH354 Aristotle Week 9. Substance

Introduction Substance is the most basic entity (NB: issue about stuff.) There are many unresolved questions about Aristotle’s treatment of substance. Aristotle offers a celebrated treatment of substance in the Categories. He then offers an extended series of discussions of substance in the Metaphysics. The discussion of substance in the Metaphysics appears to be at odds with the discussion in the Categories. Further, the Metaphysics account itself appears to be internally inconsistent.

Plan Characterize the Categories view of substance. The notion of substance as ‘primary substance’ and why Aristotle thinks that primary substance is basic. The consequences of hylomorphism for Aristotle’s thought about substance. Substance in the Metaphysics; substratum, form, essence, universal. Two problems from the Metaphysics Some suggestions concerning substance in Metaphysics Zeta.

The Categories The Categories is an investigation into the basic kinds of things that there are. In this work, Aristotle argues that there are ten basic categories of thing (including quantity, quality, etc.) But there is one category of thing—substance—that is most basic.

The Categories “Among the things that exist, some are said-of a subject but not in any subject. For example, man is said-of a subject, the individual man, but is not in any subject. Some are in a subject but are not said-of any subject (By ‘in a subject’ I mean what is in something, which, not belonging to it as a part does, cannot exist separately from what it is in.)

The Categories For example, an individual bit of grammatical knowledge is in a subject, the soul, but is not said-of any subject; and the individual white is in a subject, the body—for all colour is in a body—but is not said-of any subject. Some are both said-of and in. For example, knowledge is in a subject, the soul, and is also said-of a subject, namely a bit of grammatical knowledge. Some are neither in nor said-of a subject, the individual man or individual horse; nothing of this sort is either in a subject nor said of a subject.” (1a20-21b6)

“Said-of” and “in” Things which are said-of things are ‘universals’, in that they are things which are ‘said of many’ things, or can be instantiated or exemplified or held in common by many different things. Things which are not said-of things are particulars. Things which are in things are things which ‘inhere’ in things or which ‘depend on’ other things for their existence. Things which are not in things are things which don’t inhere in things or which are not dependent on things for their existence.

Primary Substance ‘A substance—that which is called a substance most strictly, most 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.’ (2a12-14)

Primary Substance is Basic
Primary substances don’t depend upon anything else for their existence. (They are not said-of nor in) Everything else depends on primary substance for its existence.

Primary Substance as Basic
“All the other things are either said of the primary substances as subjects or in them as subjects. This is clear from an examination of cases. For example, animal is predicated of man and therefore of the individual man; for were it predicated of none of the individual men it would not be predicated of man at all. Again, colour is in body and therefore also in an individual body; for were it not n some individual body it would not be in body at all. Thus all the other things are either said of the primary substances as subjects of in them as subjects. So if the primary substances did not exist it would be impossble for any of the other things to exist.” (2a34-2b7)

Further Features of Primary Substance (Categories, Book V)
Particularity “Every substance seems to signify a certain ‘this’. As regards the primary substances, it is indisputably true that each of them signifies a certain ‘this’; for the thing revealed is individual and numerically one.” (3b10-13) Non-contrariety “Another characteristic of substances is that there is nothing contrary to them. For what would be contrary to a primary substance? For example, there is nothing contrary to an individual man, nor yet is there anything contrary to man or to animal.” (3b24-27)

Further Features of Primary Substance (Categories, Book V)
Non-gradability “Substance, it seems does not admit of a more and a less. I do not mean that one substance is not more a substance than another (we have said that it is), but that any given substance is not called more, or less, that which it is. For example, if this substance is a man, it will not be more a man or less a man either than itself or than another man.” (3b34-37) Changeability of properties Aristotle says that it is ‘most distinctive’ of substances that they can change properties. “A substance…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, and hot and cold, and bad and good. Nothing like this is to be seen in any other case.” (4a18-22)

The Shift to Hylomorphism
Hylomorphism is absent from the Categories. Now that the distinction between matter and form has been made, and now that the view of individual entities like human beings, trees, and cats, as compounds of matter and form has been made, is there reason to think that this changes the facts about what the most fundamental entities from the point of view of metaphysics are? Mightn’t the way in which primary substances depend upon stuff provide a reason to think that they are not the most basic entities?

The Study of Being qua Being
Book IV (G) First philosophy is the study of being qua being: “There is a science which studies being qua being, as well as the properties pertaining to it in its own right. This is in no way the same as any of the sciences discussing some part of being since none of them studies being generally, qua being. Rather, each of those sciences cuts off some part of being and studies its attributes, as, for instance, the mathematical sciences do” (1003b20-26)

The Study of Being qua Being
What is the study of being qua being? There could be a study of beings which studies them as bodies, or as things with boundaries or as things which have properties, or as things of various different kinds. But the study of being qua being is the study of beings just insofar as they are beings, or just insofar as they are things which there are. (He describes this as a search for the ‘first causes’ of that which is qua thing that it is. (1003a31-2). That is, it is a search for the answer to the question: “What is it to be something that is, or something that has being?”

Substance and the Study of Being qua Being
Just as there is one science which deals with all healthy things, so there is in the other cases. For there is a single science for investigating not only these individuals spoken of as one, but also when individuals are spoken of as related to a common nature; for these too are, in a certain way, spoken of as one.

It is also clear, then, that it falls to a single science to investigate beings in insofar as they are beings. And in ever case, science investigates most centrally what is primary, that upon which other things depend, because of which they are spoken of. If, then, this is substance, the philosopher must possess the principles and causes of substances. (1003b11-19)

What is the relation between a general examination of the notion of being and the specific investigation of the notion of substance and its nature? The answer is that the being of substance is basic. Other modes of being can be understood in terms of, or derivatively from, the being of substance. (See Shields (1999) for extensive discussion of core-dependent homonymy in Aristotle))

Being is meant in multiple ways, but with reference to a single thing and one nature and not homonymously. Rather, just as every healthy thing stands to health, some by preserving it, and some by producing it, and others by being indicative of it, and others by being receptive of it, or as what is medical is related to medicine… so too being is meant in multiple ways, but with reference to a single core.

Some things are called beings because they are substances, others because they are affections of substances, others because they are a path to substance or are destructions or privations or doings of substances, or are productive or generative of substance, or belong to things spoken of in relation to substance, or are negations of some one of these or of substance itself (wherefore we even say that non-being is non-being) (1003a b10)

Substance in Metaphysics Z
At the outset of Zeta, chapter 3, Aristotle sets out a range of possibilities about what substance may be. “The word ‘substance’ is applied, if not in more senses, still at least to four main objects; for both the essence and the universal and the genus are thought to be the substance of each thing, and fourthly the substratum.” (1028b33-36)

Substance in Metaphysics Z
(a) The essence = what it is/what it was to be something, the definition (b) The universal = something individual which is common to everything of the kind. (De Interpretatione: “I call universal that which is by its nature predicated of a number of things, and particular that which is not; man, for instance, is a universal, Callias a particular.” (17a37-b1)) (c) The genus = The higher-order category predicable of species (e.g. animal or plant) (d) Substratum = “Now the substratum is that of which other things are predicated, while it is itself not predicated of anything else.”(1028b-1029a1)

Substance in Metaphysics Z: Substratum
Were substratum to be substance then matter would be substance Matter cannot be substance Therefore substratum cannot be substance

Metaphysics Book Z: Substratum as Substance
The substratum is that of which other things are predicated, but is itself no longer predicated of anything else. So, we must first make a determination of this. For that which is substratum in a primary way seems most of all to be substance. In this sort of way, matter is said to be substance, but I another way the shape, and in a third what comes from these.

By matter I mean, for instance, bronze, by shape the configuration of its structure, and by what comes from these the statue, the composite. Consequently, if the form is prior to the matter and more a being, then it will also be prior to what comes from both, and for the same reason.

Now, we have said in rough outline what substance is, that it is not that which is predicated of a substratum but is that with respect to which other things are predicated. But it is necessary to say not only so much; for this is insufficient. First, it is itself unclear—and moreover, matter will turn out to be substance. For if this is not substance, it escapes us what else it might be: when all else has been stripped away, nothing seems to remain. For among the other features of bodies, some are affections and products or capacities, while length, breadth and depth are certain quantities not substances (since quantity is not substance); rather, that to which these belong in a primary way is substance.

Moreover, when length, breadth, and depth are stripped away, we see nothing remaining, except what is bounded by them, so that for those inquiring in this way it will be necessary that matter alone will be substance. By matter, I mean that which in its own right is neither some thing nor a quantity nor any other of the other things in terms of which being is delimited. For there is something of which each of these is predicated, so that its being will differ from the being of each of the other categories (for other things are predicated of substance, but this is predicated of matter).

Consequently, the ultimate substratum in its own right is neither some thing nor a quantity nor anything else; nor even will it be a negation, since even negations will belong to it coincidentally. For those who see things on the basis of these considerations, then, it turns out that matter is substance. But this is impossible. For being separate and being some particular thing seem most of all to belong to substance. Accordingly, the form and what comes from both form and matter would seem to be substance more than matter. (1028b aa30)

Metaphysics Book Z: Substance as Substratum
Aristotle suggests that we cannot take matter to be substance for two reasons: (a) substrate is not capable of independent existence; (b) it is not something particular or individual. Perhaps the substrate that is the candidate for being substance is just the compound of matter and form (i.e. the Categories primary substance)? “The substance compounded of both, i.e. of matter and shape, may be dismissed; for it is posterior and its nature obvious.”(1029a30-32) (!)

Metaphysics Book Z: Substance as Essence
In Z.4- Z.6, Aristotle turns to the suggestion that substance is essence. It’s very difficult in a short space of time to work through the intricacies of Z4-Z6. These chapters repay close attention. (For a helpful overview and guide see Cohen (2009)) The essence of something is what it is/what it was to be that thing (it spells out what counts as being that thing) The essence of something is the definition of the thing (NB: Aristotle thinks that things are defined, not words. The ‘definition’ of something is ‘what makes that thing definite’.) “The essence of something is what it is said to be in virtue of itself… What then you are in virtue of yourself is your essence.” (1029b13-15) “(E)ach thing is thought to be not different from its substance, and the essence is said to be the substance of each thing.” (1031a17-18)

Substance as Form: Zeta 17
Where we have a house, we can ask the question: “Why is this collection of bricks (this matter, or this collection of elements) a house?” What answers this question (what explains why matter or a collection of elements constitutes (say) a house) is the form, the substance of the thing. The substance or the form of something (say a house or a syllable) is not any individual material element or any compound of material elements. It is a ‘primary cause of being’, or a ‘principle’.

“As regards that which is compounded out of something so that the whole is one—not like a heap, however, but like a syllable,--the syllable is not its elements, ba is not the same as b and a, nor is flesh fire and earth; for when they are dissolved the wholes, i.e. the flesh and the syllable, no longer exist, but the elements of the syllable exist, and so do fire and earth. The syllable, then, is something—not only its elements (the vowel and the consonant) but also something else; and the flesh is not only fire and earth or the hot and the cold, but also something else.

Since, then, that something must be either an element or composed of elements, if it is an element the same argument will again apply; for flesh will consist of this and fire and earth and something still further, so that the process will go on to infinity; while if it is a compound, clearly it will be a compound not of one but of many (or else it will itself be that one), so that again in this case we can use the same argument as in the case of flesh or of the syllable.

But it would seem that this is something, and not an element and that it is the cause which makes this thing flesh and that a syllable. And similarly in all other cases. And this is the substance of each thing; for this is the primary cause of its being; and since while some things are not substance, as many as are the substances are formed naturally and by nature, their substances would seem to be his nature, which is not an element but a principle. (1041b11-31)

Substance as Universal: Zeta 14
Aristotle rejects the view that substance is a universal. “The universal is thought by some to be in the fullest sense a cause, and a principle; therefore let us attack this point also. For it seems impossible that any universal terms should be the name of a substance. For primary substance is that kind of substance which is peculiar to an individual, which does not belong to anything else; but the universal is common, since that is called universal which naturally belongs to more than one thing. Of which individual then will this be the substance?..

Substance as Universal: Zeta 14
Either of all or of none. But it cannot be the substance of all; and if it is to be the substance of one, this one will be the others also; for things whose substance is one and whose essence is one are themselves also one. Further, substance means that which is not predicable of a subject but the universal is predicable of some subjects always.” (1038b2-16)

Substance is not a Universal: Zeta 14
The substance of an individual can only be the substance of that very individual, not the substance of anything else. (The substance of the individual is the essence of the individual). Were a universal the substance of an individual then it would be the substance of many individuals. (For a universal can be possessed by many) Therefore substance cannot be a universal.

Problem 1 In the Categories, substance is understood as primary substance. Primary substances were human beings, cats, and horses. In the Metaphysics, this framework appears to be abandoned. The Categories criterion of substance appears to be discarded (in the section on substratum). Substance in Metaphysics Zeta is the form of a thing; or what it is to be a thing. But the form of a particular or what it is to be that thing is something different from the thing. So there is an obvious inconsistency between the Categories and Metaphysics treatments of substance.

Problem 2 In the Metaphysics, Aristotle identifies substance with form (and essence). Substance is what it is to be something. The form of something, what it is to be something, is something that things can have in common, or can share. (You and Socrates have the form of a human being in common; it is something you share with him) For Aristotle, ‘what things can have in common’, or ‘what things can share’ are universals But in Zeta 14, Aristotle argues that substance cannot be a universal. So there is an obvious inconsistency between Aristotle’s remarks about universals in Zeta 14, and his discussions of substance as form and essence in the middle chapters of that book.

Suggestions: Problem 1 Aristotle flatly, and unwittingly, contradicts himself. Given the development of his thought about the explanation of primary substance as possessing internal structure (i.e. hylomorphism), Aristotle comes to change his mind about what substance is. The accounts are inconsistent. But this is a sign of the fact that Aristotle’s views are in development. (Lear (1988), Code (1986), Shields (2013)) There is no inconsistency between the text of the Categories and the Metaphysics. (For a recent discussion in this vein see Wedin (2000)).

Suggestions: Problem 1 There may be many different suggestions about why there is no inconsistency. One thought here might be that Aristotle is trying to answer different questions in these two texts. In the Categories, Aristotle gives an account of substance, in the sense that he is aiming to identify which entities are fundamental. The entities that are fundamental are primary substances (human beings, trees, cats, etc.).

Suggestions: Problem 1 In the Metaphysics, Aristotle is pursuing further, distinct, questions, or a further distinct question, about these already identified things. He is interested in what it is for these fundamental things to be, (or perhaps equivalently) to be the very things they are. This second task can be described as an attempt to investigate substance. But it might be better described as an attempt to identify the substance of things; that is, the fundamental reality of things. (Note how often Aristotle uses the locution “the substance of” things in the Metaphysics)

Suggestions: Problem 2 Perhaps the forms or essences that Aristotle identifies with substance in Z4- 6 and in Z.14 are something other than universals. One way that such a view might be argued for would be to argue that Aristotle thought that the relevant forms or essences were not shareable, and not the kinds of things that could be common to different things. There are particularized forms or essences, for example, such things as being Socrates. It is these particular forms or essences that Aristotle identifies with substance in the Metaphysics. (For views along these lines see Irwin (1988), Witt (1989))

PH354 Aristotle Week 9. Substance.

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