S
Sophie111
Guest
All philosophy assumes the interlocuters start with a common understanding of the pre-philosophic words used.
The problem it seems to me is that as they interlink such terminology into a networked mutually defining and coherent system these basic words get narrowed in meaning. Then this is where disagreement or misunderstanding or misinterpretation creeps in.
Personally I believe Aristotle uses the word “substance” inconsistently between his initial Natural Philosophy and his later more complex and rarified Metaphysics. In fact even Aristotelians cannot agree on some of his finer meanings of “substance”!
But as I suggest we all agree from common shared experience that all things change in the sensible world. Yet we all also agree that over time many things still retain an identity despite change.
Then again we also recognise when a thing loses its identity and becomes something else.
Form/matter is an attempt to explain how we recognise there is often an underlying substratum that endures despite very dramatic sensible changes.
The problem it seems to me is that as they interlink such terminology into a networked mutually defining and coherent system these basic words get narrowed in meaning. Then this is where disagreement or misunderstanding or misinterpretation creeps in.
Personally I believe Aristotle uses the word “substance” inconsistently between his initial Natural Philosophy and his later more complex and rarified Metaphysics. In fact even Aristotelians cannot agree on some of his finer meanings of “substance”!
But as I suggest we all agree from common shared experience that all things change in the sensible world. Yet we all also agree that over time many things still retain an identity despite change.
Then again we also recognise when a thing loses its identity and becomes something else.
Form/matter is an attempt to explain how we recognise there is often an underlying substratum that endures despite very dramatic sensible changes.
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