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levinas12
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Just what is Aristotle’s notion of substance? Is it obsolete or is it still relevant?
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hicetnunc
Guest
It is still very much relevant and essential for metaphysics and philosophy in general. It is at the heart of metaphysical realism, and its denial typically results in nominalism. Are you responding to the thread of Muze? I’m afraid Muze doesn’t know what he/she is talking about.
Philosophers today, especially Thomists philosophers, still very much engage in an analysis of substance and accidents. I was recently at a philosophy colloquium in Oxford where the notion of substance and accidents was very much at the fore of the discussion.
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ngill09
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Scientifically speaking, it’s unfalsifiable and useless. 
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bzkoss236
Guest
That is because science is the study of the natural world, and the Aristotelian idea of substance involves the supernatural about what is rather than how it appears to be.Scientifically speaking, it’s unfalsifiable and useless.
It is completely still relevent, just not for those studying the natural sciences. Theologists and philosophers, or whoever else studies the supernatural/metaphysical should still find great value in the idea.
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Just_Lurking
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Is it possible that the device I use to cook my toast only has the accidents of a toaster, but has the substance of my dear departed pet dog? Can I know the answer to this question scientifically, or only theologically?
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Alberti_Devoveo
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Why would you speak scientifically about a non-scientific topic?Scientifically speaking, it’s unfalsifiable and useless.
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bzkoss236
Guest
It would only be theologically/philosophically. And while possible, I would venture to say that it is unlikely because there would be no reason for God to change the substance of your toaster to your pet dog.
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Just_Lurking
Guest
Maybe the Devil did it. Is that possible theologically?
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bzkoss236
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The devil does not have the power or ability to do so. This is something that lies with God alone. God, as the creator of all things, is the only one with the power to change what something is regardless of what it appears to be.
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levinas12
Guest
Yes, Muze was the stimulus.
What were some of the insights at the Oxford colloquium?
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hicetnunc
Guest
If you’re going to chase down substance and accidents with Popperian falsification theory, you’re going to find that pretty much everything that lies outside the scope of physical science, which is quite a narrowing of the mind.Scientifically speaking, it’s unfalsifiable and useless.
Ironically, it’s verificationism and falsificationism that has been rejected both by philosophers and scientists, as it doesn’t fulfill its own criteria.
I think such a cavalier dismissal of substance and accidents shows a lack of appreciation for the great work in metaphysics, especially over the last forty of fifty years. It also involves a dismissal of the work of Pope John Paul II in this field, who was an accomplished philosopher in his own right.
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Just_Lurking
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Then why does God change the bread and wine in the context of a black mass? Wouldn’t it be more merciful for God to save his Son from sacrilege and additional torture?
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hicetnunc
Guest
We can know this philosophically, at least when we start with a workable definition of substance, and distinguish primary and secondary substance.
A substance is what makes a thing what it is; a dog cannot be a substance of a toaster (in fact, toasters are not properly speaking, constituted by a substance…perhaps a topic for another thread).
Substance is not a thing; it is what is a thing is in istelf, and that which cannot be predicted of another thing nor predicated in something else. Nor can it be reduced to matter and form, since these are predicated of and in another thing. The term substance is therefore not somethind detached from reason or experience, and is the cause per se of what a thing is istelf. Thus, it makes no sense to talk about a dead dog being the substance of a toaster. Substance has a logical framework through which we ask, “What is it?” when we want to know something. It is not magic, nor is it something arbitrary. It is the ground of being through which we come to know something, and hence it is eminently rational.
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hicetnunc
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The last two I attended were given by John Marenbon of Cambridge University, and an expert on the philosophy of Boethius, and his influence on Aquinas; and the other was a colloquia on the notion of gift in reference to human relations between communities and the notion of person in Aquinas.
Ironically, as some posts in this thread and Muze’s thread shows, some of the discussion centred around the observation is that there is great confusion about what is meant by the term ‘substance’.
A lot of people tend to reduce substance to some ethereal “ghost in a machine.” Substance is rather the ground of being, and since being is the object of all human inquiry, when we ask what a thing is in itself, we are asking about its substance. Substance is therefore the object of rational inquiry and not something that can be “detected” by testing as though it were some thing independent of what we inquire about. Substance is not a ground of being in the sense that molecules and atoms are grounds of all material being. By way of analogy, there is clearly a difference between “soup” and “viscous liquid”. Science can reduce soup to the elements of a viscous liquid, but this doesn’t tell us what soup is strictly speaking. Science, in other words, cannot determine value in things. To inquire about the substance of a thing is to go further than what can be seen in a thing through an analysis of its parts. Thus substance is a logical category, although it aims to say something about the nature of reality.
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Just_Lurking
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Let me ask my question more concretely.
Imagine that I have two wafers in front of me, one consecrated and the other not. Science cannot distinguish between the two, nor can most Catholics, with a few exceptions such as Padre Pio. For the unconsecrated wafer, if I were to take it in my mouth, spit it out, and stomp on it, then I would be committing a rude act, but nothing more. If I were to do the same thing to the consecrated wafer, I would be committing sacrilege and also causing anguish to the Son of God, as much so if the risen Jesus were in front of me and I were to beat him with a flail.
Now imagine that I have two toasters in front of me, and the act that I am contemplating is bashing in the toaster with a sledge hammer. When I ask if the toaster could actually have the substance of my dead dog, it seems to me that another way to ask that is could it be possible (say, due to supernatural intervention by God, angels, or demons), that that act could actually be as much a descration as if I were to abuse my former pet’s corpse?
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levinas12
Guest
Was Jean Luc Marion mentioned with respect to the “gift”?
And I’m curious about “person” in Aquinas. As you may know, “substance” may not be philosophically adequate to account for “person” (see Robert Spaemann book on persons).
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hicetnunc
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Yes, Marion and other phenomenologists (which I am sure you will appreciate, given your moniker!) came up quite a bit, along with Mauss and Derrida.
And yes, I am aware of the criticisms of Thomas’ notion of person and reliance on substance in his use of Boethius’ definition of Spaemann etc. Even then-Cardinal Ratzinger criticised Thomas for this perceived shortcoming which is thought to mechanise the human person and turn the person in on himself against the relational notion of person.
However, I think the criticisms are ill founded, nor are they a direct attack or critique of the notion of substance as such. A number of philosophers have come to the rescue of Thomas’ notion of person, including Norris Clarke and Rudi te Velde, among others. They argue (convincingly, I think) that Thomas’ use of the Boethian formula is simply a starting point for a much broader discussion that spans several of his works. In fact, we could say that Thomas has various definitions of the human person, and the Boethian one he is most remembered (and criticised) for is an attempt to accommodate a metaphysical starting point in vogue in his day. His broader discussion of person focusses on the person as oriented towards others in love, and ultimately oriented towards God in gratitude and self-giving.
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Verbum_Caro
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Very informative hicetnunc! Is this your field?
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hicetnunc
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Interesting stuff…
It is possible, I suppose, that God could reveal himself in a toaster, although I don’t think that this is likely. The Catholic teaching that Christ is present in the Eucharist is something revealed to us, not something uncovered through a rational process. Reason can, on the heels of revelation, try to make sense of it, but it is ultimately a mystery.
Philosophically speaking, there is a significant difference between a wafer (or bread) and a toaster. The former is what we might call a homogenous substance, and the toaster is a heterogeneous substance (and so not a substance properly speaking). A piece of bread, for example, is still completely bread even when you cut it in half. A toaster would cease to be a toaster if you cut it in half; it is rather composed of dimensive properties unlike unified natures. The parts of a human body (such as a hand) are also heterogenous, and so a person’s substancehood is not derived from its physical properties alone. This is not to say that using this kind of philosophical distinction we can arrive at the ‘discovery’ of the Real Presence, but it is this sort of reasoning that helps us understand why Christ chose bread to feed us with his body.
So neither philosophy nor theology can, simply by a discursive process, know whether or not bread is truly Christ’s body. This is a revealed truth. I’m not sure if this is what you were getting at, or if it helps at all, but let me know if I’ve missed your point.
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levinas12
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I hope they publish some of the papers.
This is the problem with applying “substance” to “person”. A substance is defined by a genus and a specific difference. But we can’t do this with a person. Granted that John Doe is a rational animal - so he is a substance.
But the person we know as John Doe, John Doe qua John Doe, cannot be defined by genus and specific difference. Because there is no species for John Doe qua John Doe.
Another way of putting this is to say that “John Doe” is not a sortal noun. John Doe is not an instantiation of a class. Rather, John Doe qua John Doe is a singularity (outside Aristotle’s traditional categories).
Sometimes matter is invoked to account for the “individuality” of the person. But I think this misses the deeper reality of person.
I apologize for this digression but it may help us understand (by contrast) what Aristotle meant by substance, by ousia.
So let’s continue with exploring the history of “substance” as a philosophical concept.
I’ll try to work up something in my own words. Do you know of some good extended discussions of “substance”?
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