What is a ' substance ? '

[MyNameIsDan]

What does the term ’ substance ’ mean to you? How would you apply and use it?

How have you used it in the past?

When did you first become aware of its meaning or meanings?

Can you give some examples of how you use the term?

Is there one meaning that you think especially apt?

Linus2nd

I’m not sure how I’ve used it in the past. Usually, I use substance to refer to something physical or some sort of “essence”.

I guess I’ve known for a long time what it means, but I only got a concrete definition when my professor explained it. “A substance is that which we are trying to study or observe.” Something like that. It is not necessarily physical.

Example:

• Man’s substance is not only physical but spiritual.
• There are three substances with three methods of understanding: physical substances require science, spatial/changing substances require math, and reason/intelligible substances require logic. Hopefully I am remembering all this correctly and that was where he was talking about substances!

I like the “substance” we use in philosophy.

 

[inocente]

Are you implying that Aristotle’s use of “substance/accident” and “matter/form” is merely an exercise in classification and categorization of knowledge and not a metaphysical description of objective reality?

Yes, he is constructing a framework for knowledge.

Have a glance at the MIT translation of *Categories *and you’ll see that Aristotle is writing about language constructs. Then glance through the SEP entry and you’ll see the work is described in terms of a classification framework.

(Perhaps I wouldn’t call it “merely an exercise” though, as he is trying to answer the fundamental question “what is knowledge” and produces an influential groundwork.)

It’s possible that Aquinas mistook Aristotle to be speaking of objective reality instead, but I somehow doubt that, as Aquinas was a bright cookie.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Yes, he is constructing a framework for knowledge.

Have a glance at the MIT translation of *Categories *and you’ll see that Aristotle is writing about language constructs. Then glance through the SEP entry and you’ll see the work is described in terms of a classification framework.

(Perhaps I wouldn’t call it “merely an exercise” though, as he is trying to answer the fundamental question “what is knowledge” and produces an influential groundwork.)

It’s possible that Aquinas mistook Aristotle to be speaking of objective reality instead, but I somehow doubt that, as Aquinas was a bright cookie.

And isn’t knowledge supposed to be a reflection of what actually exists? Aristotle was engaged in a project to learn what was the truth about the world around him. Categorizing substances was merely a means to that end. So substances ( natures and essences ) actually existed in his view and they existed in certain specific ways - his nine categories of accidents.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

And isn’t knowledge supposed to be a reflection of what actually exists? Aristotle was engaged in a project to learn what was the truth about the world around him. Categorizing substances was merely a means to that end. So substances ( natures and essences ) actually existed in his view and they existed in certain specific ways - his nine categories of accidents.

Aristotle’s Categories makes perfect sense as part of what I guess would these days be called a theory of knowledge, and I’d agree that it would be hard to imagine how we could comprehend the world without using categories or analogous concepts. But it’s a mistake to believe that our categories dictate objective reality.

For instance, take the word “planet”. Now if the word reflected objective reality, we would be able to find “nature of planet” in or on (say) Saturn. But we can’t, and I’ve even seen it argued that we can’t detect it because nature of planet is supernatural - we can’t find natures in nature because they’re not natural!

But there’s no need for such contortions. In truth, the word “planet” is a category defined not by objective reality but by a committee of the International Astronomical Union. A few years back they changed their definition, which is how come Pluto used to be a planet and now isn’t, even though Pluto never changed and objective reality never changed.

 

[davidv]

Aristotle’s Categories makes perfect sense as part of what I guess would these days be called a theory of knowledge, and I’d agree that it would be hard to imagine how we could comprehend the world without using categories or analogous concepts. But it’s a mistake to believe that our categories dictate objective reality.

For instance, take the word “planet”. Now if the word reflected objective reality, we would be able to find “nature of planet” in or on (say) Saturn. But we can’t, and I’ve even seen it argued that we can’t detect it because nature of planet is supernatural - we can’t find natures in nature because they’re not natural!

But there’s no need for such contortions. In truth, the word “planet” is a category defined not by objective reality but by a committee of the International Astronomical Union. A few years back they changed their definition, which is how come Pluto used to be a planet and now isn’t, even though Pluto never changed and objective reality never changed.

Would you agree that the content of those categories are part of objective reality, despite the potential illogic used to come up with the category title?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Aristotle’s Categories makes perfect sense as part of what I guess would these days be called a theory of knowledge, and I’d agree that it would be hard to imagine how we could comprehend the world without using categories or analogous concepts. But it’s a mistake to believe that our categories dictate objective reality

It is objective reality that dictates the categories, whether those of Aristotle or of the sciences. It is the actions, behaviors, the appearance of objective realities which tell us what a thing is deep inside, its nature, and then we look for a term which stands for that nature. This is what Aristotle did, this is what science does. .

For instance, take the word “planet”. Now if the word reflected objective reality, we would be able to find “nature of planet” in or on (say) Saturn. But we can’t, and I’ve even seen it argued that we can’t detect it because nature of planet is supernatural - we can’t find natures in nature because they’re not natural!

Certainly there are bound to be confusions about where we would place a specific object in a given scientific classification. But there is no doubt that a planet, an asteroid, a comet, etc are substances of some kind. The same would be true of minerals, plants, animals, atoms, etc.

Take man for example. You do not doubt he has an intellectual soul and it is this soul in union with his body that is his nature and it is this nature which determines all of man’s actions, behavious, and characteristics. But it is the actions, behaviors, characteristics which tell us that man is a rational animal. And rational animal is the term which we use to describe man’s nature. And it is this nature, this inner principle from which flows all we observe about the substance we call man.

But there’s no need for such contortions. In truth, the word “planet” is a category defined not by objective reality but by a committee of the International Astronomical Union. A few years back they changed their definition, which is how come Pluto used to be a planet and now isn’t, even though Pluto never changed and objective reality never changed.

Because we may be confused as to just what a planet is does not falsify the notion of substance or nature or their usefulness, even of their necessity. Don’t know anything about the International Astronomical Union but the term planet has been in use for a long time. Even God spoke of the sun, the moon and the stars.

Linus2nd

 

[Richca]

Aristotle’s Categories makes perfect sense as part of what I guess would these days be called a theory of knowledge, and I’d agree that it would be hard to imagine how we could comprehend the world without using categories or analogous concepts. But it’s a mistake to believe that our categories dictate objective reality.

For instance, take the word “planet”. Now if the word reflected objective reality, we would be able to find “nature of planet” in or on (say) Saturn. But we can’t, and I’ve even seen it argued that we can’t detect it because nature of planet is supernatural - we can’t find natures in nature because they’re not natural!

But there’s no need for such contortions. In truth, the word “planet” is a category defined not by objective reality but by a committee of the International Astronomical Union. A few years back they changed their definition, which is how come Pluto used to be a planet and now isn’t, even though Pluto never changed and objective reality never changed.

Do you believe it is a mistake to believe that Pope Francis is a man or a human being like other men or human beings?

 

[Nihilist]

I was considering this question in the context of some research I was doing between a dispute between two 16th Century theologians, Marnixius and Baius- on whether the word “est” in “Hoc est corpus meum” is meant “substantially”.

My conclusion is that, in fact, the word substance is used in a varieties of way in ‘everyday’ speech. “Iron is a substance”, “These two arguments are identical in substance”, etc.

In fact, to say something “is” and something “is substantially” is a really a tautology- unless it serves as a hermeneutic guide, to prohibit metaphoric interpretation. But this solution is problematic, since metaphoricity is always on a scale.

In a more philosophical context- we may say that the substance of a circle is its roundness and completeness, while it colour, size, are mere ‘accidents’, or similarly for any other example. In general terms, the ‘substance of an X’ is whatever permits the a thing called X to be called X. If the thing no longer has the qualities which permit it to be called X, it no longer has the ‘substance of X’. It still has some ‘substance’ however, since it can be called something. If I smash a glass bottle, I can no longer call it ‘a bottle’ (i.e. it doesn’t have the substance ‘bottle’), but it still has some substance (‘shards of glass’).

But the case of transubstantiation is difficult- since the bread, in fact, still has the all qualities which qualify it to be called ‘bread’- not merely the accidents of bread (i.e. the type, or size that the bread happens to be). But it may have another ‘substance’ as well, insofar as it can be called something else (“Corpus meum”).

Clearly, something can simultaneously be of more than one substance, according to this definition. The glass bottle has the substance of a ‘bottle’ (i.e. the capacity to contain liquid), but also the substance of ‘glass’ (transparency, etc.). It could also be said to have the substance of ‘a piece of matter’.

Since the term is ambiguous, it seems necessary for a person who is using it in a statement to define how they are using it. But this definition cannot be simply to say “what something really is”, because that is circular. Since ‘substance’ cannot be defined by demonstration (since it potentially includes all things), the definition must be given purely logical terms (e.g. “the qualities which permit a thing to be given a specified name”). This definition is, if carefully considered, empirical, since we are all familiar with the rules for applying names to ‘substances’ in actual discourse.

It then becomes a question of language, rather than metaphysics.

 

[Nihilist]

Aristotle’s Categories makes perfect sense as part of what I guess would these days be called a theory of knowledge, and I’d agree that it would be hard to imagine how we could comprehend the world without using categories or analogous concepts. But it’s a mistake to believe that our categories dictate objective reality.

For instance, take the word “planet”. Now if the word reflected objective reality, we would be able to find “nature of planet” in or on (say) Saturn. But we can’t, and I’ve even seen it argued that we can’t detect it because nature of planet is supernatural - we can’t find natures in nature because they’re not natural!

But there’s no need for such contortions. In truth, the word “planet” is a category defined not by objective reality but by a committee of the International Astronomical Union. A few years back they changed their definition, which is how come Pluto used to be a planet and now isn’t, even though Pluto never changed and objective reality never changed.

Yes, the mistake some ancient philosophers was to confuse linguistic or conceptual categories (e.g. ‘planet’), with categories of physical objects (or, more precisely, categories of perceptual experiences), which somehow has some external ‘reality.’ In fact, all categories, species, types, etc. are simply concepts. The word ‘planet’ could be re-defined in such a way that the thing we call ‘the moon’ now, or even ‘an apple’ now becomes a planet. It is all relative to the use of language or concepts. For this reason, ‘substance’ is a conceptual-linguistic principal.

But, the problem is solved by considering what ‘reality’ really is. ‘Reality’ itself is nothing but a conceptual system. In this context, it is correct to call ‘substances’ (conceptual constructs) as part of ‘reality’ (as long ‘reality’ is understood merely as a system of conceptual constructs).

Hence, we can go back to being ‘quasi realists’ in everyday life.

 

[Richca]

I was considering this question in the context of some research I was doing between a dispute between two 16th Century theologians, Marnixius and Baius- on whether the word “est” in “Hoc est corpus meum” is meant “substantially”.

My conclusion is that, in fact, the word substance is used in a varieties of way in ‘everyday’ speech. “Iron is a substance”, “These two arguments are identical in substance”, etc.

In fact, to say something “is” and something “is substantially” is a really a tautology- unless it serves as a hermeneutic guide, to prohibit metaphoric interpretation. But this solution is problematic, since metaphoricity is always on a scale.

In a more philosophical context- we may say that the substance of a circle is its roundness and completeness, while it colour, size, are mere ‘accidents’, or similarly for any other example. In general terms, the ‘substance of an X’ is whatever permits the a thing called X to be called X. If the thing no longer has the qualities which permit it to be called X, it no longer has the ‘substance of X’. It still has some ‘substance’ however, since it can be called something. If I smash a glass bottle, I can no longer call it ‘a bottle’ (i.e. it doesn’t have the substance ‘bottle’), but it still has some substance (‘shards of glass’).

But the case of transubstantiation is difficult- since the bread, in fact, still has the all qualities which qualify it to be called ‘bread’- not merely the accidents of bread (i.e. the type, or size that the bread happens to be). But it may have another ‘substance’ as well, insofar as it can be called something else (“Corpus meum”).

Clearly, something can simultaneously be of more than one substance, according to this definition. The glass bottle has the substance of a ‘bottle’ (i.e. the capacity to contain liquid), but also the substance of ‘glass’ (transparency, etc.). It could also be said to have the substance of ‘a piece of matter’.

Since the term is ambiguous, it seems necessary for a person who is using it in a statement to define how they are using it. But this definition cannot be simply to say “what something really is”, because that is circular. Since ‘substance’ cannot be defined by demonstration (since it potentially includes all things), the definition must be given purely logical terms (e.g. “the qualities which permit a thing to be given a specified name”). This definition is, if carefully considered, empirical, since we are all familiar with the rules for applying names to ‘substances’ in actual discourse.

It then becomes a question of language, rather than metaphysics.

In Aristotlelian/Thomistic metaphysics, the very definition of substance is that it is an individual existing thing, for example, an individual tree, an individual person, an individual dog. “One” is a transcendental property of being, everything that is, is one in someway. In this view, a thing cannot simultaneously be of more than one substance. An individual substance has one substantial form which brings unity to the thing. For example, Plato is one person; an individual oak tree, is one tree. The english word substance comes from latin roots, it literally means “that which stands under,” for example, the accidents.

The problem with the idea that a thing is comprised of more than one substance is that this thing is no longer one thing but an accidental unity. For example, a person would not be one person but an accidental unity of a number of substances. The complexity of the human body would be an accident. This is like saying that if you found a watch in the woods, the watch came together by accident.

A glass bottle does not have substances of bottle, glass, and matter. Glass is the substance while the bottle is an accidental form of glass. Glass can take on a number of accidental forms such as a bottle, a plate, a window, a cup, etc. Matter is a substantial component of the glass, the other substantial component being the substantial form of the glass. In Aristotle’s theory of hylomorphism, form and matter are the two substantial principles that make up material substances.

 

[Richca]

Aristotle’s Categories makes perfect sense as part of what I guess would these days be called a theory of knowledge, and I’d agree that it would be hard to imagine how we could comprehend the world without using categories or analogous concepts. But it’s a mistake to believe that our categories dictate objective reality.

For instance, take the word “planet”. Now if the word reflected objective reality, we would be able to find “nature of planet” in or on (say) Saturn. But we can’t, and I’ve even seen it argued that we can’t detect it because nature of planet is supernatural - we can’t find natures in nature because they’re not natural!

But there’s no need for such contortions. In truth, the word “planet” is a category defined not by objective reality but by a committee of the International Astronomical Union. A few years back they changed their definition, which is how come Pluto used to be a planet and now isn’t, even though Pluto never changed and objective reality never changed.

Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas and a host of others teach that our ideas do have objective reality, otherwise science and truth would not be possible. This teaching, if considered objectively, is, I believe, the common sensible approach. For example, Pope Francis is a human being who possesses a human nature, a human nature which he has in common with other human beings. We observe in Pope Francis properties which he has in common with other human beings by which we can say he is a human being and not a horse. Now, if our idea of human nature which we get from human beings did not correspond with the objective and real Pope Francis, we might as well call Pope Francis a horse or a giraffe instead of a human being. Now, this would be absurd. Our intellects do not invent knowledge, they discover it in the external world through our senses. Our intellects are able to organize the data it receives through the senses.

The ideas of human beings or human natures, dogs, cats, trees, etc, come from somewhere. They come from those very things, i.e., humans, dogs, cats, trees, etc.

In Aristotle’s theory of knowledge, the intellect abstracts the substantial form from the matter of individual material substances. The substantial form of a material substance is that principle which makes the thing what it is, i.e., a human, a dog, a tree, etc. Thus, the substantial form in the intellect is a universal concept but this idea or concept or rather the substantial form of the thing outside the intellect exists in the individual thing. Indeed, the substantial form of the thing outside the intellect is a substantial principle or part of the actual existing thing. So, in this theory of knowledge which is quite common sensible, it can be readily seen that our universal ideas, concepts, or categories, come from the things themselves outside the intellect. The question then becomes, not if our ideas correspond to objective reality, but whether objective reality is real or has real being or existence.

 

[Nihilist]

In Aristotlelian/Thomistic metaphysics, the very definition of substance is that it is an individual existing thing, for example, an individual tree, an individual person, an individual dog. “One” is a transcendental property of being, everything that is, is one in someway. In this view, a thing cannot simultaneously be of more than one substance. An individual substance has one substantial form which brings unity to the thing. For example, Plato is one person; an individual oak tree, is one tree. The english word substance comes from latin roots, it literally means “that which stands under,” for example, the accidents.

The problem with the idea that a thing is comprised of more than one substance is that this thing is no longer one thing but an accidental unity. For example, a person would not be one person but an accidental unity of a number of substances. The complexity of the human body would be an accident. This is like saying that if you found a watch in the woods, the watch came together by accident.

A glass bottle does not have substances of bottle, glass, and matter. Glass is the substance while the bottle is an accidental form of glass. Glass can take on a number of accidental forms such as a bottle, a plate, a window, a cup, etc. Matter is a substantial component of the glass, the other substantial component being the substantial form of the glass. In Aristotle’s theory of hylomorphism, form and matter are the two substantial principles that make up material substances.

Other way around. According to the model of Aquinas and Aristotle, the ‘substance’ of a glass bottle is that it is a bottle, while the fact that it is glass is an accident.

You are mixing up the modern use of ‘substance’ as a physical ‘stuff’.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

IMHO, ‘substance’ is anything that is not composed in its entirety of ‘nothing’ - that substance is something - even if not of physical and temporal dimension/being/existence.

ps. Nihilist - glass becoming to be known as glass is no accident, it is derivative of a number of linguistic causes and effects. Even accidents themselves are the products of cause and effect.

 

[inocente]

Would you agree that the content of those categories are part of objective reality, despite the potential illogic used to come up with the category title?

If you mean that the existence of things doesn’t depend on what we call them or on how we think of them, then yes, of course.

 

[inocente]

It is objective reality that dictates the categories, whether those of Aristotle or of the sciences. It is the actions, behaviors, the appearance of objective realities which tell us what a thing is deep inside, its nature, and then we look for a term which stands for that nature. This is what Aristotle did, this is what science does.

Nope. There are all kinds of metaphysical assumptions in your paragraph. You say “the appearance of objective realities”, as if there are multiple objective realities, and as if Easop is wrong to say appearances are often deceiving. There is an assumption that what you make of a thing can somehow dictate what the thing is. There is the circular argument that a thing has a deep inside, aka its nature, thus somehow proving that it has has a deep inside, aka its nature.

*Certainly there are bound to be confusions about where we would place a specific object in a given scientific classification. But there is no doubt that a planet, an asteroid, a comet, etc are substances of some kind. The same would be true of minerals, plants, animals, atoms, etc. *

Nope. A planet is not one substance. Consider how it was formed.

Take man for example. You do not doubt he has an intellectual soul and it is this soul in union with his body that is his nature and it is this nature which determines all of man’s actions, behavious, and characteristics. But it is the actions, behaviors, characteristics which tell us that man is a rational animal. And rational animal is the term which we use to describe man’s nature. And it is this nature, this inner principle from which flows all we observe about the substance we call man.

I wouldn’t use the term rational animal to describe the mass murderer who flew an airliner into the Alps last week. There was nothing rational about his “actions, behaviors, and characteristics”. Look again at that MIT translation of Categories and you’ll see that Aristotle is writing about language constructs. As such he has nothing to prove. Whereas you, by reifying those constructs, have all kinds of things which you must prove.

Because we may be confused as to just what a planet is does not falsify the notion of substance or nature or their usefulness, even of their necessity. Don’t know anything about the International Astronomical Union but the term planet has been in use for a long time. Even God spoke of the sun, the moon and the stars.

The author of Genesis thinks the moon is a sun, and that the sun is not a star: “God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars”.

So there you go, did objective reality change since the Bronze Age? Or did our categories change? It’s not at all confusing so long as we remember that words do not and cannot dictate objective reality, spells and incantations do not work.

 

[inocente]

Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas and a host of others teach that our ideas do have objective reality, otherwise science and truth would not be possible. This teaching, if considered objectively, is, I believe, the common sensible approach. For example, Pope Francis is a human being who possesses a human nature, a human nature which he has in common with other human beings. We observe in Pope Francis properties which he has in common with other human beings by which we can say he is a human being and not a horse. Now, if our idea of human nature which we get from human beings did not correspond with the objective and real Pope Francis, we might as well call Pope Francis a horse or a giraffe instead of a human being. Now, this would be absurd. Our intellects do not invent knowledge, they discover it in the external world through our senses. Our intellects are able to organize the data it receives through the senses.

The ideas of human beings or human natures, dogs, cats, trees, etc, come from somewhere. They come from those very things, i.e., humans, dogs, cats, trees, etc.

In Aristotle’s theory of knowledge, the intellect abstracts the substantial form from the matter of individual material substances. The substantial form of a material substance is that principle which makes the thing what it is, i.e., a human, a dog, a tree, etc. Thus, the substantial form in the intellect is a universal concept but this idea or concept or rather the substantial form of the thing outside the intellect exists in the individual thing. Indeed, the substantial form of the thing outside the intellect is a substantial principle or part of the actual existing thing. So, in this theory of knowledge which is quite common sensible, it can be readily seen that our universal ideas, concepts, or categories, come from the things themselves outside the intellect. The question then becomes, not if our ideas correspond to objective reality, but whether objective reality is real or has real being or existence.

I think we can avoid worrying about solipsism or whatever by taking a more direct route.

Some people abstract substances in a different way to me, and have different principles about what makes the thing what it is, about what is common sensible, and what can be readily seen from things themselves outside the intellect. Some of them say that people of a different skin are not truly human, that their nature is inferior. Not to put too fine a point on it, a certain medieval philosopher maintained that women have an inferior nature to men.

There is a moral issue in reifying categories. People come to believe that their ideas dictate reality, and often it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

 

[inocente]

Yes, the mistake some ancient philosophers was to confuse linguistic or conceptual categories (e.g. ‘planet’), with categories of physical objects (or, more precisely, categories of perceptual experiences), which somehow has some external ‘reality.’ In fact, all categories, species, types, etc. are simply concepts. The word ‘planet’ could be re-defined in such a way that the thing we call ‘the moon’ now, or even ‘an apple’ now becomes a planet. It is all relative to the use of language or concepts. For this reason, ‘substance’ is a conceptual-linguistic principal.

But, the problem is solved by considering what ‘reality’ really is. ‘Reality’ itself is nothing but a conceptual system. In this context, it is correct to call ‘substances’ (conceptual constructs) as part of ‘reality’ (as long ‘reality’ is understood merely as a system of conceptual constructs).

Hence, we can go back to being ‘quasi realists’ in everyday life.

I can feel a Richard Feynman quote coming on:

*We used to go to the Catskill Mountains, a place where people from New York City would go in the summer. The fathers would all return to New York to work during the week
and come back only for the weekend. On weekends, my father would take me for walks in the woods and he’d tell me about interesting things that were going on in the woods. When the other mothers saw this, they thought it was wonderful and that the other fathers should take their sons for walks. They tried to work on them but they didn’t get anywhere at first. They wanted my father to take all the kids, but he didn’t want to because he had a special relationship with me. So it ended up that the other fathers had to take their children for walks the next weekend.

The next Monday, when the fathers were all back at work, we kids were playing in a field. One kid says to me, “See that bird? What kind of bird is that?”
I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is.”
He says, “It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn’t teach you anything!”
But it was the opposite. He had already taught me: “See that bird?” he says. “It’s a Spencer’s warbler.” (I knew he didn’t know the real name.) “Well, in Italian, it’s a Chutto
Lapittida. In Portuguese it’s a Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it’s a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it’s a Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of the bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird.
*

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Nope. There are all kinds of metaphysical assumptions in your paragraph. You say “the appearance of objective realities”, as if there are multiple objective realities, and as if Easop is wrong to say appearances are often deceiving. There is an assumption that what you make of a thing can somehow dictate what the thing is. There is the circular argument that a thing has a deep inside, aka its nature, thus somehow proving that it has has a deep inside, aka its nature.

What I am saying, what Aristotle and Aquinas do say is that it is the behavior, characteristics, actions, physical formation of a substance which tell us what a thing is, what a substance/nature is. A dog barks because this characteristic flows from its nature, its dogness, which is the inner reality we come to know through the external accidents.. That is not circular reasoning, that is simple logic.

Nope. A planet is not one substance. Consider how it was formed.

Never said it was a single substance. Certainly it is a combination of hundreds, maybe thousands or millions of individual substances. But it is a single thing, it is this particular conglomerate traveling through space.

I wouldn’t use the term rational animal to describe the mass murderer who flew an airliner into the Alps last week. There was nothing rational about his “actions, behaviors, and characteristics”

He was clearly deranged. However he could still reason and his irrational behavior does not remove his rational nature. It merely shows that his use of his reason was faulty.

Look again at that MIT translation of Categories and you’ll see that Aristotle is writing about language constructs. As such he has nothing to prove. Whereas you, by reifying those constructs, have all kinds of things which you must prove.

First of all Aristotle writes about categories in several places. But whaterver, the categories reflect reality as he and others of his day and earlier found, and as most since have found very useful. I have made not conclusions that Aristotle himself did not make, at least in principle. If you think I am making things up, just let me know where.

The author of Genesis thinks the moon is a sun, and that the sun is not a star: “God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars”

The author of Genesis was comparing the litght the moon reflected from the sun upon the earth to the light the stars shed upon the earth. By comparison, the light of the moon was the great light which ruled the night. In any case it was the night light, it was not the light which ruled the day, and it was lesser than the great light which ruled the day.

So there you go, did objective reality change since the Bronze Age? Or did our categories change? It’s not at all confusing so long as we remember that words do not and cannot dictate objective reality, spells and incantations do not work.

I never said that words dictate reality. That would be irrational, as you intimate. It is you who have assumed that is what Aristotle was doing. We have to have a language to communicate with one another. Words are merely signs standing for the realities we see in daily life. And if we cannot categorize these realities it is difficult to see how we can communicate effectively - let alone do science, and that is what Aristotle all about. He was about science, as various systems of intellectual endeavor.

I am always mystified by your consistent objection to concepts such as " the nature of things, " " substances, " and any reference to " categories? " So far you have never explained why you object to these concepts?

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I can feel a Richard Feynman quote coming on:

*We used to go to the Catskill Mountains, a place where people from New York City would go in the summer. The fathers would all return to New York to work during the week
and come back only for the weekend. On weekends, my father would take me for walks in the woods and he’d tell me about interesting things that were going on in the woods. When the other mothers saw this, they thought it was wonderful and that the other fathers should take their sons for walks. They tried to work on them but they didn’t get anywhere at first. They wanted my father to take all the kids, but he didn’t want to because he had a special relationship with me. So it ended up that the other fathers had to take their children for walks the next weekend.

The next Monday, when the fathers were all back at work, we kids were playing in a field. One kid says to me, “See that bird? What kind of bird is that?”
I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is.”
He says, “It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn’t teach you anything!”
But it was the opposite. He had already taught me: “See that bird?” he says. “It’s a Spencer’s warbler.” (I knew he didn’t know the real name.) “Well, in Italian, it’s a Chutto
Lapittida. In Portuguese it’s a Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it’s a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it’s a Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of the bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird.
*

And that does not disprove it had a definite nature. It was a bird, not a gorilla, and it was a specifice kind of bird, as each language correctly identified. So the great Feynman missed the whole point .

And in the end we certainly know what this bird is, any bird having the same characteristics, nest building, collering, call, etc. has the same nature in every country in which it is found. The name each language attaches to that identical nature or being is not important, except to the people who speak that language.

Linus2nd

 

[Nihilist]

And that does not disprove it had a definite nature. It was a bird, not a gorilla, and it was a specifice kind of bird, as each language correctly identified. So the great Feynman missed the whole point .

And in the end we certainly know what this bird is, any bird having the same characteristics, nest building, collering, call, etc. has the same nature in every country in which it is found. The name each language attaches to that identical nature or being is not important, except to the people who speak that language.

Linus2nd

But do these natures exist independently of language?

If we got rid of language would we perceive only individual, particular things, without types.

Is the emergence of ‘types’ concurrent with the emergence of concepts/names?

Do these ‘types’/concepts exist independently of the mind(s) creating them?

It’s the whole nominalist/realist problem again…