Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
R6 P1-3 S75-80 Substance and dependence - Coggle Diagram
R6 P1-3 S75-80
Substance and dependence
p1. Substances, Properties, and Ontological Dependency
Crucial notion for metaphysics:
Depending for its existence upon another object
Not in causal sense
not in logical sense
In ontological sense
D1
"x depends for its existence upon y := Necessarily, x exists only if y exists
the existential dependency of x upon y amounts to the strict implication of y's existence by x's existence
D1 implies, that everything depends for its existence upon
itself
Common view of
substance
an object which does not depend for its existence upon anything else
D2; substance might be defined
x is a substance := There is nothing y such that y is not identical with x and x depends for its existence upon y
Substituting D1 into D2 gives
theorem T1
:
x is a substance if and only if there is nothing y such that y is not identical with x and necessarily, x exists only if y exists
Composite objects
they may possess proper parts
we may deny that a composite substance depends for its existence upon its proper parts, on the grounds that it may undergo a change of its parts without ceasing to exist
Common view of
property
they depend for their existence upon the objects which possess them
A1
If xis a property and y is an object possessing x, then x depends for its existence upon y
D1 into A1 gives
T2
If x is a property and y is an object possessing x, then, necessarily, x exists only if y exists
Challenge 1
aristotelian view of universals (no properties not possessed by objects):
a given property, x, possessed by a particular object, y, would exist even if y did not, provided that some other object then possessed x
It may be replied:
it misconceives how T2 is to be interpreted: T2, it may be said, is not intended to apply to properties understood as universals, but only to so-called particularized properties
On this interpretation
T2 has considerable plausibility, complying as it does with the intuition that particularized properties cannot 'migrate' from one object to another
But what are we to say about the ontological status of properties in the sense of universals?
Do they qualify as substances according to the proposed definitions?
p2
p3
Intro
What is the exact
definition of substance?
Necessary is the articulation of
ontological dependency
The aim
*explication of such notion