School of Athens

Theory and History of Ontology

by Raul Corazzon - e-mail: raul.corazzon[at]formalontology.it

For an overview see the Index of the Pages, the SITE MAP or the Alphabetical Index of the Philosophers: A-F - G-O - P-Z; You can also download this page as Ontology in PDF format

Table of Contemporary Ontologists Ontology. Table of Ontologists (click on the image to see the PDF file)

The Vocabulary of Ontology. Substance

 

Index of the Section: "The Vocabulary of Ontology"

PAGES AVAILABLE - (OTHERS ARE IN PREPARATION) - In parenthesis the Greek / Latin original term

Index of the Section: "Definitions of Ontology by Leading Philosophers"

Index of the Section: "The Rediscovery of Ontology in Contemporary Thought"

 

INTRODUCTION

"The traditional conception of Substance.

The term 'substance' is one of the most confusing terms in philosophy. For Aristotle, at least some of the time, the paradigm cases of substances were, as he put it, 'this man, this horse', i.e. particular things of that kind. For complicated historical reasons, however, substance has sometimes come to be equated with what Aristotle called 'matter'; thus iron and sulphur, and other stuffs, have come to be called 'substances'. For further complicated historical reasons substance came to be regarded by e.g. Locke as the underlying something or other which is supposed to give support to the properties that inhere in it. Indeed the Latin etymology of the term 'substance' will suggest to anyone having a sensitivity to it that notion of something standing beneath the properties. Locke thus called it a 'something I know not what' -- a suggestion that is not conveyed by either of the other two usages. The situation is complicated still further by the fact that the Latin etymology is relevant only to those modern discussions which rely on the term 'substance'. The Greek word which Aristotle used -- 'ousia' -- and which is traditionally translated 'substance' has none of the suggestions that the Latin etymology of 'substance' provides, but has additional suggestions of its own, particularly a connexion with being. (The feminine present participle of the verb 'to be' in Greek is ousia; ousia has the form of an abstract noun and is for that reason naturally to be translated 'being' or 'beingness', but Aristotle often uses the word with an article to indicate a particular kind of being, a particular kind of thing.)"

From: David Hamlyn - Metaphysics - Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984 p. 60.

 

"For Aristotle, 'substances' are the things which exist in their own right, both the logically ultimate subjects of predication and the ultimate objects of scientific inquiry. They are the unified material objects, as well as the natural stuffs, identifiable in sense-experience, each taken to be a member of a natural species with its 'form' and functional essence. Entities in other categories -- qualities, actions, relations and so forth -- are treated as dependent on, if not just abstracted aspects of, these independent realities. With the rise of mechanistic physics in the seventeenth century, the Aristotelian multiplicity of substances was reduced to universal matter mechanically differentiated. This move sharpened the issue of the relation of mind to the physical world. The consequent  variety of ways in which the notion of substance was manipulated by materialists, dualists, immaterialists and anti-dogmatists encouraged later scepticism about the distinction between independent realities and human abstractions, and so idealism. Twentieth-century conceptualism, like some earlier versions of idealism, rejects the distinction altogether, commonly ascribing the logical priority of material things in natural language to the utility of a folk physics, as if they were the theoretical entities of everyday life. As such, their identity and existence are determined only through applications of a theory outdated by modern science. Yet this 'top-down', holistic philosophy of language is belied by the detailed insights of traditional logic, which point clearly to a 'bottom-up' account of classification and identity, that is an account which recognizes the possibility of perceptually picking out material objects prior to knowledge of their kind of nature, and of subsequently classifying them. The idea that material things are theoretical entities, and that their individuation is accordingly kind-dependent, is a hangover from an atomistic approach to perception which calls on theory to tie sensory information together. A more accurate understanding of sensation as the already integrated presentation of bodies in spatial relations to one another and to the perceiver is consonant with the possibility denied by the idealist - namely, that, with respect of its primitive referents, language and thought are shaped around reality itself, the independent objects given in active sense-experience. That the coherence or discrete unity of material objects has a physical explanation does not mean that physics explains it away."

From: Edward Craig (ed.) - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy - London, Routledge, 1998 - article Substance by Michael R. Ayers p. 205.  

 

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Notes on Book Zeta of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Edited by Burnyeat Myles. Oxford: Sub-Faculty of Philosophy 1979.
    Being the record by Myles Burnyeat and others of a seminar held in London 1975-1979.
    Reprinted 1986.

     

  2. Aristotle. Substance, form and matter. Edited by Irwin Terence. New York: Garland 1995.

     

  3. Hyparxis e Hypostasis nel neoplatonismo. Edited by Romano Francesco and Taormina Daniela Patrizia. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki Editore 2002.
    Atti del I Colloquio Internazionale del Centro di Ricerca sul neoplatonismo (Catania, 1-3 Ottobre 1992).

     

  4. Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Z: the contemporary debate. Edited by Galluzzo Gabriele and Mariani Mauro. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale 2006.

     

  5. Ousia dans la philosophie grecque des origines à Aristote. Edited by Motte André and Somville Pierre. Lovain-la-Neuve: Peeters 2008.
    Travaux du Centre d'études aristotéliciennes de l'Université de Liège.

    "Fruit d'une large collaboration interuniversitaire, cet ouvrage, qui fait suite à une publication consacrée à eidos, idea et morphé (2003), expose les résultats d'une enquête qui a porté sur tous les emplois du mot ousia dans la philosophie grecque jusqu'à Aristote; il commence par un aperçu des significations du mot dans la littérature non philosophique. Est ainsi offert un cadre de référence exhaustif pour l'étude d'une notion qui compte parmi les plus importantes et aussi les plus complexes de l'histoire de la philosophie. Chacune des oeuvres concernées de Platon et d'Aristote fait l'objet d'un examen systématique, suivi d'un bilan partiel. Des conclusions générales récapitulent la polysémie foisonnante d'ousia, qui va de l'avoir aux différentes facettes de l'être, et en font voir aussi l'évolution ainsi que les principaux enjeux philosophiques. Trois outils de travail s'y ajoutent : une riche bibliographie, un index de toutes les occurrences d'ousia chez Platon et chez Aristote ainsi qu'un index de plus de 200 mots grecs apparaissant dans ce champ sémantique."

     

  6. Substantia - Sic et Non. Eine Geschichte des Substanzbegriffs von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart in Einzelbeiträgen. Edited by Gutschmidt Holger, Lang-Balestra Antonella, and Segalerba Gianluigi. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag 2008.

     

  7. Arpe Curt. Das ti en einai bei Aristoteles. Hamburg: Walter de Gruyter 1938.
    Reprint:New York, Arno Press, 1976 with Logische Regeln der Platonischen Schule in der Aristotelischen Topik by Ernst Hambruch (1904).

     

  8. Arpe Curt, "Substantia," Philologus.Zeitschrift für das Klassische Altertum 94: 65-78 (1941).

     

  9. Aubenque Pierre. Le problème de l'être chez Aristote. Essai sur la problématique aristotélicienne. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1962.

     

  10. Aubenque Pierre. Sur l'ambivalence du concept aristotélicien de substance. In Ontologie et dialogue. Mélanges en hommage à Pierre Aubenque avec sa collaboration à l'occasion de son 70e anniversaire. Edited by Cordero Nestor-Luis. Paris: Vrin 2000. pp. 93-106
    Réimprimé dans: P. Aubenque - Problèmes aristotéliciens. I. Philosophie théorique - Paris, Vrin 2009 pp. 197-210

     

  11. Aubenque Pierre. La transformation cartésienne du concept aristotélicien de substance. In Le style de la pensée. Recueil de textes en hommage à Jacques Brunschwig. Edited by Canto-Sperber Monique and Pellegrin Pierre. Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2002. pp. 490-501

     

  12. Bärthlein Karl, "Zur Entstehung der Aristotelischen Substanz-Akzidens-Lehre," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 50: 196-253 (1968).

     

  13. Bennett Jonathan, "Substratum," History of Philosophy Quarterly 4: 197-215 (1987).
    Reprinted in: Vere Chappell (ed.) - Locke - Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 129-148

     

  14. Berti Enrico. Logical and ontological priority among the genera of substance in Aristotle. In Kephalaion: studies in Greek philosophy and its continuation offered to Professor C. J. de Vogel. Edited by Mansfeld Jaap and De Rijk Lambertus Marie. Assen: Van Gorcum 1975. pp. 55-69

     

  15. Boehm Rudolf. La Métaphysique d'Aristote. Le fondamental et l'essential : "De l'etre et de l'etant", (Livre VII). Paris: Gallimard 1976.
    Traduit de l'Allemand Das Grundlegende Und Das Wesentliche. Zu Aristoteles' Abhandlung `ÜBer Das Sein Und Das Seiende' (Metaphysik Z) - Den Haag, Aspen Publishers Inc, 1965.et presenté par Emmanuel Martineau; avec une note de Jean François Courtine.

     

  16. Bolton Robert, "Science and the science of substance in Aristotle's Metaphysics Z," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 76: 419-469 (1995).
    Reprinted in: Frank A. Lewis and Robert Bolton (eds.) - Form, matter and mixture in Aristotle - Oxford, Blackwell, 1996 pp. 231-280.

     

  17. Bolton Robert. Substance and the definition of definition in Aristotle. In Le style de la pensée. Recueil de textes en hommage à Jacques Brunschwig. Edited by Canto-Sperber Monique and Pellegrin Pierre. Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2002. pp. 155-181

     

  18. Bos Egbert Peter. Some notes on the meaning of the term 'substantia' in the tradition of Aristotle's Categories. In L'élaboration du vocabulaire philosophique au Moyen Âge. Edited by Hamesse Jacqueline and Steel Carlos. Turnhout: Brepols 2000. pp. 511-537
    Actes du Colloque international de Louvain-la-Neuve et Leuven, 12-14 septembre 1998 organisé par la Société Internationale pour l'Étude de la philosophie Médiévale

     

  19. Braun René. Deus Christianorum. Recherches sur le vocabulaire doctrinal de Tertullien. Paris: Éditions Augustiniennes 1977.
    Second édition revue et augmentée (Premère edition 1962)

     

  20. Burnyeat Myles. A map of Metaphysics Zeta. Pittsburgh: Mathesis Publications 2001.

     

  21. Courtine Jean-François. Note complémentaire pour l'histoire du vocabulaire de l'être. Les traductions latines d' ousía et la compréhension romano-stoïcienne de l'être. In Concepts et Catégories de la pensée antique. Edited by Aubenque Pierre. Paris: Vrin 1980. pp. 33-87
    Reprinted and updated in: J-F. Courtine - Les catégories de l'être. Études de philosophie ancienne et médiévale - Paris, Press Universitaires de France, 2003, pp. 11-77.

     

  22. D'Alverny Marie-Thèrese. Substance in Arabic philosophy: Al-Farabi's discussion. In Substance. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.1988. pp. 88-97
    Vol. 61

     

  23. Dancy Russell, "On some of Aristotle's first thoughts about substances," Philosophical Review 84: 338-373 (1975).

     

  24. De Halleux André, "'Hypostase' et 'personne' dans la formation du dogme Trinitaire," Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique 79: 311-369 (1984).
    See also the second part: pp. 623-670.
    Reprinted in: Patrologie et oecuménisme. Recueil d'études - Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1990 pp. 113-214

     

  25. Dörrie Heinrich, "Hypostasis. Wirt- und Bedeutungsgeschicte," Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaft zu Göttingen, phil--hist.Klasse 3: 35-92 (1955).
    Reprinted in: Platonica minora - Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München 1976 pp. 13-69

     

  26. Driscoll John A., "The Platonic ancestry of primary substance," Phronesis 24: 253-269 (1979).

     

  27. Driscoll John A. Eide in Aristotle's earlier and later theories of substance. In Studies in Aristotle. Edited by O'Meara Dominic J. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press 1981. pp. 129-159
    Reprinted in: Terence Irwin (ed.) - Aristotle. Sustance, form, and matter - New York, Garland, 1995.

     

  28. Dumoulin Bertrand. L' ousia dans les Catégories et dans la Métaphysique. In Zweifelhaftes im Corpus Aristotelicum. Studien zu einigen Dubia. Akten des 9. Symposium Aristotelicum, Berlin, 7-16 September 1981. Edited by Moraux Paul and Wiesner Jürgen. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1983. pp. 37-71

     

  29. Erdin Franz. Das Wort Hypostasis. Seine bedeutungsgeschichtliche Entwicklung in der altchristlichen Literatur bis zum Abschluss der trinitarischen Auseinandersetzungen. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder 1939.
    Freiburger Theologische Studien vol. 52

     

  30. Ermano Andrea. Substanz als Existenz. Eine philosophische Auslegung der prote ousia. Mit Text, Ubersetzung und Diskussion von Aristoteles, Categoriae 1-5. Hildesheim: Georg Olms 2000.

     

  31. Ferrarin Alfredo. Hegel and Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001.

     

  32. Fonfara Dirk. Die Ousia-Lehren des Aristoteles. Untersuchungen zur Kategorienschrift und zur Metaphysik. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2003.

     

  33. Frede Michael. Substance in Aristotle's Metaphysics. In Essays in ancient philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1987. pp.

     

  34. Furth Montgomery. Substance, form, and psyche. An Aristotelian metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1988.

     

  35. Ghellinck Joseph de, "L'entrée d' essentia, substantia, et autre mots apparentés dans le latin médiéval," Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 16: 77-112 (1941).

     

  36. Ghellinck Joseph de, "Essentia et substantia. Note complémentaire," Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 17: 129-133 (1942).

     

  37. Gill Mary Louise. Aristotle on substance. The paradox of unity. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989.

     

  38. Gilson Étienne. Being and some philosophers. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies 1952.

     

  39. Hartman Edwin, "Aristotle on the identity of substance and essence," Philosophical Review 85: 545-561 (1976).

     

  40. Jolivet Régis. La notion de substance. Essai historique et critique sur le développement des doctrines d'Aristote à nos jours. Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne 1929.

     

  41. Lewis Frank. Substance and predication in Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991.

     

  42. Lewis Frank. Aristotle on the unity of substance. In Form, matter, and mixture in Aristotle. Edited by Lewis Frank and Bolton Robert. Maiden: Blackwell 1996. pp. 39-81

     

  43. Loux Michael J. Primary Ousia. An essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics Z and H. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2005.

     

  44. MacKinnon D.M. Aristotle's conception of substance. In New essays on Plato and Aristotle. Edited by Bambrough Renford. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1965. pp. 97-119

     

  45. Mansion Suzanne, "La première doctrine de la substance: la substance selon Aristote," Revue Philosophique de Louvain 44: 349-369 (1946).

     

  46. Mansion Suzanne, "La première doctrine de la substance chez Aristote," Revue Philosophique de Louvain 44: 349-369 (1946).

     

  47. Marten Rainer. Ousia im Denken Platons. Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain 1962.

     

  48. Moreau Joseph. L'être et l'essence dans la philosophie d'Aristote. In Autour d'Aristote. Recueil d'études de philosophie ancienne et médiévale offert à monseigneur A. Mansion . Louvain : Publications Universitaires de Louvain 1955. pp. 181-204

     

  49. Ong-Van-Cung Kim-Sang. Substance et distinctions chez Descartes, Suárez et leurs prédecesseurs médiévaux. In Descartes et le Moyen-Age. Edited by Biard Joël and Rashed Roshdi. Paris: Vrin 1997. pp. 215-229
    Actes du Colloque organisé à la Sorbonne du 4 au 7 juin 1996 par le Centre d'histoire des sciences et des philosophies arabes et médiévales (URA 1085, CNRS/ÉPHÉ) à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de la naissance de Descartes.

     

  50. Owens Joseph, "Material substance -- Temporal or Eviternal?," New Scholasticism 56: 442-461 (1982).

     

  51. Perez Paoli Ubaldo Ramon. Der plotinische Begriff von Hypostasis und die augustinische Bestimmung Gottes als Subiectum. Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag 1990.

     

  52. Reeve C.D.C. Substantial knowledge. Aristotle's Metaphysics. Indianapoli: Hackett 2000.

     

  53. Richard Marcel, "L'introduction du mot 'Hypostase' dans la théologie de l'Incarnation (Première partie)," Mélanges de science religieuse 2: 5-32 (1945).

     

  54. Richard Marcel, "L'introduction du mot 'Hypostase' dans la théologie de l'Incarnation (Deuxième partie)," Mélanges de science religieuse 2: 243-270 (1945).

     

  55. Robertson David G., "Stoic and Aristotelian notions of substance in Basil of Caesarea," Vigiliae Christianae 52: 393-417 (1998).
    "Basil is somewhere in between Stoic and Aristotelian doctrines of substance, while his mind is also guided on these matters by his theological predecessors and contemporaries. It is possible to see evidence in Basil of deeply ingrained habits of thought which he carries into his writings from his early training in Stoic dialectic. One outstanding example of this may be seen in his insistence that the ousia of God must have its being securely rooted in a hypostasis, while the Stoics would say that nothing can exist without the possession of ousia (their first category) as a qualified thing (poion). What one does not find in Basil is a doctrine of divine substance and persons which can support a consistent conceptuality derived from Stoic logic."

     

  56. Rosier Irène. Les acceptions du terme 'substantia' chez Pierre Hélie. In Gilbert de Poitiers et ses contemporains. Edited by Jolivet Jean and de Libera Alain. Napoli: Bibliopolis 1987. pp. 299-324

     

  57. Salbego Luigi. "Essentia" nel De Trinitate di S. Agostino e nel Monologion di S. Anselmo. In Saint Anselme ses précurseurs et ses contemporains. Edited by Kohlenberger Helmut. Frankfurt: Minerva 1976. pp. 205-220

     

  58. Smalbrugger Matthias, "Sur l'emploi et l'origine du terme "essentia" chez Augustin," Augustiniana 39: 436-445 (1989).
    "Dans le présent article, nous nous proposons d'examiner un aspect de la théologie d'Augustin, à savoir son emploi du terme essenlia. P. Hadot se demande si Augustin «a ignoré la théologie trinitaire de Victorinus ou a renoncé à l'utiliser», sans choisir l'un des termes de l'alternative (1); peut-être une lecture attentive de quelques passages montrera-t-elle qu'Augustin a volontairement renoncé à suivre son prédécesseur." p. 436

    (1) P. Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus, Paris 1968, p. 477.

     

  59. Spellman Lynne. Substance and separation in Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005.

     

  60. Stead George Christopher, "The concept of divine substance," Vigiliae Christianae 29: 1-14 (1975).

     

  61. Stead George Christopher. Divine substance. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1977.

     

  62. Stead George Christopher. Substance and illusion in the Christian Fathers. London: Variorum Reprints 1985.

     

  63. Stegmaier Werner. Der Substanzbegriff der Metaphysik. Aristoteles, Descartes, Leibniz. Hirschlanden: Gedruckt bei Fa. Schober 1974.

     

  64. Tonelli Giorgio, "Critiques of the notion of substance prior to Kant," Tijdschrift voor Philosophie 23: 285-301 (1961).

     

  65. Van Ruler Han. 'Something, I know not what'. The concept of substance in early modern thought. In Between demonstration and imagination. Essays in the history of science and philosophy presented to John D. North. Edited by Nauta Lodi and Vanderjagt Arjo. Leiden: Brill 1999. pp. 365-391

     

  66. Wedin Michael. Aristotle's theory of substance. The Categories and Metaphysics Zeta. Oxford : Oxford University Press 2000.

     

  67. Witt Charlotte. Substance and essence in Aristotle. An interpretation of Metaphysics VII-IX. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1989.

     

  68. Witt Charlotte, "Aristotelian essentialism revisited," Journal of the History of Philosophy 27: 285-298 (1989).

     

  69. Witt Rex E. Hypostasis. In Amicitiae Corolla. A volume of essays presented to James Rendel Harris, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Edited by Wood H.G. London: University of London Press 1933. pp. 319-343

     

  70. Woolhouse Roger S. Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz. The concept of substance in Seventeenth-century metaphysics. New York: Routledge 1993.

     

 

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