SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTES

  1. Introduction.

    The term "substance," from the Latin sub "under" and stare "to stand," which is a translation of the Greek term hypostasis, from hypo ("under") and histami ("to stand"), refers to that which underlies and supports its attributes and properties. The term "attribute," from the Latin ad "to" and tribuere "ascribe," refers to that which is ascribed to a thing. Hence an attribute is that which is proper to a thing, its essential property. Loosely, it refers to a quality or characteristic of a thing. In metaphysics an attribute is what is indespensible to a spiritual and physical substance; or that which expresses the nature of a thing; or that without which a thing is unthinkable. As such, an attribute implies necessarily a relation to some substance of which it is an aspect or an element in its conception. Attributes are said to inhere in their substance.

  2. History.

    1. Plato used the term "substance" to signify that which is sought by philosophic investigation of the primary being of things. The Platonic dialectic method was aimed at a knowledge of the essential nature (ousia) of things. It sought to find those elements common to all things of certain kind and capture them in its definition. Hence, science is the knowledge of universals; so the essence of things is the universal common to the many; that is, the universal Form or Idea, and this was for Plato the substance of things, or what they are primarly.

    2. Aristotle was also primarily concerned with the investigation of the being of things, but from the standpoint of generation or change. But only individual things are generated or changed. Hence, for him, substance was primarily the individual: a "this" which, in contrast with the universal, is unique to the individual. The substance of the individual Aristotle called primary substance. Plato's substance, the universal essence of a thing, Aristotle called secondary substance. The Aristotelian meaning of substance may be developed from four points of view.
      1. Grammar. The subject of sentence that signifies an individual things refers to a substance as the utlimate subject of predication, and the predicate of the sentence refers to the attributes or properties of the substance. For example, in the sentence: "The house is red," the subject of the sentence "the house" refers to an individual thing, a substance; and the predicate of the sentence "is red" refers to the property of the substance. Thus a primary substance as subject is grammatically distinguished from its properties as adjective which "are present in and predicable of a subject." Secondary substances are expressed by univeral terms, nouns, and by its definition; it is "not present in a subject but is predicable of it."

      2. Physics. In the analysis of change there emerges the fundamental characteristic of a substance, that is, the independence of being of substance and the dependence of attributes on substance. There are two kinds of change:
        1. Substantial change is change of substance: when Socrates was born, the substantial change of generation took place.
        2. Accidental change is change in attribute or accident:
          As examples of the accidental change:
          Socrates grew to be 5 feet tall. (Quantitative Change)
          Socrates became a famous philosopher. (Qualitative Change)
          Socrates went to Corinth. (Change of position or location)
        From this analysis of change Aristotle showed that the accidental changes are dependent upon a prior substance, Socrates, but the substantial changes of generation does not depend upon accidental changes.

      3. Logic. Out of the analysis of change there appears to be a scheme of categories: from the substantial change the category of substance appears and from accidental change the categories of quantity, quality, place, etc. Furthermore, the category of substance is first, and the accidental categories are secondary and dependent upon the category of substance. Aristotle selected "substance" as his basic category because "substance" is his basic ontological unit and substance in its primary sense, "that which is," defines the order of nature.

      4. Metaphysics. Aristotle attempted to explain change by the transition from potentiality to actuality. He identified matter with potentiality and form with actuality. This analysis of primary substance into form and matter is called hylomorphism, from the Greek hyle, "matter", and morpha, "form." Substance in its primary meaning, termed primary substance (ousia prote or "first substance"), is not matter only, neither is it universal form only, that is, secondary substance, but it is formed matter. Together, form and matter make an individual substance; and it is the accidents of matter which make the substance of the particular thing. Secondary substance (substantia seconda) is the universal form (idea or species) which is individuated in each thing. On the other hand, a primary substance (substantia prima) is the individual unity of form and matter in a thing.

    3. Thomas Aquinas accepted Aristotle's analysis of substance and attributes (and properties). Aquinas brought into the discussion of substance the distinction between essence and existence. Primary substance is characterized by existence and secondary substance is characterized by essence. So in Medieval philosophy primary substance came to be viewed as existence as added to essence; substance is an existing essence.

    4. Duns Scotus also accepted Aristotle's analysis of substance and attributes. But he substituted the term haecceitas ("thisness"), and the term "entitas singular" ("individual being") for primary substance, arguing that by virtue of the haecceitas the being in question is this being.

    5. William of Occham restricted the use of the term "substance" to primary substance alone, thus establishing the modern usage, and thus reducing the complexity of the analysis.

    6. In Scholasticism the nature of substance is that it exists in itself, independently from another being. While accidents are in another, substance is in itself. It is what underlies the accidents, persists if even these are changing; insofar as its being in itself is considered, substance is spoken of as subsistent (substitentia). Substances are either material, and as such dependent on matter informed by a substantial form, or as spiritual, free of any kind of matter (even a spiritual one as Aquinas points out in De Ente against Avencebron, that is, Ibn Gebriol), and is as such called forma subsistens. Substantial forms are not substances, with one exception of the human soul which, however, is when separated from the body only an incomplete substance.

    7. Descartes redefined substance as any subject containing "a property, quality, or attribute." Following the medieval stress on independence, he also held that substance to be "that which exist by itself" without the aid of anything else. Substance does not depend upon anything else, whereas attributes alway depend on substance. On the basis of this definition he distinguished between finite and infinite substance, and pointed out that God alone is an infinite substance. Finite substances are of two kinds: mind is thinking substance and matter is extended substance.

    8. Spinoza simply drew the logical conclusion of Descartes' definition of substance. If God is only infinite substance and truly self-existent, that is, that which exist by itself, then there can be only one substance, God Himself, and any finite substance, mind or matter, must be simply a mode of this one infinite substance. Spinoza rejected the Cartesian concept of finite substance, leaving only the infinite substance. According to Spinoza finite substance is a contradiction in terms. Spinoza further replaced the Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident with that between substance and mode. "By substance, I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in other words, that, the conception of of which does not need the conception of another thing from which it must be formed." (Ethics, Def. III). Substance is thus ultimate being, self-caused or from itself (a se), and so absolutely independent being, owing its being to itself, and eternally self-sustaining. It is in itself (in se), and all things are within it. Substance is one and there can be but one substance; God is this substance. For Descartes, every substance has a principal attribute, an unchangeable essential nature, without which it can neither be nor be understood. The attribute is thus constitutive of the substance, and substance is accessible to mind only through its attribute. By virtue of having different constitutive essences or attributes, substances are opposed to one another. Spinoza, rejecting the idea of finite substance, necessarily rejects the possibility of a plurality of substances. The attributes of the one substance are plural and are constitutive. But the plurality of attributes implied that substance as such cannot be understood by way any one attribute or by way of several. Accordingly, Spinoza declares that substance is also per se, that is, conceived through itself. The infinite mode of an attribute, the all pervasive inner character which defines an attribute in distinction from another, is Spinoza's adaptation of the Cartesian constitutive essence.

    9. Leibniz also started with Descartes's definition of substance as a self-existent subject found that reality is composed of many simple substances, which he called monads, their self-existence guaranteed by their character as non-extended centers of force.

    10. Locke also redefined substance as the underlying substratum of change. His conception followed the genealogy of the word more closely than any other philosopher. As an empiricist he pointed out that while we can know the qualities which are embedded in the substratum, substance remained a "something I know not what." Similarly, he pointed out that our knowledge extends only to nominal essence of the thing. Even so Locke does not doubt that in each case a subject of change and a real essence do exist.

    11. Berkeley, pushing Locke's point a bit further, denied the existence of the underlying substratum. He also denied that the perceptions of our senses are of the qualities of a substance. All we know are perceptions and ourselves. There are spiritual substances, myself, other selves, and God, of which we have no perceptions.

    12. Hume pushed Berkeley's analysis of Locke's thought to its final step. If all we know is our perceptions and not the cause of them, then we cannot know any substance, since we have no perception of them. Thus he denied the existence of all substances, not only the material substances that Berkeley had eliminated, but also spiritual substances.

    13. Kant regarded both substance and attributes (and accidents) as a synthetic apiori concepts derived from categorial judgments, that is, from the subject-predicate form of judgments. Whether they refer to anything in the external world is not known. The object-in-itself is unknowable.

    14. The philosophical movement known as Phenomenalism attempts to construct a view of reality in the absence of the concept of substance. For example, one member of the movement substituted for the concept of substance the idea of a relative stable complex of sense qualities.

    15. Russell and Whitehead attacked the concept of substance by denying the ultimacy of the subject-predicate form of propositions. Russell attempted to develop a view of the world without the use of substances called logical atomism; the world consists of atomic facts, and these can be represented by elementary propositions. Later he developed an ontology that he called neutral monism; the world is neither mental or material, but is composed of some neutral stuff, which, when organized according to the law of physics, yeilds physical objects, and, when organized according to the laws of psychology, yeilds minds. Whitehead replaced the substance-attribute ontology with an event ontology.