It is a contested question in contemporary theories of religion whether the concept of religion can be defined in a sound way or not. Many theorists maintain that a universal but delimiting definition is impossible. In this study, by contrast, it is argued that a conceptual analysis of religion that holds universally is perfectly possible because the following thesis can be seen as a necessary and sufficient conceptual condition of what religion is: X is a religion if and only if (...) X is a collection of artifacts which has the proper function of representing a supraphysical world. On this thesis, it is argued that artifacts such as pictorial and verbal representations, rituals, symbols, and various tools constitute religion as a cultural object, which, as a collection of artifacts, has the proper function of representing a conceived world that is not entirely physical, and which, allegedly, is a prerequisite for existential welfare in relation to observance. It is here important to understand what is constitutive for these kinds of conceived worlds. Supraphysical world is defined as follows. Given that the actual world is a physical world, a conception S is a construction of a supraphysical world if and only if both of the following conditions apply to S: Metaphysical component: S is a duplicate of the actual world with the addition of an anti-physical substance. Existential-normative component: S is an alleged prerequisite for existential welfare in relation to observance. The core argument of the study is that holds a priori for the concept of religion and as an a posteriori necessity for every instance of a religion. Apart from discussing the methodological problems of defining religion, the study introduces a new theory of religion in terms of. It addresses issues in the theory of artifacts; in the theory of representations; and in the theory of conceptual analysis. (shrink)

This work studies early modern thought concerning the ontology of ideas. I endeavor to establish, contrary to some current scholarship, that the Early Moderns remained firmly in the grip of a substance/mode ontology narrowed from the substance/property distinction inherited from Aristotle. I argue that this traditional dichotomy provides the most philosophically and historically fruitful approach to understanding early modern thought. In particular, I demonstrate how the increasing radicalization in the metaphysics of the moderns is best explained (...) by remaining within the substance/mode ontology. Competing contemporary approaches, especially ones that attempt to employ concepts such as reification and object talk in place of the traditional ontology, do not sufficiently penetrate to the core issues facing the Moderns. Rather than seeking to abandon the categories of substance and mode, the Moderns sought, perhaps vainly, to find room for ideas within it. I proceed by providing background from Aristotle and the Medievals, go on to discuss the philosophical views of Descartes, Malebranche, Arnauld, Locke and Berkeley. The development of idea philosophy culminates in Berkeley, who creates a hybrid ontic category I call 'quasi-substance.' Ideas for Berkeley are ontically dependent on minds , but external to them in the sense that the relationship between ideas and minds are two-place . I demonstrate how this understanding explains the radical metaphysical positions he takes, especially his commitment to perceptual heterogeneity. I conclude that rather than abandoning the traditional ontic categories, the Moderns adhered to them desperately, and thus are best understood through them. (shrink)

Yitzhak Melamed here offers a new and systematic interpretation of the core of Spinoza's metaphysics. In the first part of the book, he proposes a new reading of the metaphysics of substance in Spinoza: he argues that for Spinoza modes both inhere in and are predicated of God. Using extensive textual evidence, he shows that Spinoza considered modes to be God's propria. He goes on to clarify Spinoza's understanding of infinity, mereological relations, infinite modes, and the flow (...) of finite things from God's essence. In the second part of the book, Melamed relies on this interpretation of the substance-mode relation and the nature of infinite modes and puts forward two interrelated theses about the structure of the attribute of Thought and its overarching role in Spinoza's metaphysics. First, he shows that Spinoza had not one, but two independent doctrines of parallelism. Then, in his final main thesis, Melamed argues that, for Spinoza, ideas have a multifaceted structure that allows one and the same idea to represent the infinitely many modes which are parallel to it in the infinitely many attributes. Thought turns out to be coextensive with the whole of nature. Spinoza cannot embrace an idealist reduction of Extension to Thought because of his commitment to the conceptual separation of the attributes. Yet, within Spinoza's metaphysics, Thought clearly has primacy over the other attributes insofar as it is the only attribute which is as elaborate, as complex, and, in some senses, as powerful as God. (shrink)

The concepts of ‘being‘, ‘substance‘ and ‘form‘ are central to Aristotle‘s metaphysics. According to him, there are different modes of being, and of all these different modes of being, substance is the primary mode of being, and First Philosophy is especially concerned with the mode of being which belongs to substances. Again, he tries to give an analysis of what a substance is in terms of the concept of form, and claims that it is (...) essence or form that may be called substance in the truest and fullest sense. Thus we see that the concepts of ‘being‘, ‘substance‘ and ‘form‘ are intimately related. This paper is an attempt to analyze clearly what Aristotle means by these three important concepts. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#61-62; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2017 P 43-52. (shrink)

Commentators have offered interpretations over many years of the nature and status of the attributes in Spinoza's metaphysics, but attributes are best understood as diverse manners of existence, so that a substance having more than one attribute exists in more than one manner. Spinoza's monistic metaphysics of substance and mode allows him to offer an appealing conception of the nature of space. Spinoza's monistic metaphysics provides the basis for a positive account of how particular (...) things constitute things at all. All the philosophers of the seventeenth century, arguably none has more direct bearing on recent work in metaphysics than Spinoza. In Spinoza's monism, there is only one perfectly real being, which grounds and is more real than all of the other existing things, and in which they inhere. Spinoza's panpsychism at the same time provides a model of cosmopsychism, in which the mental character of the cosmos grounds the mental character of each particular thing. (shrink)

The core aim of the dissertation is the identification of criteria for the individuation of singular, finite modes within Spinoza’s monist system. The analysis encompasses two main routes. First, the characterisation of the notion of ‘mode’, contrasted with ‘substance’ and ‘attribute’. This route leads me to examine several interpretations, which have attempted a description of the core concepts of Spinoza’s metaphysics, and to propose a novel reading that makes a robust use of the historical notion of distinction (...) of reasoned reason (distinctio rationis ratiocinatae) as a philosophical device capable of rejecting the dichotomy between subjectivist and objectivist interpretations of Spinoza. The second route is the analysis of the internal structure of a mode, which I characterise as a trans-attributal entity whose essence can be described as relationally oriented power. Following this characterisation, I provide an argument for considering Spinoza’s metaphysics of modes as a genuine relational ontology. I conclude that the individuation of singular modes in Spinoza can either be perspectival, depending on a causal point of view; or holistic, in which case the process of individuation must account for the totality of the ‘order and connection’ of modal causes. (shrink)

‘Substance’ (substantia, zelfstandigheid) is a key term of Spinoza’s philosophy. Like almost all of Spinoza’s philosophical vocabulary, Spinoza did not invent this term, which has a long history that can be traced back at least to Aristotle. Yet, Spinoza radicalized the traditional notion of substance and made a very powerful use of it by demonstrating – or at least attempting to demonstrate -- that there is only one, unique substance -- God (or Nature) -- and that all (...) other things are merely modes or states of God. Some of Spinoza’s readers understood these claims as committing him to the view that only God truly exists, and while this interpretation is not groundless, we will later see that this enticing and bold reading of Spinoza as an ‘acosmist’ comes at the expense of another audacious claim Spinoza advances, i.e., that God/Nature is absolutely and actually infinite. But before we reach this last conclusion, we have a long way to go. So, let me first provide an overview of our plan. In the first section of this paper we will examine Spinoza’s definitions of ‘substance’ and ‘God’ at the opening of his magnum opus, the Ethics. Following a preliminary clarification of these two terms and their relations to the other key terms defined at the beginning of the Ethics, we will briefly address the Aristotelian and Cartesian background of Spinoza’s discussion of substance. In the second section, we will study the properties of the fundamental binary relations pertaining to Spinoza’s substance: inherence, conception, and causation. The third section will be dedicated to a clarification of Spinoza’s claim that God, the unique substance, is absolutely infinite. This essential feature of Spinoza’s substance has been largely neglected in recent Anglo-American scholarship, a neglect which has brought about an unfortunate tendency to domesticate Spinoza’s metaphysics to more contemporary views. The fourth section will study the nature of Spinoza’s monism. It will discuss and criticize the interesting yet controversial views of the eminent Spinoza scholar, Martial Gueroult, about the plurality of substances in the beginning of the Ethics; address Spinoza’s claim in Letter 50 that, strictly speaking, it is improper to describe God as “one”; and, finally, evaluate Spinoza’s kind of monism against the distinction between existence and priority monism recently introduced into the contemporary philosophical literature. The fifth and final section will explain the nature, reality, and manner of existence of modes. We therefore have an ambitious plan; let’s get down to business. (shrink)

The paper offers a new account of Spinoza's conception of “substance”, the fundamental building block of reality. It shows that it can be demonstrated apriori within Spinoza's metaphysical framework that (i) contrary to Idealist readings, for Spinoza there can be no substance that is not determined or modified by some other entity produced by substance; and that (ii) there can be no substance (and hence no being) that is not a thinking substance.

I defend the thesis that, if there are substances, substance causation (i.e., causation by substances) is the only sort of causation in the universe – or the only fundamental sort. Subsequently, I develop an account of substance causation that is partly grounded on a peculiar interpretation of absolute change (i.e., of entities' coming and ceasing to be) and qualitative change, on some ontological assumptions about modes (i.e., individual properties that ontologically depend on their bearers) and powers. Finally, I (...) reply to some objections against substance causation in general (e.g., C. D. Broad's objection against causes' being non-essentially-dated entities) and to some possible objections against my own account and I briefly explore three advantages given by the acceptance of the latter. (shrink)

The article is an examination of locke's theory of personal identity in terms of his underlying commitment to a substance/property metaphysics. it is argued that the resources for his solution must be drawn from his theory of properties (modes), which are fully instantiated properties (or 'aspects'). locke raises the important problem of the identity of modes through time. his solution is outlined and criticized. the failure of his theory is diagnosed in terms of the intractability of the problem (...) given his underlying metaphysics. (shrink)

This book is an examination of the metaphysical systems of Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway, who share many superficial similarities. By providing a detailed analysis of their views on substance, monism, self-motion, individuation, and identity over time, as well as causation, perception, and freedom, it demonstrates the interesting ways in which their accounts differ. Seeing their systems in tandem highlights the originality of each philosopher. In addition to providing the details of their metaphysical views, the book also shows how (...) they put these views to use: for Cavendish in grounding her natural philosophy and for Conway in developing her theodicy. The account of Cavendish is more naturalistic than current interpretations. It argues that God plays no substantive role in Cavendish’s philosophy. The book provides an account of Cavendish’s matter and her biological holism. It shows how sensitive and rational matter are expressed differently in different natural kinds. It provides the first account of Cavendish’s views on individuation and identity over time and a detailed account of her views on causation, arguing that nature is the only principal cause. The book also provides an account of Conway’s spiritual substance, arguing that it is a unique type of substance. It discusses Conway’s two types of motions and causation. In addition, a detailed account of her view of motion as a mode of body, and how it is transferred, is provided. Finally, the book concludes that Conway’s metaphysics and morality are inseparable and that she holds a type of perfectionism. (shrink)

The concept of expression grounds a large portion of Spinoza’s metaphysics, giving further depth to seemingly foundational concepts such as substance, causality, attribute, and essence. Spinoza adopts the term “expression” in crucial contexts such as the definition of attribute, the essential dependence of modes on substance, and the striving or effort of a finite conatus. In this essay, I seek to interpret expression as an instance of relational or structural ontology, escaping the reductionist tendencies that would see (...) it as a mere result or combination of “more fundamental” properties such as causation, inherence, and conception. My interpretation of expression as a descriptive structural lens enriches our understanding of Spinoza’s metaphysics of substance and modes as a primarily structural ontology, which can only be read appropriately if its relata are conceived as ontologically dependent on the structure. (shrink)

Following the lead of Gustav Bergmann ( 1967 ), if not his precise terminology, ontologies are sometimes divided into those that are ‘relational’ and those that are ‘constituent’ (Wolterstorff 1970 ). Substance ontologies in the Aristotelian tradition are commonly thought of as being constituent ontologies, because they typically espouse the hylemorphic dualism of Aristotle ’s Metaphysics – a doctrine according to which an individual substance is always a combination of matter and form. But an alternative approach drawing (...) more on the fourfold ontological scheme of Aristotle’s Categories is not committed to this doctrine and may regard individual (or ‘primary’) substances as having no constituent structure, their only possible complexity residing in their possession, in some cases, of a multiplicity of substantial parts. However, as we shall see, this does not imply that such an ontology falls instead into the relational camp: for although it invokes, in addition to the category of individual substance, also those of substantial kind (‘secondary’ substance), attribute, and mode (or ‘individual accident’), it need not and arguably should not take there to be external relations between entities in the different categories. On this view, truths of exemplification and instantiation, such as ‘Dobbin is white’ and ‘Dobbin is a horse’, do not need relational truthmakers. Hence, it can be maintained that there are no such relations as ‘exemplification’ and ‘instantiation’, at most only certain relational truths of exemplification and instantiation – truths whose logical form is relational. Th is being so, I shall argue, such an ontology cannot fairly be classified as a ‘relational’ one. (shrink)

W. Norris Clarke described his personalism as “substance-in-relation,” which emphasizes the equality of primordial modes of substance and relation as a solution to the dichotomy between substance and relation created in the history of metaphysics of the human person. African personalism seems to conceive the human person as essentially relational, which is mostly expressed in the saying: “I am because we are.” Though some contemporary African scholars, like Molefe, try to indicate the priority of the individual, (...) the relational concept remains dominant, which makes it inclined toward collectivism, that most often seems to repress the individual (substance). This article aims to attempt a proposal of a reconstruction of African personalism using the model of Clarke’s personalism by laying equal emphasis on the primordial modes of substance and relation in order to guard against individualism on the one hand and collectivism on the other hand. (shrink)

In the past decade, several Descartes scholars have gone on record claiming that, for biological purposes, Descartes likely accepts the practical scientific necessity of the existence of “physical natures,” even while his official substance-mode ontology and his characterization of matter in terms of extension do not license the existence of physical natures. In this article, I elaborate on the historical context of Descartes’s biology, the “practical scientific necessity” just mentioned, and argue, contrary to other interpretations, that Descartes does (...) offer a philosophical justification for the existence of physical natures, albeit not by appeal to the categories of substance and mode, or matter as such, but by appeal to our “nature” as a union between mind and body. (shrink)

According to Thomas Aquinas, both logic and metaphysics are characterized by the same universal scope. The consideration of metaphysics extends to everthing which is, as its subject is being insofar as it is being. And the science of logic too considers everything which is, not as it exists in reality but insofar as the whole of being falls under the consideration of reason. Because of the equivalence between the logical sphere of reason and the real sphere of being (...) metaphysics has an affinity with logic. This similarity is mentioned by Aquinas in order to explain the legitimate use of a logical mode of reasoning within metaphysics. Metaphysics is not identical with logic, but the modus logicus, the logical mode of reasoning, is to a certain extent useful for the philosopher in his inquiry into metaphysical matters. In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Thomas refers frequently to this ‘modus logicus' by which Aristotle is said to proceed in his investigation into substance. However, it is not altogether clear what this method consists in and how the similarity between logic and metaphysics, on which the modus logicus is based, should be understood. In this article I want to clarify the meaning of the modus logicusin Aquinas and its revelance for metaphysics. This might help us to understand better how according to Thomas logic and metaphysics are related to one another and in what sense they are different. (shrink)

There are many aspects of the Ethics that seem to suggest, or perhaps even require the possibility of deducing finite modes from the infinite substance. Nonetheless, as many have noted even during Spinoza’s own time, it is far from clear that such a deduction can be successfully performed. In this chapter I argue that the expectation of a top-down deduction is unwarranted, and that interestingly enough, it is not only unwarranted with regard to Spinoza but with regard to Descartes (...) as well. I show this by pointing to the crucial role confusion plays for both, noting that our epistemic journey to clear and distinct or adequate knowledge begins with confusion, and that this trajectory is one of emending initially confused ideas. This shows that epistemically a bottom-up trajectory necessarily precedes a top-down one. My claim, however, goes beyond this point regarding the order of discovery. I argue that the state of confusion presupposes a plurality of finite modes, in Spinoza’s case, and substances and modes in Descartes’s. Confusion, I claim, amounts to an inadequate perception of an amalgam of ideas of a real plurality of things. Recognizing the metaphysical ground of confusion along with its central epistemic role brings to light the artificiality, and indeed ultimately the impossibility of a top-down deduction which is divorced from a preceding bottom-up analysis. (shrink)

The paper examines three essays that Leibniz wrote in 1688, immediately after the composition of the Discourse on Metaphysics, one of his most organic philosophical works. The main topics which emerge from these essays are: the relationship between substance and accidents; the nature of accidents; and, more generally, the nature of abstract entities. Given that accidents' nature is that of changing, Leibniz sees how hard it is to give an account of the relationship between substance and accidents (...) that does not imply any change in the substance, when its accidents undergo a change. To find a way out of this problem, Leibniz assumes that abstract terms (whiteness, wisdom, etc.) do not name real properties or real parts of substances, and that any sentence containing real abstract terms can be rephrased as a sentence containing logical abstract terms, which do no imply any commitment to the existence of real properties. Coherently with this nominalistic attitude, Leibniz ends up, in the Theodicy and in his correspondence with Des Bosses, considering accidents as modes or internal modifications of the substance. (shrink)

It has often been said that the knowability of substances became a problem in the early modern period, when anti-Aristotelians doubted that we could know anything more than the sensory qualities that are present to us. This article argues that the late scholastic Aristotelian Francisco Suárez was already aware of this sceptical problem. On his view, substances are really (and not just modally) distinct from the perceivable qualities, and therefore cannot be known through sense perception. The article first examines the (...) metaphysical theory that motivated him to defend this thesis. It then looks at the epistemological consequences he drew from it. Though he rejected direct knowledge of substances, he nevertheless conceded that knowledge can be obtained through a “discursive process”. The article explores this process, spelling out all the cognitive steps it involves. In particular, it analyses Suárez's explanation of how we produce special cognitive devices (the “intelligible species”) that enable us to represent substances. Finally, it assesses Suárez's solution to the knowability problem by comparing it to Locke's solution. It argues that metaphysical rationalism led him to posit substances: we need to accept them as active causes and bearers of qualities, although we have no direct access to them. (shrink)

The paper takes off from the problem of finding a proper content for the relation of identity as it holds or fails to hold among ordinary things or substances. The necessary conditions of identity are familiar, the sufficient conditions less so. The search is for conditions at once better usable than the Leibnizian Identity of Indiscernibles (independently suspect) and strong enough to underwrite all the formal properties of the relation.It is contended that the key to this problem rests at the (...) level of metaphysics and epistemology alike with a sortalist position. Sortalism is the position which insists that, if the question is whether a and b are the same, it has to be asked what are they? Any sufficiently specific answer to that question will bring with it a principle of activity or functioning and a mode of behaviour characteristic of some particular kind of thing by reference to which questions of persistence or non-persistence through change can be adjudicated.These contentions are illustrated by reference to familiar examples such as the human zygote, the Ship of Theseus and Shoemaker's Brown-Brownson. The first example is hostage for a mass of unproblematical cases. The problems presented by the second and third sort of examples arise chiefly (it is claimed) from an incompleteness in our conceptions of the relevant sort—the what the thing in question is. That incompleteness need not prevent us from knowing perfectly well which thing we are referring to. In the concluding section, sortalism is defended against various accusations of anthropocentrism.The paper touches on the interpretation of Heraclitus, Leibniz's theory of clear indistinct ideas, the difficulties of David Lewis's ‘perdurantist’ or stroboscopic view of persistence, four-dimensionalism, and the relation of personal identity both to experiential memory and to the particular bodily physiognomy of a subject. At some points—as in connection with the so-called Only a and b rule—the paper corrects, supplements or extends certain theses or formulations proposed in the author's Sameness and Substance Renewed (2001). (shrink)

The tradition of Western philosophy has been tracing out the significations of logos and centered around logos. This in fact has given birth to many significant results. Through its logical structuring of empirical reality it has made possible critical understanding transcending the past and progressive creation of the future. But this Logology or Logocentrism has eventually also led to its self-destruction and to the brink of absolute nihilism.Along the history, logos has been interpreted in various ways. The history implies that (...) at least in the cosmic, theological and ideological frameworks logos used to be seen as extralinguistic substance; whereas starting from the scientific mode of thinking logos has been seen more as intralinguistic substance . This ends up in the political perspective in which logos is without substance: mere effects of the play of texts and discourse.While the latter appears like a predicament, the fact is that it can also be taken as a moment of liberation, a liberation from the keen yet stifling Western paradigm of logos apophanticos which has animated all kinds of “positivistic” mode of thinking; a liberation from the so-called Metaphysics of Presence, hence an openness towards the Absence, the ambiguity, the indefinability or the elusiveness of reality ; an openness towards the richness and complexity of human experience; hence an openness for mutual interogative and transformative dialogues among different semiotic systems, traditions and language games, which would also empower and incorporate non-Western as well as non-scientific mode of thinking into global discourse.Perhaps wisdom lies in the courage to recognize the fact that ultimately reality or the so-called Being is not a substance, but rather, fleeting relations, ever-changing networks, or elusive flux. Wisdom ultimately might mean an ability to come to terms with insecurity, an ability to see through the “absence”. (shrink)

"Death is a subject which has always been high on the philosophical agenda. But strangely enough the historically and traditionally most important aspect of that subject - the so-called transcendent problem of death, i.e. the question of what actually happens to mind or consciousness after physical death - is almost taboo-laden within modern academic philosophy." "It is, however, the contention of this book that a discussion of the transcendent problem of death makes good sense even on contemporary premises, granted the (...) fulfillment of certain preconditions that should not be rejected offhand." "The main parts of this book deal with questions concerning the viability of preconditions such as mind-body dualism, a substance-theory of mind, a non-reductionist view of personal identity, the notion of 'a minimal self', the persistence of the phenomenal 'now' etc." "In this connection the author presents and evaluates a number of arguments pertaining to the view that, even though an individual mind may contain outward-directed functions that allow it to relate to physical and social surroundings, it has an ontologically peculiar self-enclosed mode of being relative to the physical world. Hereby an understanding of 'the ontology of mind' is achieved, which indicates the possibility of a revival of some old and extremely important metaphysical questions which are commonly and unjustly neglected - for instance the transcendent problem of death." --Book Jacket. (shrink)

This paper examines some aspects of Spinoza's metaphysics of the essences of modes.2 I situate Spinoza's use of the notion of essence as a response to traditional, Aristotelian, ways of thinking about essence. I argue that, although Spinoza rejects part of the Aristotelian conception of essence, according to which it is in virtue of its essence that a thing is a member of a kind, he nevertheless retains a different part of such a conception, according to which an essence (...) is some structural feature of a thing which causally explains other, non-essential features. I go on to develop an account of Spinoza's metaphysics of essence, according to which essences, what he sometimes calls formal essences, are produced by the divine essence prior to and independent of the creation of finite modes, and according to which essences are the formal or exemplar causes of finite modes. I then argue that finite modes, in virtue of the formal essences which they actualize, are genuine causal relata. Finally, I offer some speculations about Spinoza's answer to the question, "Why, in a necessitarian cosmos filled with formal essences, should there be temporal finite modes at all?". (shrink)

When considering the nature of the human being, Descartes holds two main claims: he believes that the human being is a genuine unity and he also holds that it is comprised of two distinct substances, mind and body. These claims appear to be at odds with one another; it is not clear how the human being can be simultaneously two things and one thing. The details of Descartes' metaphysics of substance exacerbates this problem. Because of various theological and (...) epistemological commitments, Descartes frames his metaphysics of substance in a way that ensures mind and body's real distinction from one another. Articulated from this perspective, the problem becomes one wherein it is not clear that two completely separate substances can come together to form one entity. The aim of this thesis is to show how Descartes can hold real distinction and true union without contradiction. To this end, I will first detail the problem and outline a variety of solutions that have already been presented. Then I will outline important concepts relating to Descartes' metaphysics of substance and attributes. This not only reveals the depth of the problem but also lays the groundwork for my proposed solution. I argue that the key to understanding how these two claims are consistent and in accord with Descartes' philosophy is through a comment Descartes makes to his contemporary Henricus Regius where he urges that the union of mind and body is achieved through a "mode of union." I substantiate this claim by arguing for the intelligibility of understanding union as a modal attribute within Descartes' framework. Finally, I show how Descartes can hold real distinction and true union with consistency. When union is understood as a mode, mind and body are able to exist apart from one another, ensuring real distinction. Moreover, union construed as a mode does not allow the complete separability of mind and body. Thus, when united, mind and body achieve the kind of unity Descartes desires for the human being. (shrink)

This essay supports a so-called identification-oriented interpretation of the argument for substance monism. It emphasizes the conceptual barrier between different attributes and the conceptual-independence condition in the definition of substance. It argues that certain features of Spinoza’s notion of attributes enable him to defend his argument for substance monism from a number of challenges: the fact that, for Spinoza, each attribute of a substance, independently of the modes of the substance and independently of other attributes, (...) is sufficient for conceiving of the substance; and the fact that, for Spinoza, because of the conceptual independence of the attributes, no attribute of a substance can prevent that substance from having any other attribute. (shrink)

In Spinoza’s metaphysics, we encounter many puzzling doctrines that appear to entangle metaphysical notions with cognitive, logical, and epistemic ones. According to him, a substance is that which can be conceived through itself and a mode is that which is conceived through another. Thus, metaphysical notions, substance and mode, are defined through a notion that is either cognitive or logical, being conceived through. He defines an attribute as that which an intellect perceives as constituting the (...) essence of a substance. Intellectual perception, something cognitive, is used to define an attribute, something metaphysical. And he claims that if something exists there is a reason why it exists and if something doesn’t exist there is also a reason why it doesn’t. Thus, a reason, something cognitive or epistemic, is necessary for existence or nonexistence. What are we to make of the intimate connections that Spinoza sees between metaphysical, cognitive, logical, and epistemic notions? Between being and reason? In this book, I argue for what might be called a realist interpretation: although Spinoza is confident that the order of being mirrors the order of reason, he believes that they are two orders, not one. There is inherence over and above conceptual dependence; there is causation in addition to causal explanation; the world has a nature that we can grasp and that our way of grasping it does not interpose an impenetrable conceptual veil between it and us. (shrink)

Many late medieval Aristotelians assumed that a natural substance has several substantial forms in addition to matter as really distinct parts. This assumption gave rise to a unity problem: why is a substance more than a conglomeration of all these parts? This paper discusses Francisco Suárez’s answer. It first shows that he rejected the idea that there is a plurality of forms, emphasizing instead that each substance has a single form and hence a single structuring principle. It (...) then examines his account of the relationship between matter and form. While accepting the thesis that these two parts are really distinct entities, he claimed that there is a special “mode of union” that binds them together. With this account, he defended the essential unity of a natural substance, but he transformed the program of Aristotelian metaphysics: not substances, but entities and modes inside them, are now the basic building blocks of reality. (shrink)

Descartes argues that the mind and body are really distinct substances. He also insists that minds and bodies compose human beings. But how are mind and body united to compose a human? This question is crucial to understanding the place of human beings in Descartes’s ontology. Many scholars argue that Descartes has no solution to the unity problem, and they call into question the ontological status of mind- body composites. On some views, Cartesian humans are mere aggregates, like stacks of (...) pancakes; on other views, Descartes is not entitled to the view that humans exist at all. I argue that Descartes has a solution to the unity problem, and that he appropriates this solution from contemporaneous Jesuit discussions of soul- body unity—discussions that remain mostly unknown to contemporary scholars. The upshot is that Descartes has the metaphysical machinery to account for mind-body unity, and doesn’t have to say that a human being is like a stack of pancakes. (shrink)

To date no investigation has sought to interpret key themes in Aristotle’s writings on metaphysics, e.g., substance, potentiality, actuality, proximate cause, etc., within the context of a temporal logic or logic of events. Essentially, what follows is a programmatic effort to interpret aspects of Aristotle’s insights in Book Lambda of the Metaphysics in terms of recent advances in the development of a temporal logic, while being attentive to the sense of the original text as far as possible. (...) The significance of such an enterprise lies in unearthing and clarifying conceptual interconnections in Aristotle’s metaphysical writings which would be difficult to fathom through other means. This project, however exploratory in its present form, seems feasible partly because of the fact that at numerous points in Aristotle’s thesis process metaphors from the study of biology are strikingly evident. Also, there is additional justification for the suggested analysis in that his work involves repeated references to the “lived” activity of one’s inquiring into the nature of things. Thus a view of Aristotle’s pronouncements which presupposes a logic of events, where events are analysed pragmatically, i.e., in terms of a language-user and the extension of whatever is claimed to have occurred, is not alien to the mode of expression with which he presents his views. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 151 highly conscientious translator, and a sign of this are the Latin-English and English-Latin glossaries that are appended at the end of the work. The glossaries show how he has tried to remain consistent in his choice of terms and how he decided to render difficult terms like ratio and esse, which cause every translator of Aquinas problems. One could complain, however, that these nine pages of (...) glossary are not quite complete enough. A few missing entries, for example, are ' individual ' (which is used to translate concretum, suppositum, individuatum, and particufuris), ' subiectum ' (translated " substance " and " subject "), and' modus'. The briefest of bibliographical notes and an index complete the work. Here one might want to register a more serious complaint. The bibliographical note is much too brief to he especially helpful. The beginner could use some more suggestions about what to read as a follow-up to Martin's hook. All in all, this is a collection of readings from Thomas Aquinas one would like to see stay in print for a long time to come. Many who teach the thought of Aquinas in the round will want to make use of this work. And, by reading this work, philosophy students to whom Aquinas is an unknown will make a good beginning in becoming di· rectly familiar with one of the greatest of minds. ROBERT D. ANDERSON Saint Anselm College Manchester, New Hampshire Being and Order: The Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas in Historical Perspective. By ANDREW N. WOZNICKI. Catholic Thought from Lublin. New York: Peter Lang, 1990. Pp. 309 + xiv. This first volume bodes well for the new series Catholic Thought from Lublin, because the author of the hook is also the general editor of the series. Father Woznicki has here produced a welcome addition to those worthwhile hooks exploring the philosophical vision of St. Thomas in depth and comparing and contrasting that vision with other philosophical outlooks. Such studies are important not just for Thomists hut for all who are interested in the thought of the Angelic Doctor. On the first page of his Foreword, Woznicki announces that being and order are so inextricably interrelated that it is absolutely impos· sihle to understand one without the other. With thorough scholarship and impressive depth, Woznicki hacks up his claim. The Foreword also includes Etienne Gilson's marvelous statement: "Metaphysics al- 152 BOOK REVIEWS ways buries its undertakers." Not only does Woznicki probe profoundly into St. Thomas's metaphysics but he shows with an enviable clarity what is metaphysically lacking in philosophies as diverse as those of Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Descartes, Kant, and Whitehead. Woznicki's goal in this well documented study is to discover the order present in the very structure of being as being. In examining the concept of being itself, he claims that being can reveal itself in its inner disposition of both essential and existential characteristics only as something in which essence and existence are related to each other reciprocally and mutually. The Lublin Thomist distinguishes the predicamental and the transcendental modes of predication. While in the predicamental mode of predication a predicate is added to a being as its determining principle, in the transcendental mode of predication nothing can be added to a being as an extraneous nature, in the way that an accident is added to a substance or that a difference is added to a genus. (These additions cannot take place because every nature is essentially being.) The distinction between the two modes of predication permit the formulation of two kinds of concepts, namely, the predicamental and the transcendental. The former describe various grades of being which match different modes of being and so reveal.the various genera of being; the latter in depicting being in its universality express more clearly what is contained in the nature of being as such. A predicamental order of being is established through the predicamental concepts' description of being by its essential characteristics ; a transcendental order of being is established through the transcendental concepts' description of being as expressed by the existential characteristics of esse. While in the predicamental order the emphasis on the essential aspects reveals being as it is expressed in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Mullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics: Modulation of BeingLatimah-Parvin Peerwani ArlingtonMullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics: Modulation of Being. By Sajjad H. Rizvi. Culture and Civilization in the Middle East Series, edited by Ian Richard Netton. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Pp. xii + 222. Hardcover $135.00.In Mullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics: Modulation of Being, Sajjad H. Rizvi focuses on tashkīk (modulation), variously translated as the systematic ambiguity, analogical (...) gradation, or just gradation of being from the perspective of Mullā Ṣadrā, comparing it with classical Islamic philosophy and contemporary Western philosophy. He states that he makes two major claims in this study. First, he argues that modulation is a hermeneutic concept that describes the threefold division of being and its gradation. Second, gradation and modulation occur in each mode of being. Each mode of being refers to a branch of Ṣadrā's philosophy: mental being is a discussion of epistemology and psychology; 'being-in-language' is critical to Sadrian semantic theory; being in re focuses on 'traditional metaphysics.' But the philosophy of Ṣadrā is not compartmentalized; being cuts across these fields and unites them. Each mode of being as modulated shares features of intensification. According to Rizvi, Ṣadrā has extended the normal understanding of modulation and of being beyond the simple division of the two realms of mental and concrete existence to bring out the semantics of being. This aspect of Islamic philosophy, according to Rizvi, has often been neglected (p. 3). [End Page 278]This study consists of an Introduction and two parts. In the Introduction, Rizvi states the problem of tashkīk as the central hermeneutic of Ṣadrian ontology. An analysis of this critical concept, according to Rizvi, facilitates our understanding of Ṣadrā's position on a wide variety of important philosophical issues such as predication, the problem of reconciling unity and plurality in being, and God-world relationship. It provides an answer to the age-old problem of the One and the many, and the median way between the ontological monism of Ibn ʿArabi and the metaphysical pluralism of Avicenna. Rizvi says that according to Ṣadrā there are four levels of being: the concept of being, its reality, its uttered manifestation (sound), and its written manifestation.Part 1 consists of two chapters. In the first chapter Rizvi outlines his methodology and some of his assumptions about the cultural history of the period and the context of Ṣadrā. The significant contention, according to Rizvi, is that a proper understanding of Ṣadrā's philosophy requires an appreciation of philosophy in the Neoplatonic traditions "as a way of life" that is often closely related to spiritual practice and religious commitment. The aim of philosophical inquiry for Ṣadrā, according to Rizvi, is therapy for the rational soul and its perfecting and development in its path of return to its origins in the One.Four methodological approaches are utilized in this study. (1) Tashkīk is seen as the central hermeneutic of Ṣadrian metaphilosophy, and not ontology; Rizvi argues that tashkīk is a central guiding principle in Ṣadrā's metaphilosophy and permeates all branches of his philosophical system. (2) The aporetic method is used in analyzing Ṣadrā's philosophy. (3) Rizvi maintains that Ṣadrā's philosophy is processual, for it represents a shift from substance to process metaphysics. (4) Ṣadrian hikmat (philosophy, wisdom) is approached as a metaphilosophical inquiry. Metaphysics is a foundational science for Ṣadrā, instrumental in the possibility of acquiring knowledge and in the construction of definitions and meaningful discourse. Hikmat, according to Rizvi, is doubly transcendent, (1) as a higher synthesis of Avicennan, Illuminationist, Sufi, and esoteric Shiʿite systematic thought, and (2) as a prophetic philosophy that claims to be derived from direct 'revelation.'The second chapter introduces the tashkīk (modulation) of being. Rizvi traces its historical development from the Aristotelian pros hen homonym to Avicenna, Nasir al-Din Tusi, and Ibn ʿArabi, and offers an account of an intensifying scale of being toward a hierarchy of being that is singular but with multiple degrees defined by their intensity, that is, in terms of scales of intensification and deliberation. He makes explicit the Neoplatonic logic of being that this implies and examines how... (shrink)

Although scholars have often settled upon 1686 as the year in which the central elements of Leibniz’s philosophy first appear in systematic form, certain of his positions appear to have been firmly in place at least ten years earlier. Papers written in 1676 reveal that Leibniz had already by that time established the fundamental feature of his single-substance metaphysics: the insubstantiality of matter. As he defines it, matter is a mode, but a mode of peculiar status, (...) a sort of “top mode,” which, together with change, is requisite to the existence of any other modes, or “things.” Things for Leibniz include all bodies and their qualities, and in some places also appear to include minds, although Leibniz for religious reasons equivocates here, and wants to resist. Nevertheless, Leibniz’s desire to move toward a version of the Aristotelian notion of matter as the principle of individuation is clearly in evidence as he works to set out a view which can accommodate mechanistic physics while avoiding the perceived atheistic threat inherent in both Cartesian dualism and Spinozistic monism. (shrink)

We aim to compile some means for a rational reconstruction of a named part of the start-over of Baruch (Benedictus) de Spinoza's metaphysics in 'de deo' (which is 'pars prima' of the 'ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata' ) in terms of 1st order model theory. In so far, as our approach will be judged successful, it may, besides providing some help in understanding Spinoza, also contribute to the discussion of some or other philosophical evergreen, e.g. 'ontological commitment'. For this text (...) we assume the reader familiar with 'de deo' as well as with some basic concepts and results of 1st order model theory. Before we start reconstruction, we will first revisit shortly the concept of 'attributum' (definitio IV) in it's setting in 'de deo' , next scan for formalizable aspects of 'in suo genere finita' ('de deo', definitio II), subsequently list the model theoretic constructs we will make use of. Then we begin reconstruction by stating "coordinative definitions" for the notions of 'attribute (of a substance)', 'modus (as conceived via an attribute)' and 'substance (as conceived via an attribute)', reasoning shortly for each of them. The "coordinative definitions", we will arrive at, must not be understood as literal translations of Spinoza's concepts - of course, there can't be such a thing as a literal translation - they are meant as formal analoga of these concepts, mapping some logical structure. But even with this caveat they may seem strange to the reader at this stage of discussion. Additional justification for them then should be found in our endeavour, to map some argumentation of Spinoza's proofs of some of his propositions from this starting point. -/- [ Version 1 of this paper originated from 2020-03-14. This is version 2 from 2021-09-12 with some readability amendments. ]. (shrink)

"Based on a true story: the early modern tale." In Idea and Ontology, Marc Hight argues that the story we have been told about early modern philosophy is false. What Hight calls the "early modern tale" tells us that beginning with Descartes and ending with Berkeley, metaphysics began its slide into the historical dustbin, replaced by epistemology as first philosophy. The categories of medieval metaphysics, substance and mode, so the story goes, could no longer serve the (...) needs of the moderns, specifically their questions about the nature of ideas. Ideas could not easily be categorized as either substances or modes, and because of this difficulty, metaphysical questions were abandoned in favor of epistemological questions about the nature of representation and certainty. Hight reexamines the early modern tradition to find the metaphysicians behind the epistemologists' masks supposed by the early modern tale.Once the metaphysical questions are revealed as central to early modern philosophy, Hight argues that Berkeley's immaterialism, rather than ridiculous, is the final and triumphant conclusion of the metaphysical speculations of the seventeenth and eighteenth. (shrink)

This essay aims to analyze the structure of Aristotle's Metaphysics Θ by explicating various senses of the term δύναµις at issue in the treatise. It is argued that Aristotle's central innovation, the sense of δύναµις most useful to his project in the treatise, is the kind of capacity characteristic of the pre-existent matter for substance. It is neither potentiality as a mode of being, as recent studies maintain, nor capacity for `complete' activity. It is argued further that, (...) in starting with the κύριος sense of δύναµις as capacity for change, Aristotle begins with the most familiar and acknowledged kind of capacity, in order to move to the less familiar but ultimately more useful notion of capacity for substance, and to bring these two kinds together through an analogical relation. (shrink)

Human bodies have a totally different mode of existence from those collections of mental properties (intelligence, will power, consciousness, etc.) that we call minds. They belong to the ontological category of physical substances or entities, whereas mental properties belong to the ontological category of properties or attributes, and as such can exist only so long as their physical bearers exist. Mental properties “emerge” (in a sense that makes emergence ubiquitous throughout the natural world) when the constituent parts of a (...) biological organism—especially its brain—are configured in certain sorts of ways. A view of reality that is both conceptually coherent and scientifically comprehensive makes the very idea of surviving one’s bodily death literally absurd. -/- 1. The Cheshire Cat Fallacy: “A Grin Without a Cat” -- 2. Two Main Arguments for Substance Dualism - 2.1 An Appeal to the Logic of Identity and Difference - 2.2 An Appeal to the Noncogitative Nature of Matter -- 3. A Host of Problems for Substance Dualism - 3.1 The Inexplicability of Mind-Brain Dependence - 3.2 The Inexplicability of Mental Causation - 3.3 The Violation of Scientific Laws - 3.4 Minds as Miracle-Workers - 3.5 Problems about Our Embryological and Developmental Histories - 3.6 Problems about our Evolutionary Histories - 3.7 Which Stage of the Soul or Mind Survives? - 3.8 Where are our Disembodied Souls Supposed to Survive? -- 4. The Argument from Leibniz’s Law Presupposes a Category Misallocation - 4.1 The Fallacy of Reification - 4.2 Resisting the Reifying Lure of Language - 4.3 Dualistic Consequences of Reifying Mentalistic Terms - 4.4 Allocation to Ontological Categories - 4.5 Locke’s Partial Solution to the Category Misallocation - 4.6 Ryle on Category Mistakes and “the Ghost in the Machine” - 4.7 Ryle’s Important Insight: To Have a Mind is to have a Set of Mental Properties - 4.8 Interim Summary -- 5. The Emergence of “Minds” from Incogitative Matter - 5.1 Locke’s A Priori Argument - 5.2 Locke’s Argument Refuted by Counterexamples - 5.3 The Concept of Emergence Defined - 5.4 Rival Concepts of Emergence - 5.5 The Ubiquitousness of Emergent Properties - 5.6 The Metaphysics of Emergent Materialism - 5.6.1 Substance Monism - 5.6.2 The Doctrine of Property Dualism is Misconceived - 5.6.3 Emergent Properties of Different Kinds - 5.6.4 The “Hierarchy” of Sciences - 5.6.5 The Broad Spectrum of “Mental” Properties -- 6. The Metaphysical Impossibility of Survival - 6.1 Mind-Brain Dependence - 6.2 The Issue of Mental Causation - 6.2.1 The Bogeyman of Epiphenomenalism - 6.3 The Violation of Scientific Laws - 6.4 Minds as Miracle-Workers - 6.5 Our Embryological and Developmental Histories - 6.6 Our Evolutionary Histories -- 7. Conclusion. (shrink)

The author examines Spinoza's view of (1) the relationship between modes of substance and divine power, particularly in the context of the limitations of each individual mode, (2) the process of realizing divine power within a specific mode. The text proves that the representation of all things as modes of substance, or divine modes, allows Spinoza to endow them with divine power. For a thing that exists in time and has duration, the preservation of existence means (...) creation. Thus, maintaining the existence of a thing is identical to its creation. The power of a substance, expressed in its potency, is manifested in the duration of a thing. The specified duration is a manifestation of the substance's power, that is, its ability to create, preserve, and destroy things in their existence. (shrink)

Curley begins by showing that two of the main interpretations of Spinoza are wrong. He considers the "Bayle-Joachim interpretation" and the "Wolfson interpretation." In general, his criticism of these interpretations is brief, and in some instances, incorrect, as for example, the notion that Joachim believes in an Eleatic view as the final statement for particulars in Spinoza's metaphysics. Curley uncovers the traditional obscurities of Spinoza's metaphysics through a model metaphysic of his own upheld by logical atomism. "Just as (...) Joachim saw Spinoza through lenses ground by Hegel and Bradley, so I have seen him through those ground by Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein." Through these modern lenses, the author takes a fresh look at the basic problems of Spinoza's system, e.g., the causality of God, the relation between substance as infinite and its modes which are finite, and the traditional problems concerning the attributes which go back as far as Spinoza's correspondence with Tschirnhaus and Schuller. The book should prove interesting to those whose philosophical "bent of mind" is modern British.--D. J. (shrink)

In Chapter One I present an interpretation of Descartes' theory of distinction. I argue that the best understanding of the notion of separate existence at stake in the real distinction between mind and body is not that each can exist without the other existing, nor that each can exist without a real union with the other, but that each can exist without the attributes of the other. However, the only notion of separate existence which can provide an adequate acccount of (...) all three kinds of distinction--real, modal, and of reason--is that of one thing existing without a real union with another thing. ;In Chapter Two I examine Descartes' claims about the dependence of created substances on God and their independence from other creatures. The pure substances, those which are not composed of parts, can be caused to come into existence and go out of existence only by God, and they can perish only by annihilation. These substances include individual created minds and the extended universe considered as a whole. In contrast, bodies and human beings, which are composed of parts, can be caused to go out of existence by other creatures, and they can perish without being annihilated. Nevertheless, I argue that Descartes thinks bodies and human beings are full-fledged substances. ;In Chapter Three I discuss the union of mind and body. I argue that Descartes thinks the human soul is the only substantial form and that it inheres in the body as form inheres in matter. I defend his account of how two substances can form a unity by comparing it with medieval accounts of the unity of composites. ;Chapter Four examines Descartes' arguments for rejecting substantial forms and the so-called real qualities. I argue that his earliest series of arguments, those from perception and scientific explanation, is the most successful. ;Finally, in Chapter Five, I consider Descartes' positive account of the status of those so-called real qualities which he asserts are merely sensations, for example, color, sound, and heat. I argue that he is best understood as holding that they are modes of both thought and extension which are property ascribed to the composite of mind and body. (shrink)

The importance of infinity for Spinoza's philosophy can hardly be overstated. Understanding Spinoza means understanding (Spinoza's take on) infinity. In this paper, I present a deflationary account of Spinoza's infinity: Infinities across ontological states (modes, attributes, substance) follow the same general trajectory: From an indeterminate essence, infinitely many things follow. And as a consequence, Spinoza's universe is infinite all the way down. Some think that to Spinoza, infinity is indeterminacy (acosmism). Others say that infinity in substance follows from (...) the essence of substance, while infinity in modes does not. I argue that both views are false. Instead, infinity in modes and infinity in substance emerges from the numerical indeterminacy of essences. I show that this view can be traced back to Descartes' famous wax example and that it is manufactured to avoid a particular contradiction. In order to specify my point, I demonstrate that both ‘absolute infinity’ (God) and ‘in suo genere infinity’ (attributes) must be read through the deflationary account of infinity. I also argue that we do not need an additional qualitative indeterminacy and that causation and conception are not always parallel (such as in reductio proofs). (shrink)

The article examines the relation between two kinds of ontological relations that hold together the building blocks of Spinoza’s metaphysics: “being in” and “affection of.” It argues that in order to speak of existence in a single sense, Spinoza equivocates on the notion of affection. On the one hand, substance is in itself in the same sense that every other existing thing is in substance. On the other hand, substance is not the affections of itself, affections (...) of substance are not related to substance in the same sense that affections of modes are related to modes, and affections of modes, which are affections of affections of substance, cannot, at least in some cases, be regarded as affections of substance. Thus, although “God is without passions,” the passions themselves exist in the same sense that God, human beings, and other modes exist, that is, in the sense that they are all in nature; but while the meaning of “being” remains the same, the meaning of “being affected,” or “feeling,” necessarily changes as the Ethics unfolds. (shrink)