Editing Substance theory (section)

==Early modern philosophy==
[[René Descartes]] means by a substance an entity which exists in such a way that it needs no other entity in order to exist. Therefore, only God is a substance in this strict sense. However, he extends the term to created things, which need only the concurrence of God to exist. He maintained that two of these are mind and body, each being distinct from the other in their attributes and therefore in their essence, and neither needing the other in order to exist. This is Descartes' [[Dualism (philosophy of mind)|substance dualism]].

[[Baruch Spinoza]] denied Descartes' "real distinction" between mind and matter. Substance, according to Spinoza, is one and indivisible, but has multiple "attributes". He regards an attribute, though, as "what we conceive as constituting the [single] essence of substance". The single essence of one substance can be conceived of as material and also, consistently, as mental. What is ordinarily called the natural world, together with all the individuals in it, is [[immanence|immanent]] in God: hence his famous phrase ''deus sive natura'' ("[[God or Nature]]").

[[John Locke]] views substance through a corpuscularian lens where it exhibits two types of qualities which both stem from a source. He believes that humans are born ''[[tabula rasa]]'' or "blank slate" – without innate knowledge. In ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' Locke writes that "first essence may be taken for the very being of anything, whereby it is, what it is." If humans are born without any knowledge, the way to receive knowledge is through perception of a certain object. But, according to Locke, an object exists in its primary qualities, no matter whether the human perceives it or not; it just exists. For example, an apple has qualities or properties that determine its existence apart from human perception of it, such as its mass or texture. The apple itself is also "pure substance in which is supposed to provide some sort of 'unknown support' to the observable qualities of things"{{vague|reason= Is it Millican or Locke we are quoting?|date=June 2018}} that the human mind perceives.<ref name="Locke and Leibniz on Substance">{{cite book|last1=Millican|first1=Peter|chapter=Locke on Substance and Our Ideas of Substances|title=Locke and Leibniz on Substance|editor=Paul Lodge|editor2=Tom Stoneham|publisher=Routledge|date=2015|pages=8–27}}</ref> The foundational or support qualities are called primary essences which "in the case of physical substances, are the underlying physical causes of the object's observable qualities".<ref name="Locke on Real Essence">{{cite journal|last1=Jones|first1=Jan-Erik|title=Locke on Real Essence|journal=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> But then what is an object except "the owner or support of other properties"? Locke rejects Aristotle's category of the forms, and develops mixed ideas about what substance or "first essence" means. Locke's solution to confusion about first essence is to argue that objects simply are what they are – made up of microscopic particles existing because they exist. According to Locke, the mind cannot completely grasp the idea of a substance as it "always falls beyond knowledge".<ref name="Locke: A Very Short Introduction">{{cite book|last1=Dunn|first1=John|title=Locke: A Very Short Introduction|date=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> There is a gap between what first essence truly means and the mind's perception of it that Locke believes the mind cannot bridge, objects in their primary qualities must exist apart from human perception.

The molecular combination of atoms in first essence then forms the solid base that humans can perceive and add qualities to describe - the only way humans can possibly begin to perceive an object. The way to perceive the qualities of an apple is from the combination of the primary qualities to form the secondary qualities. These qualities are then used to group the substances into different categories that "depend on the properties [humans] happen to be able to perceive".<ref name="Locke: A Very Short Introduction"/> The taste of an apple or the feeling of its smoothness are not traits inherent to the fruit but are the power of the primary qualities to produce an idea about that object in the mind.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Jones|first1=Jan-Erik|title=Locke On Real Essence|journal=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|date=July 2016}}</ref> The reason that humans can not sense the actual primary qualities is the [[mental distance]] from the object; thus, Locke argues, objects remain [[nominalism|nominal]] for humans.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Atherton|first1=Margaret|title=The Empiricists: Critical Essays on Locke, Berkely, and Hume|date=1999|publisher=Rowman and Littlefield}}</ref> Therefore, the argument then returns to how "a philosopher has no other idea of those substances than what is framed by a collection of those simple ideas which are found in them."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Locke|first1=John|title=An Essay Concerning Human Understanding|date=1959|publisher=Dover Publications}}</ref> The mind's conception of substances "[is] complex rather than simple" and "has no (supposedly innate) clear and distinct idea of matter that can be revealed through intellectual abstraction away from sensory qualities".<ref name="Locke and Leibniz on Substance"/>

{{confusing|date=June 2018}}

The last quality of substance is the way the perceived qualities seem to begin to change – such as a candle melting; this quality is called the tertiary quality. Tertiary qualities "of a body are those powers in it that, by virtue of its primary qualities, give it the power to produce observable changes in the primary qualities of other bodies"; "the power of the sun to melt wax is a tertiary quality of the sun".<ref name="Locke on Real Essence"/> They are "mere powers; qualities such as flexibility, ductility; and the power of sun to melt wax". This goes along with{{vague|date=June 2018}} "passive power: the capacity a thing has for being changed by another thing".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Garret|first1=Jan|title=A Lockean Glossary|journal=A Lockean Glossary|date=February 27, 2004|url=http://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/303/lockglos.htm}}</ref> In any object, at the core are the primary qualities (unknowable by the human mind), the secondary quality (how primary qualities are perceived), and tertiary qualities (the power of the combined qualities to make a change to the object itself or to other objects).

[[Robert Boyle]]'s corpuscularian hypothesis states that "all material bodies are composites of ultimately small{{vague| reason = indivisibly small? infinitesimally small?|date=June 2018}} particles of matter" that "have the same material qualities{{vague|date=June 2018}} as the larger composite bodies do".<ref name="Sheridan">Sheridan, P. (2010). Locke: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum. pp. 34, 38.</ref> Using this basis, Locke defines his first group, primary qualities, as "the ones that a body doesn't lose, however much it alters."<ref name="Locke-2-8-9">{{cite book |author=John Locke |translator=Jonathan Bennett |date=August 2007 |orig-year=1690 |title=An Essay Concerning Human Understanding |chapter=Book II, chapter 8, paragraph 9 |chapter-url=http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1690book2_1.pdf}}</ref> The materials retain their primary qualities even if they are broken down because of the unchanging nature of their atomic particles.<ref name="Sheridan" /> If someone is curious about an object and they{{who|reason= if this meant the curious person, it would still be acceptable only if it were reasonable to assume the reader is drunk|date=June 2018}} say it is solid and extended, these two descriptors are primary qualities.<ref name="Stumpf">Stumpf, S. E. (1999). ''Socrates to Sartre: a history of philosophy''. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. p. 260.</ref> The second group consists of secondary qualities which are "really nothing but the powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities."<ref name="Locke-2-8-10">{{cite book |author=John Locke |translator=Jonathan Bennett |date=August 2007 |orig-year=1690 |title=An Essay Concerning Human Understanding |chapter=Book II, chapter 8, paragraph 10 |chapter-url=http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1690book2_3.pdf}}</ref> Locke argues that the impressions our senses perceive from the objects (i.e. taste, sounds, colors, etc.) are not natural properties of the object itself, but things they induce in us by means of the "size, shape, texture, and motion of their imperceptible parts."<ref name="Locke-2-8-10"/> The bodies send insensible particles to our senses which let us perceive the object through different faculties; what we perceive is based on the object's composition. With these qualities, people can achieve the object through bringing "co-existing powers and sensible qualities to a common ground for explanation".<ref name="Constantin">{{cite journal |last1=Constantin |first1=Ion |title=Philosophy of substance: a historical perspective |journal=Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations |date=2012 |volume=11 |pages=135–140 |id={{ProQuest|1030745650}} |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=201519 }}</ref> Locke supposes that one wants to know what "binds these qualities" into an object, and argues that a "substratum" or "substance" has this effect, defining "substance" as follows:

{{quote|[T]he idea of ours to which we give the general name ''substance'', being nothing but the supposed but unknown support of those qualities we find existing and which we imagine can't exist ''sine re substante'' — that is, without some thing to support them — we call that support ''substantia''; which, according to the true meaning of the word, is in plain English ''standing under'' or ''upholding''. |John Locke |''[[An Essay Concerning Human Understanding]]''; book 2, chapter 23<ref name="Locke-2-23-2">{{cite book |author=John Locke |translator=Jonathan Bennett |date=August 2007 |orig-year=1690 |title=An Essay Concerning Human Understanding |chapter=Book II, chapter 23, paragraph 2 |chapter-url=http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1690book2_3.pdf}}</ref>}}

This substratum is a construct of the mind in an attempt to bind all the qualities seen together; it is only "a supposition of
an unknown support of qualities that are able to cause simple
ideas in us."<ref name="Locke-2-23-2"/> Without making a substratum, people would be at a loss as to how different qualities relate. Locke does, however, mention that this substratum is an unknown, relating it to the story of the world on the turtle's back and how the believers eventually had to concede that the turtle just rested on "something he knew not what".<ref name="Locke-2-23-2"/> This is how the mind perceives all things and from which it can make ideas about them; it is entirely relative, but it does provide a "regularity and consistency to our ideas".<ref name="Stumpf"/> Substance, overall, has two sets of qualities — those that define it, and those related to how we perceive it. These qualities rush to our minds, which must organize them. As a result, our mind creates a substratum (or ''substance'') for these objects, into which it groups related qualities.