Questions tagged [substance]
7 questions
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Does Spinoza ever prove that substance is a necessary aspect of reality?
Spinoza defines substance as that which can be conceived solely through itself.
It seems to me that is possible to assume that no idea can ever be conceived solely through itself. For example, a world where everything is a modification of something…
Larry Freeman
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What is "matter"?
How do philosophers define matter?
Maybe we could say that matter is made out of fundamental particles. However, that ignores dark matter and energy. But even if we ignore this, what are fundamental particles? They are entirely defined by their…
ArAj
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Spinoza: what would be a concrete example of a thing that "is in" another thing
Spinoza talks about substance and its modifications. Since God is the only substance, it follows that everything else that exists is modifications of modifications of modifications ... etc.
As I understand it, when a "thing" A is a modification of…
Larry Freeman
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Are various concepts of divine creation based on more basic/simpler/integrated concepts, or are they indefinitely diverse?
For example, take these four notions:
Creation by rearranging/ordering prime matter (AKA from preexisting substance).
By emanation.
"From nothing."
Modal "toggling": switching mere possibilia to actualitas?
The first three seem correlated with…
Kristian Berry
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Struggling to understand singluar things in Spinoza's Ethics Part II. How do they come to be?
Started reading Spinoza's Ethics 2 days ago, and it has gone well so far. However, even with its definition at the start of Book II, I struggle to understand Spinoza's use of singular things in propositions after prop. 8.
In most of the…
AdamKJor
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Is there an alternative to substance or idea?
Substance is a philosophical term that seems to be often misunderstood (by non-professionals). In everyday language, "substance" is a mass term like "liquid". For example, there is a white substance in the flask or a white liquid in the flask. I've…
David Gudeman
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Does modern physics contradict Aristotelean substances?
In Aristotle's philosophy, physical objects have a substance and accidents. A substance is what the object "really is" and the accidents are things that can change without changing the object itself. As a loose analogy, my car's substance is a…
yters
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