Introduction.

The problem of substance

Why do properties, and by properties I mean shape, size, number, colour, taste, smell etc stay together in clumps or not just float away. Another problem is that why do certain objects appear in their millions with almost identical properties. Why does an orange, for example not sometimes taste of an apple or pear or appear blue or red or square and sometimes a triangle.

These properties appear unstable and intuitively it does seem that something, a substance holds these properties together and that these properties are not the total identity of the orange.

Should we accept a master quality like solidity which would include shape size and density? This master quality could hold property together. We do not question what holds together shape and a colour as they are inseparable even though the shape can change.

1. Should we take a reductionist view with objects being just a bundle of properties or is there something hidden acting as a bearer of properties?

Most people, who do not study philosophy have never heard the word substance used in this way (Only used as a woman of substance or substance misuse) When people talk about identity if questioned what for example makes a car they will usually talk about its properties. Many people including substance dualists and people who believe in organised religion do not have a problem with the concept of an immaterial entity existing separately from a corporeal substance, a body, so the concept of substance should not be seen as bizarre. John Locke's properties Locke was an empiricist. Empiricists believe that while our senses sometimes deceive us, on the whole they are reliable. He believed that our sense experiences of the world shows us on most occasions how the world is and this is how we gain our knowledge of properties. He believed that there were three classes of properties, Primary properties which an object can have independently of us i. e. motion, solidity, occupying space etc and these primary properties can be measured mathematically, motion by distance and solidity by mass etc. Secondary properties are properties that have the power to produce ideas (ideas in Locke's language mean sense data) in us like smell, colour taste etc which are all observer dependent and Tertiary properties, that is substances that can change other substances i. e. fire on wax.

2 John Locke on substance

Being an empiricist Locke believed that the mind at birth was a blank sheet but had the ability to put ideas together and form two types of ideas, one being the idea of substance the other modes. The mind receives ideas from the senses of the various properties colour, shape and texture.

3 Locke stated that we have two conceptions of substance.

The second conception was notions of different types of substance but for the purpose of this assignment we are only able to look at his first conception, substance in general. Substance in general is a bearer of properties and a cause of properties. Properties cannot be conceived to exist separately, they are not self sustaining; a colour has to be a colour of something. Properties could not exist without substance to sustain them so substance is also the cause of properties. The way we describe properties is that they are a property of something, they have a tendency to appear in clumps and in Locke's view that these clumps are held together by an unknown substance, this is an object's essence. Unlike substance which cannot be perceived or measured we can perceive and measure properties so therefore infer that substance exists through observation of properties and rational contemplation.

4 So the only knowledge of substance we can have in Locke's view is substance being a cause of and a bearer of properties.

Locke felt it was impossible to analyse substance without properties as this would be beyond the bounds of human knowledge. So in Locke's view we can never know what substance is. If we imagined a substance to have no properties then we could pose the question do all objects have the same substances? If a substance has properties it would be a substance for specific things An atomist would agree that all objects are made up of atoms (although different atoms may make up different objects) but with Locke's unknown substance we cannot be sure if substance has properties due to the unknown status of substance.

5. Locke had problems defining substance.

He asserted that it was an underlying substratum that was a bearer of properties and to quote his phrase 'Something, I know not what' however Locke believed that the spirit (or my explanation of consciousness from a dualist angle), is not a corporeal substance. Now just because we do no understand how an immaterial spirit can exist and it cannot be observed does not mean, in Locke's view that we can deny its existence as we cannot deny the existence of the material body even though we do not have a clear notion of the substance of matter.

6. What Locke means here is that there are many phenomena that exists in the world that we cannot understand but just because we cannot understand this phenomena does not justify denying its existence.

Locke has highlighted three areas of philosophical enquiry. First do properties require a substratum to keep them together, he thinks they do. He rejects the idea of a substantial form and states that the world is made up of an unknown structure of atomic parts and his theory of substance is realist about properties (meaning properties are as they appear to us) and objects but conceptualist (meaning we have notions) about our classifications.

7. Alfred Ayer's critique of the concept of substance

Ayer was an empiricist who totally rejected idealism in a metaphysical sense (the notion that there is no material matter in the world but just other minds and sense data)

8. As an empiricist he rejected metaphysics concepts and questions as nonsensical.

Metaphysical questions had no factual content and could not be verified empirically, i. e. through observational analysis, and sense experience. They also did not have any apriori propositions meaning that metaphysical statements do not have any factual content known before experience or factual truths (tautologies) for example mathematical truths, 2 + 2 = 4. Factual propositions on the other hand are empirical hypotheses meaning that these hypotheses must have a link to some actual or possible experience. So, Ayer believed that there can be no apriori concepts regarding substance and therefore the concept of substance is a metaphysical notion and is false.

9. When we observe an object we usually perceive a whole, that is, all its properties (colour, shape solidity etc) together. When we use language to describe an object we describe it as a thing, we assign an identity and call it a car for example and according to Ayer this gives us an illusion of there being something else besides an object's properties. Ayer believed that with European language it is impossible to mention a thing without separating it from its properties and leads us to believe that there is an underlying substratum, a substance which is a bearer of properties. 1

10. I think Ayer is on to something here as when we view an object we see it as a whole, all its properties at once and do not see it compositionally. If we eat something we get taste, texture as an immediate sensation. We do not perceptually separate substance and properties. When we describe an object we describe it compositionally for example we might say the car is green, has leather seats, has a diesel engine etc and this leads us to think that the car has a underlying substratum which we assume holds these properties together, it is the car's essence which we call a substance. Ayer thought that with our language we cannot refer to the properties of a thing without distinguishing logically between the thing and its properties. The problem then seems to be the composition of our language which almost forces us to use the word substance for an object with properties.

11. By separation of properties and by the use of language I believe Ayer was thinking that this leads us to pontificate metaphysical notions regarding these properties believing that they cannot exist alone and something must hold the together. It creates a problem that does not exist. Ayer was also critical of the concept of human beings having a substance which he labelled the substantive ego (The self) He dismissed self awareness as the ability to remember previous sense data. Again it was this unobservable substance that caused Ayer to reject substance in humans.

12. The main point that Ayer wants to put across is that substance, if it existed in a thing is not empirically verifiable.

The way we describe an object, that is describing its properties is different from sense data and how we perceive objects and the way we describe objects gives an illusion of the presence of an unknown substance as a bearer of these properties. David Hume's critique of the concept of substance Hume was an empiricist who believed in the power of observation and the power of reason for looking at facts. He was particularly interested in the mind. He believed that the essence of the mind was unknown to us but we could study how the mind reacts to different circumstances and situations by various empirical experiments. The concept of substance as a bearer of properties is a metaphysical notion and Hume was highly critical of the type of metaphysical enquiry at that time believing a large part of metaphysics was not a true science. He believed that one could not have apriori knowledge of metaphysical questions and that many metaphysicians were concerned with questions that could never be answered due to the fact that they could not be empirically verified.

13. Hume rejected the concept of substance and believed that properties change over time the mind combines various ideas (sensory input from these properties) and assigns one identity to this collection of properties. It is natural for the mind to combine these properties together when we observe the object through time as the changes to the properties occur gradually. We see other minds as separate from our own mind and assign an identity to these other minds. The problem for Hume is that we then assign an unchangeable identity to material objects.

14. An example would be a ship that has run aground. The local community would see this ship on a daily basis and call this object a ship. As it rusted and decayed and even changed shape many people would still refer to it as a ship. Eventually a scrap metal merchant may visit the site after a number of years and the ship he saw many years ago in his eyes has gone and because these remains do not look like a ship but only a heap of rusting metal he calls this object scrap metal. The identity of the ship has been lost due changes in the properties.

If we are presented with an object which is undivisable and an object with properties that are linked together then the mind will ascribe an identity but as the mind can also see separate properties it thinks there must be something unifying these properties. By assigning an unchangeable identity to objects Hume believed that we make a mistake and believe that even though the properties of the object change over time the object remains the same, and as the object remains the same we believe that there is some hidden substratum that holds these properties together and that this hidden substratum or substance does not change over time while properties do.

We think about and experience the object over time and this way of thinking regarding a hidden substance is fundamentally wrong. Evaluation of the various arguments Has the notion of substance as a bearer of properties been successfully defended? From an empirical angle I would say no. Locke uses the example of an Indian who believes the world is supported by an elephant which was being supported by a tortoise. When the Indian was asked what supported the tortoise he knew not what, meaning that the Indian had a concept of entities supporting the world but could not identify the base entity in his opinion that held everything together

15. The above example shows that Locke's main problem, being an empiricist is that he believed in an unknown substance being a bearer of properties however this unknown substance cannot be measured by observation, sense experience and testing. The reason it is a problem for Locke is that he believed that the all knowledge is acquired through the senses. Locke may claim that his notion of substance is indirect empiricism as he can perceive properties which can be perceived and measured and which cannot subsist on there own and therefore infer a substance which acts as a bearer of properties. For this to be true then it must be proved that properties cannot subsist alone, this has not been proved and inference for an empiricist, I believe is not an acceptable stance to take as empiricism is fundamentally about observation and testing. Most philosophers agree that Locke did believe in substance but that this substance could not be verified through empirical verification, only inferred. Ayer has made a good point regarding language.

Perception and linguistic description are separate. With English language his argument holds in that when we describe something we have to mention separate properties however one can use language to dismiss many intrinsic philosophical problems as the Oxford linguistic philosophers did in the 40s. One should not just rely on analysing language when discussing philosophical problems. If we were looking at causation linguistically then we could say what do we mean by saying one thing causes another rather what is causality. I believe that what is causality is of greater value to addressing the problem of causality directly rather than looking at how we construct the question. In fact Ayer has highlighted this already by saying language is separate from perception so therefore we should not just analyse language on its own when looking at the problem of substance.

Hume stated that we should not give an object an unchangeable identity as we then have a notion of substance. I believe that even if we give an object a temporary identity then we have still properties in an object and the problem of substance still exists. What holds these temporary properties together even if they only exist for 1 hour? One could still argue for the notion of substance even if an object has a changeable identity. I believe that Hume does not address this problem. I disagree with Hume and Ayer regarding the value of metaphysical questions.

I agree that metaphysical questions are not scientific questions for the reason that many of these questions cannot be verified empirically at present. Questions relating to time travel now are metaphysical questions but Einstein has stated that time travel is logically possible so these questions may in the future become scientific questions. Democritus carried out a metaphysical enquiry using the power of reason alone and he concluded that matter is made up of atoms which proved to be scientifically correct. So his metaphysical enquiry resulted eventually in scientific fact. So in my opinion metaphysical questions are valuable as they pre-empt science and are a valuable method of enquiry. To conclude I do not believe that the notion of substance as a bearer of properties has not been successfully defended by Locke.

References
1 Robinson, Substance. p 15
2 Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, chapter XX111 p5
3 Uzgaus ,John Locke, p13
4 Burton, The Knowledge of Substance in the Thought of Locke and Berkeley p2
5 Robinson, substance. p 13
6 Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, chapter XX111, p3
7 Robinson, Substance. p 16
8 Ayer, Language, Truth and logic. p. 39
9 Ayer, Language, Truth and logic. p 41
10 Ayer, Language, Truth and logic. p 51
11 Ayer, Language, Truth and logic. p 142
12 Ayer, Language, Truth and logic. p 126
13 Morris, David Hume. p 4
14 Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, p 2
15 Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, chapter XX111 p2

Bibliography

A J Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic. Great Britain, The Camelot Press Ltd, 1970 www. etext. library. adelaide. edu. au

David Hume, A treatise of Human Nature, book 1, part IV, Section III www. seop. leeds. ac. uk

Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Substance, Howard Robinson, www. seop. leeds. ac. uk

Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, John Lock, William Uzgaus www. etext. library. adelaide. edu. au An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book II, chapter XXIII www. seop. leeds. ac. uk

Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, David Hume, William David Morris www. mun. ca. com The Knowledge of Substance in the Thought of Locke and Berkeley, David Burton.