Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

On Primary Substances and Accidental Unities

I asked genuinely, not rhetorically : What is the difference between an Aristotelian primary substance and a supposit (hypostasis, suppositum)?  The latter figures prominently in the  philosophy of the School, as some call it, and I need to get clear about what supposits are, how they differ from primary substances, and whether there are any non-theological reasons for making the distinction.  In pursuit of the first question I thought it advisable to state what I understand a primary substance to be.  So I wrote:

By 'substance' I mean an Aristotelian primary substance, an individual or singular complete concrete entity together with its accidents.  Among the characteristics of substances are the following: substances, unlike universal properties, cannot be exemplified or instantiated; substances, unlike accidents, cannot inhere in anything; substances, unlike heaps and aggregates, are per se unities. Thus Socrates and his donkey are each a substance, but the mereological sum of the two is not a substance.

I thought that was tolerably clear, but as so often happens, a commenter, ignoring my question, took issue with my set-up.  That is, he questioned my characterization of primary substance. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

In his last comment, John the Astute Commenter wrote,

. . . I *am* saying that Socrates taken together with his accidents is not strictly identical to Socrates taken in abstraction from his accidents. But that point is obvious. What I am adding is this: Socrates taken together with his accidents is not a substance, but an accidental unity of a substance and some accidents. So I deny your claim that "it is only Socrates together with his accidents that is a complete concrete individual primary substance." Socrates together with his accidents may well be the only complete concrete individual, but he is not a primary substance. Nor is he prime matter; as you say, he is a compound of prime matter and substantial form, although in conjunction with his accidents he plays the *role* of matter in the accidental unity between him and his accidents. This would seem to be a debate about Aristotelian exegesis, so I'll leave it there and not continue to hijack your discussion. As I said, I thought the discussion in Z.4-Z.6 would prove relevant to that discussion, but it would seem that I was mistaken on that score, for which I apologize.      

I will now continue in the second person.

No need  to apologize, John.  You have raised an interesting challenge which I ought to be able to meet.  But I want to avoid the labyrinth of Aristotle exegesis to the extent that that is possible, for, lacking as we do the latter-day equivalent of Ariadne's thread,  once we enter we are unlikely ever to find our way out again.

The disagreement seems to be as follows.  I claim that, from a broadly Aristotelian perspective, which is the perspective of Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham and other medievals who speak of substances and supposita, Socrates is a concrete, complete, individual, primary substance at a time t only when taken  together with his accidents at t.  I don't deny that a primary substance can be considered in abstraction from its accidents.  What I am claiming is that in concrete, mind-independent reality Socrates must have some set of accidents or other, and that, only when he is taken together with his accidents is he a primary substance.

Your claim is that Socrates together with his accidents (at a time, presumably, if I may interpret you a bit) is not a primary substance but an accidental unity, a hylomorphic compound the 'matter' of which is Socrates as primary substance and the form of which is something like the conjunction of his accidents.  To put the disagreement as sharply as possible, I am claiming that Socrates counts as a primary substance only when taken together with his accidents, whereas you are claiming that Socrates so counts only when he is not taken together with his accidents, but taken in abstraction from his accidents.  For one your view, Socrates taken together with his accidents is an accidental unity, not a primary substance.  To get beyond a stand-off we need to consider some arguments.

Argument for My View

1. Every primary substance is ontologically basic, where ontologically basic entities are those that exist per se or independently  unlike secondary substances and accidents.

2. Every ontologically basic entity is complete.

Definition:  x is complete =df for every predicate F, either x is F or x is not F.  (This is rough since some restrictions will have to be placed on the range of the predicate F.  But it is good enough for a blog post.)  Thus either Socrates is either seated at t or he is not.  If he is neither seated nor not seated at t, then he is an incomplete object.  But if he is an incomplete object, then he cannot exist.  Now every ontologically basic entity is possibly such that it exists.  Therefore, every ontologically basic entity is complete.  Every ontologically basic entity satisfies the predicate version of the Law of Excluded Middle.  (I don't think the converse is true, but then I am not affirming the converse.)

 Therefore

3. Every primary substance is complete. (from 1, 2)

4. No primary substance minus its accidents is complete.

5. No primary substance minus its accidents is a primary substance. (from 3,4)

Argument for John's View

A. The complete individual Socrates is a hylomorphic compound of matter and form (Premise).
B. The [primary] substance Socrates is the matter of the complete individual Socrates (Premise).
C.  For all x and for all y, if x is a hylomorphic compound and y is the matter of x, then x is not strictly identical to y.
Therefore,
D. The complete individual Socrates is not strictly identical to the [primary] substance Socrates.

Read charitably, John's argument is an enthymeme the suppressed or tacit premise of which is:

S. The complete individual Socrates is an accidental unity of Socrates + his accidents. 

Without suppressed premises (S), (B) is obviously false and the argument is unsound.  But with (S), John's argument begs the question.

Here is another wrinkle.  Some accidents are said to be 'proper.'  These are accidents that are entailed by the nature (essence) of the thing that has the nature, but they are, for all that, accidents.   A proper accident of a substance is one the substance cannot exist without.  To put it paradoxically, a proper accident of a substance is an accident that is 'essential' and therefore not 'accidental' to the substance whose accident it is.  But a better way to put it would be to say that a proper accident, though no part of the essence, is de re necessary to the substance having the essence. 

To adapt an example from John J. Haldane, if my cat Max is lounging by the fire, he becomes warm.  His warmth is an accident but not a proper accident or proprium.  Max is warm both temporarily and contingently in virtue of his proximity to the fire.  But the warmth that flows from his metabolic processes is a proper accident without which Max could not exist. 

Now let's suppose that this distinction is not a mere scholastic Spitzfindigkeit but 'holds water.'  Then, clearly, and pace John, Socrates together with his proper accidents cannot be an accidental unity.  So Socrates as primary substance must include at least his proper accidents.  

Related articles
What is the Difference Between a Substance and a Supposit?
Trying to Understand Ockham on Supposita in Light of the Incarnation
Theology Wagging the Ontological Dog?
Substance and Accident: The Aporetics of Inherence
Accidents of a Substance: Simple or Complex?

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8 responses to “On Primary Substances and Accidental Unities”

  1. John Avatar
    John

    Bill,
    Thanks for these remarks. I want to emphasize that I was not ignoring your question. I took my remarks concerning primary substances to be directly relevant to your question, because if you were wrong in your characterization of primary substances, then that may have opened up room for the possibility of alien supposition. The (admittedly vague) thought was that if your view of primary substance was mistaken, then it might turn out to be false that every substance is essentially its own supposit. (Also, you did state that it was your understanding of Aristotle that he maintained that every substance is essentially its own supposit. So it was not inappropriate to enter into some Aristotle exegesis since you made a claim about Aristotle’s views. Nevertheless, my motive was primarily to see if I could (indirectly) address your question by challenging your set up. Even if I was mistaken, it does not follow that I was ignoring your question.)
    I thought that it was dialectically legitimate to assert B given our agreement that a primary substance can be considered in abstraction from its accidents. Thus considered it plays the role of matter. By itself this is not enough to get my conclusion, but I didn’t think I was begging the question. I see now that I have more to think about on this topic.
    Lastly, at least as a matter of Aristotle exegesis, your first premise is controversial. Many Aristotle scholars now question the characterization of ontological basicness in terms of a capacity for independent existence. Interestingly, they do so because of their agreement with you that a primary substance cannot exist without having any accidents. Because of that, they believe that ontological basicness is not a matter of capacity for independent existence, since otherwise primary substances would fail to be ontologically basic. But this is a question of Aristotle exegesis, and you have stated your intention to avoid this. Since I have nothing else to say about your first premise, I will leave the matter where it stands.

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  2. BV Avatar
    BV

    John,
    I now see that you were not ignoring my central question. Sorry.
    >>I thought that it was dialectically legitimate to assert B given our agreement that a primary substance can be considered in abstraction from its accidents. Thus considered it plays the role of matter.<< Yes, but only if there are accidental unities or what Frank Lewis calls accidental compounds such as seated-Socrates. Is this not a disputed point? Lewis rightly notes that accidental compounds are "cross-categorical hybrids" belonging to no single category. Seated-Socrates does not belong to the category of substance but also does not belong to any non-substance category. Suppose there are no such 'kooky' objects as accidental unities as Gareth Mathews calls them. Then Socrates in abstraction from his accidents is a hylomorphic compound of prime matter and substantial form. A logically prior question, then, is whether we are multiplying entities beyond necessity when we posit accidental unities.

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  3. BV Avatar
    BV

    Well, if we stick to the Categories, then surely my (1) is correct. But there is more to Aristotle than that book.
    >>Many Aristotle scholars now question the characterization of ontological basicness in terms of a capacity for independent existence. Interestingly, they do so because of their agreement with you that a primary substance cannot exist without having any accidents.<< I suppose the idea is that it is necessary that a substance have some accidents or other; hence substances are as dependent on accidents as accidents on substances. But take a particular accident, being pale. It depends on Socrates, but Socrates does not depend on it. Now if each of S's accidents is like that, then we can say that substances are more o-basic than accidents because the set of accidents of a substance S depends on S, but S does not depend on that very set.

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  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    Now consider a ‘proper accident.’ A is a proper accident of S iff A inheres in S at every time at which S exists and in every world at which S exists.
    It seems intuitively obvious to me that A depends for its existence on A but not vice versa. So, S is more o-basic than A.

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  5. BV Avatar
    BV

    Read ‘S’ for the second occurrence of ‘A’ in the second sentence of the immediately preceding comment.

    Reply
  6. BV Avatar
    BV

    You’re right, you weren’t ignoring my question. Sorry.
    >>I thought that it was dialectically legitimate to assert B given our agreement that a primary substance can be considered in abstraction from its accidents.<< Correct me if I am wrong, but you think of a substance together with its accidents as an accidental unity or "accidental compound" (Frank Lewis). Right? But such unities/compounds are "cross-categorical hybrids" (Lewis). That is, they belong neither to the category of substance nor to any of the non-substance categories. By contrast, I am thinking of a substance together with its accidents as a member of the category of substance. Perhaps here is the root of our disagreement. My claim is that if primary substances are ontologically basic, then (i) they cannot be accidental unities, and (ii) they cannot be bereft of accidents.

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  7. John Avatar
    John

    Some scholars (e.g., Phil Corkum) have questioned your premise 1 in the context of the Categories. In that book Aristotle tells us that if there were no primary substances there would not be any other entities (e.g., secondary substances, non-substantial universals, and non-substantial individuals). Nevertheless, there could not be a primary substance without there also being some of these other entities: Socrates, for example, could not exist without the species and genus *man* and *animal*.
    I have some views about how to understand ontological basicness in the Categories, but I don’t wish to publicize them here since they will likely be relevant to the first chapter of my dissertation, and for professional reasons I don’t need my views accessible to Google (especially on a well-trafficked site such as yours). If you’re interested in them, I’d be happy to continue that conversation over email.
    I do think you’re correct that the root of our disagreement is that you think of a substance with its accidents as a member of the category of substance whereas I, like Lewis, think of it is a cross-categorical hybrid. (Related: Lewis is coming out with a new book on Metaphysics Zeta this month.) I’ll have to think more about your last two claims.

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  8. BV Avatar
    BV

    Your first paragraph gets at a different problem than we have discussed so far: if Socrates has ontological ‘parts’ such as prime matter and substantial form, then he depends on them for his existence, in which case he can’t be ontologically basic. Aquinas deals with this problem by saying that matter and form are nonsubsistent ‘principles’ but I’ve never understood what exactly that comes to.
    And then there is the problem of materia prima, which, because it is formless, can’t exist . . . and yet must exist . . . .

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