Back Cover Blurb
- Substance has been a leading idea in the history of Western philosophy. Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz explain the nature and existence of individual substances, including both living things and inanimate objects. Specifically written for students new to this important and often complex subject, Substance provides both the historical and contemporary overview of the debate.
- Great philosophers of the past, such as Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Locke, and Berkeley were profoundly interested in the concept of substance. And, the authors argue, a belief in the existence of substances is an integral part of our everyday world view. But what constitutes substance? Was Aristotle right to suggest that artefacts like tables and ships don't really exist?
- Substance: Its Nature and Existence is one of the first non-technical, accessible guides to this central problem and will be of great use to students of metaphysics and philosophy.
Book Comment
Routledge, London, 1997
"Shalkowski (Scott A.) - Review of Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz 'Substance: Its Nature and Existence'"
Source: Mind - 107/428 (October 1998)
Paper Comment
Review of "Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - Substance: Its Nature and Existence".
"Zimmerman (Dean) - Review of Hoffman & Rosenkrantz's 'Substance: Its Nature and Existence'"
Source: Philosophical Review 108.1, Jan. 1999, pp. 118-122
Author’s Introduction
- This book addresses two basic questions:
- (1) What is the proper philosophical analysis of the concept of substance? and
- (2) What kinds of compound substances are there?
The second question is mainly addressed by asking what relations among objects are necessary and sufficient for their coming to compose a larger whole.
- The first 72 pages of the book contain a short history of attempts to answer the first question, and a brief presentation of the analysis the authors defend at length in their earlier book, Substance Among Other Categories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
- In the remaining 119 pages, the authors take up the second question. This order of presentation makes sense; but it may help to create a false impression – in those who only glance at the first few pages – that this book is just a simplified version of the earlier one, with a little bit of history thrown in.
- It would be quite unfortunate, however, if very many potential readers get this impression; for it might discourage them from looking closely at the bulk of the book, which is new.
- The issues discussed in the later chapters are at the center of one of the most lively debates in contemporary metaphysics; and the position Hoffman and Rosenkrantz stake out is appealing and carefully articulated. Their views deserve careful attention from philosophers working on the metaphysics of persistence through time, personal identity, artifact identity, and mereology.
Paper Comment
"Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - Substance: Its Nature and Existence - Preface & Introduction"
Source: Hoffman & Rosenkrantz - Substance: Its Nature and Existence, Introduction. pp. 1-8
Sections
- Substance and Folk Ontology
- Kinds of Physical Substance
- The Concept of a Spiritual Substance
- Skepticism about Substance
"Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - The Concept of Substance in History"
Source: Hoffman & Rosenkrantz - Substance: Its Nature and Existence, Chapter 1, pp. 9-42
Sections
- Two Aristotelian Theories: Substance as that Which Can Undergo Change and as which is Neither Said-of nor In a Subject
- Substratum and Inherence Theories of Substance
- Independence Theories of Substance
- Cluster Theories of Substance
"Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - An Independence Theory of Substance"
Source: Hoffman & Rosenkrantz - Substance: Its Nature and Existence, Chapter 2, pp. 43-72
Sections
- Some Difficulties for an Independence Theory of Substance
- Ontological Categories
- Substance
- Properties and Tropes
- Places, Times and Limits
- Events
- Privation
- Collections
- Other Categories
"Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - On the Unity of the Parts of Mereological Compounds"
Source: Hoffman & Rosenkrantz - Substance: Its Nature and Existence, Chapter 3, pp. 73-90
Sections
- Kinds of Compound Physical Things and their Unity
- Two Senses of “Substance”
- Skepticism about the Commonsense View of Compound Objects
- Preliminary Data for Analyses of Unity
- An Analysis of the Unity of a Mereological Compound
"Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - On the Unity of the Parts of Organisms"
Source: Hoffman & Rosenkrantz - Substance: Its Nature and Existence, Chapter 4. pp. 91-149
Sections
- The Concept of Organic Life
- Organisms and Aristotelian Functions
- What is the Causal Relation that Unites the Parts of an Organism?
- Aristotle’s Account of Unity
- Evolution, Natural Selection, and Natural Function
- The Emergence of Life and Natural Function
- An Account of and Natural Function
- The Degree of Naturalness of an Individual’s Life-Processes
- Vital Parts and Joint and Natural Functions
- Regulation and Functional Subordination
- A Preliminary Analysis of Unity
- A Final Analysis of Unity
- Functional Connectedness1 among Basic Biotic Parts
- Nonbasic Biotic Parts
- Problem Cases
"Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - What Kinds of Physical Substances are there?"
Source: Hoffman & Rosenkrantz - Substance: Its Nature and Existence, Chapter 5, pp. 150-187
Sections
- Atoms, Mereological Compounds, and Ordinary Physical Objects
- The Problem of Increase
- Another Conundrum: Does Mereological Increase Imply that a Thing is a Proper Part of Itself?
- The Problem of the Ship of Theseus1
- The Scientific Argument against the Reality of Artifacts and Typical Natural Formations
- The Explosion of Reality: a Population Explosion for Living Things?
- Is there a Principle of Composition for Physical Things?
"Hoffman (Joshua) & Rosenkrantz (Gary) - Organisms and Natural Kinds"
Source: Hoffman & Rosenkrantz - Substance: Its Nature and Existence, Appendix. Pp. 188-191
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