Substance
As human beings we have the capabilities of thought and reasoning, which is why we have evolved the way we have. However one can never be to sure that what we think and what we reason is really truth. And that idea can lead a person asking certain questions; What is the nature of existence? What is the nature of reality and it’s principles? but then more questions follow within These; What are we touching? What are we looking at? What are these things interfering and altering our lives? Are they the same in reality as they are in our mind? What are these substances? Are they even substances? If they are real then why are they, and what are they? Many great philosophers tackled these questions. Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Berkeley. All of them came up with an idea of what substance is.
Plato’s whole idea of the forms are what would be considered substance. The form is the standard pattern or ideal model of the object or action that’s being named or mentioned. In order to understand the natural world and or the material world, we need to associate them with the substance we find in the intelligible world. Sensory perception attends merely to a thing's superficial appearance, and is therefore worthless for comprehending the world. These forms are required not only to comprehend the material world, but even to understand language itself. These forms of substance are a good way of explaining what we understand of the natural and material world.
Aristotle refuted Plato’s idea of the forms. He felt that the forms caused neither movement nor change, nor helped to understand what is real and what is knowable. Aristotle presents the concept of substance in his work “The Categories”. He states that substance is the fusion of matter and form. Matter is that out of which the substance arises and form is that into which the matter develops. In building a table, the wood, nails, etc., are the matter. The idea of a table is the form, and the construction is the fusion, and the end result is the substance.
Rene Descartes started out doubting everything. For Descartes, reason was both the foundation and guide for pursuing truth. He wanted to fulfill some certainty into his life. Therefore he started fresh. He rejected everything he had been taught. He rejected God, the Church, Aristotle, all the othe...
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...ike our mind is thinking off predictions of what the spirit is creating.
All come up with clear ideas of what substance is. The first two relate substance to intelligible ideas through the mind. The last three relate substance all through God and perception. The philosopher that I can come close to agreeing with is Aristotle. I can agree that substance is the creation of our own thoughts and works. I cannot relate to the idea of god creating everything and he being the reason for everything. I believe things are what they are without any reason. I don’t see why there has to be one. I am what I am and that’s all there is to it, however I enjoy the fact that my mind can expand to newer and brighter ideas, so maybe I may think differently in time and experience.
Works Cited
1.The Internet encyclopedia of Philosophy 1997
Rene Descartes (http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/d/descarte.htm)
2.The Ethics (1677) by Benedict de Spinoza Scanned and proof-read by Edward A. Beach, Department of Philosophy and Religion, University of. Evansville (http://www.knuten.liu.se/~bjoch509/)
3.Levenson, Carl; Jonathan Westphal. Reality. Indianapolis, Indiana Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 1994
He argues that non-physical forms or ideas represent the most accurate reality. There exists a fundamental opposition between in the world like the object as a concrete, sensible object and the idea or concept of the objects. Forms are typically universal concepts. The world of appearance corresponds to the body. The world of truth corresponds with the soul. According to Plato, for any conceivable thing or property there is a corresponding Form, a perfect example of that or property is a tree, house, mountain, man, woman, Table and Chair, would all be examples of existing abstract perfect Ideas. Plato says that true and reliable knowledge rests only with those who can comprehend the true reality behind the world of everyday experience. In order to perceive the world of the Forms, individuals must undergo a difficult
Berkeley’s Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous is an argument between the Cartesian thinker Hylas and the Berkelean Philonous. In the first of these dialogues, Berkley argues that the Cartesian notion of substance is incoherent and that the word "matter" as Descartes uses it is meaningless.
Montaigne and Descartes both made use of a philosophical method that focused on the use of doubt to make discoveries about themselves and the world around them. However, they doubted different things. Descartes doubted all his previous knowledge from his senses, while Montaigne doubted that there were any absolute certainties in knowledge. Although they both began their philosophical processes by doubting, Montaigne doubting a constant static self, and Descartes doubted that anything existed at all, Descartes was able to move past that doubt to find one indubitably certainty, “I think, therefore I am”.
Plato’s view on existence can be understood by discussing his theory of Forms. The theory of Forms or Ideas is about the existence of ideas in higher form of reality, the existence of a reality inhabited by forms of all things and concepts. Plato used example of objects such as table and rock and concepts like Beauty and Justice to illustrate the notion of Forms. Plato further describes Forms as a being possessed by concepts. For example, Virtue has different characters; but they all have a common nature which makes them virtuous.
For millennia, human beings have pondered the existence of supreme beings. The origin of this all-too-human yearning for such divine entities stems in part from our desire to grasp the truth of the cosmos we inhabit. One part of this universe physically surrounds us and, at the end of our lives, consumes us entirely, and so we return from whence we came. Yet there is another, arguably more eternal, part of the cosmos that, in some ways, is separable from the transient, material world we so easily perceive, but that, in other ways, is inextricably linked to it by unexplored, divinable forces. The argument of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is not that this worldview is provable or disprovable; the mere fact we are able to reason about abstract objects without having to perceive them is evidence enough of this order.
Meanwhile, Aristotle's hylomorphism is necessary here, however, in that he would like to be able to explain how living things are generated and change and grow. “For Aristotle this is the matter. Matter can take on new forms some of which are accidental while some our essential”. It is clear from this quote that Aristotle means something very different by his use of Forms. While Plato believed Forms were universal truths that can only be truly known to the immortal soul, Aristotle believed the Forms to be fully knowable through investigation unlike Plato's theory, “which sees individual things in this world as somehow participating in the unchanging world of the Forms, has difficult with explaining how thing...
Descartes and Spinoza appear to hold different perceptions in regard to the existence of substance. However, both scholars have some comparable perceptions of the same in some aspects. They both refer to God as the primary substance. One thing that both Spinoza and Descartes seem to agree in general is the definition of substance. According to Spinoza, a substance is nothing but a thing that subsists in a manner that it does not depend on any other thing for its survival. In the introduction of his work, Ethics, Spinoza illustrates substance as 'what it is conceived through itself and in itself'. He elaborated this to mean that a substance does not require a sense of anything else to exist, which also seem to coincide with Aristotle's interpretations of how a substance exists, that it is independent of all other things. (1).
Plato: For today’s class Aristotle and I are going to discuss our ideas on the Theory of Form
The arguments are vast and wide spread. There are still many other philosophers out there who have weighed in on this problem who were not able to be covered in this paper. As you can now clearly see each of these three philosophers had a discourse between one another through their own works in which they tried to reconcile the issues that arose in the others. Interestingly all of these philosophers used God in quite different ways in order to make their argument fit their needs. They also all addressed the idea of substances in different ways, taking it to mean different things. Thus in conclusion neither Descartes, Spinoza, nor Leibniz have arguments that I agree on. Each one has its strong points and its weak points. By tweaking each argument I made them better fit my own understanding and beliefs.
According to Plato, his Theory of Forms states perfection only lives in the realm of thought. There only exists one of every ideal and the rest is just a copy. This one creation is called a form, the most flawless representation of an idea. In the physical world everything is a copy of these forms and all copies are imperfect. Plato believed in two worlds; the intelligible world and the illusionistic world. The intelligible world is where everything is unchanging and eternal. We can only grasp the intelligible world with our mind. It is the world of ideas and not senses. A place where there are perfect forms of the things we know on Earth. According to Plato everything in the world we live in is an illusion. All objects are only shadows of their true forms. His theory further states every group of objects that have the same defying properties must have an ideal form. For example, in the class of wine glasses there must be one in particular that is the ideal wine glass. All others would fall under this ideal form.
Rene Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher believed that the origin of knowledge comes from within the mind, a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. His Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations (1641) contain his important philosophical theories. Intending to extend mathematical method to all areas of human knowledge, Descartes discarded the authoritarian systems of the scholastic philosophers and began with universal doubt. Only one thing cannot be doubted: doubt itself. Therefore, the doubter must exist. This is the kernel of his famous assertion Cogito, ergo sum (I am thinking, therefore I am existing). From this certainty Descartes expanded knowledge, step by step, to admit the existence of God (as the first cause) and the reality of the physical world, which he held to be mechanistic and entirely divorced from the mind; the only connection between the two is the intervention of God.
In terms of reality and being, there are many different parts. By looking through matters of ideas, altered perception and virtual realities, we have explored the parts of philosophy that prove to be complicated, yet interesting. Plato and Aristotle were both dead set on the idea that things should be seen as they actually are, and that humans perceptions on reality will always be different than what actually is. Because each person works differently and processes things differently, we are led to believe that reality is also different for each
Furrow, Dwight. Ethics- Key Concepts In Philosophy. New York, NY: Continuum, 2005. Print. 20 Oct. 2011
In the world of philosophy there are many theory’s that talk about the nature of reality and substance. Right now in the world there are four theories that out show the other ones. These theories are materialism/ physicalism, idealism, transcendental idealism, and dualism. Each one of these theories have good arguments that support their believes, but at the same time they also have their weakness. That is why none of these four theories can be taken off the list of the top 4. Because even though they have their own weakness they have their strong points that make u in a sense think about why that theory is the right one when it comes to the nature of reality and substance.
Plato is one of the most important people in the history of Philosophy. Throughout his life, he had made many contributions to the world of philosophy, but the most important contribution that he is most known for is his theory of the Ideas or Forms. Throughout his many works such as the Phaedo and Symposium, he presented his theory of Ideas by using both mythos and logos in his argument for support.