This research project aims to clarify Aristotle's conception of substance. Substances are the basic entities in Aristotle's ontology, which investigates what it means for each thing to exist and to be what it is. Paradigms of natural substances are individual biological organisms. According to Aristotle's so-called hylomorphism, natural substances are compounds of some matter or material substrate and a form, i.e. the way in which the matter is organised and unified into a single whole. In the case of a living thing, its form is identified with its soul, understood as a capacity for basic life functions, and the matter with its body. Aristotle speaks also of matter as a substance and of form even as substance in the primary or strict sense. A central question in Aristotle's ontology now is, what does being a substance consist in? Unfortunately, it is not clear what Aristotle's exact answer is. This is so in particular because it is not clear and controversial what two of the characteristic features of substances exactly amount to, namely being separate (χωριστὸν), i.e. being ontologically independent in some sense, and being a 'this-something' (τόδε τι), i.e. being a basic individual or something definite in some sense.
This research project addresses in particular the question of what being separate amounts to. Some scholars hold that it is about being independent in one's existence from the existence of other things (cf. e.g. Fine (1984), Wedin (2000)), others that it is about being independent in what something is, or in one's essence from what other things are (cf. e.g. Peramatzis (2011), Spellman (1995)), and others hold other, less influential views. All these interpretations prima facie face serious problems. According to one of them, the 'subject independence account' as I call it, being separate is about not being realized in or exemplified by an underlying subject or substrate. For instance, the activity of walking is not separate, because it is the kind of thing that is realized in an underlying subject, namely certain kinds of animals, while animals are separate, they have no underlying subject. This account has very good textual support and is advocated by some few, but prominent scholars (cf. e.g. Gill (1989), Berti (2012)). The reason why it has not been more influential seems to be that it entails that form is not separate from matter, since it is realized in matter as its subject, and that matter is separate, since it has no underlying subject. And these consequences are usually taken to be problematic, since they would prima facie seem to undermine Aristotle's ranking of forms as being ontologically prior to matter. A central problem underlying the controversy about separation is that there is textual evidence in Aristotle's works suggesting three different assumptions that are jointly incompatible:
(1) If X is a primary substance then X is separate.
(2) Form is a primary substance.
(3) Form is not separate.
These three assumptions constitute a dilemma about the separation of forms, namely that forms, as primary substances, should be separate, but it seems they are not separate. In response to this dilemma, (i) some scholars have argued that forms are separate after all (e.g. Peramatzis (2011), Spellman (1995)), (ii) others that forms are not separate, but then also not really substances in an ontological sense, but only in some explanatory sense (e.g. Wedin (2000), Loux (2008), Angioni (2008)); and (iii) some hold that there are different senses of being separate as a mark of substance, and forms are separate in one sense, though they fail in the other sense (e.g. Morrison (1985), Dufour (1999)). All these interpretations are open to serious objections and conflict with important textual evidence.
This research project has in particular two objectives: first, to develop an improved version of the subject independence account and to show that it does in fact not entail any problematic consequences, something that the advocates of this account have failed to do so far; and second, to explore a novel 'contextualist' approach to solve the dilemma about the separation of forms, namely by modifying assumption (1). This approach is based on Aristotle's own methodology in his discussions of substances, what I call here the 'two-context methodology'. It consists basically in the fact that Aristotle discusses substances for one within a simplified ontological framework or context, where natural substances are conceived as simple entities, and then also in a more complex framework or context, where they are conceived as compounds of matter and form. This methodology has been noted before, most influentially by Myles Burnyeat in his 'A Map of Metaphysics Z' (2001). The basic idea of this approach then is that assumption (1) above, that primary substances are separate, holds without restriction only in the simplified context, while in the complex context it does not hold in the case of forms. If so, then a form can in principle still qualify as a primary substance without being separate.
References:
Angioni, L. As Noções Aristotélicas de Substância e Êssencia. Campinas, 2008
Berti, E. Estrutura e Significado da Metafísica de Aristóteles. São Paulo 2012
Burnyeat, M. A map of Metaphysics Zeta. Pittsburgh 2001
Dufour, R. La Séparation chez Aristote. in: Les Études philosophiques, No.1 1999, 47-65
Fine, G. ‘Separation’. in: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2, 1984, 31-87
Gill, M.L. Aristotle on Substance. The Paradox of Unity. Princeton 1989
Loux, M. J. Primary Ousia. An Essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics Z and H. Ithaca/London 2008.
Morrison, D. ‘Separation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics’. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 3, 1985, 125-157
Peramatzis, M. Priority in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Oxford Aristotle’s Studies, Oxford 2011
Spellman, L. Substance and Separation in Aristotle. Cambridge, 1995
Wedin, M. Aristotle’s Theory of Substance. The Categories and Metaphysic Zeta. Oxford Aristotle Studies, New York 2000
