Substance in Aristotelian philosophy

It is often said that Western civilization has since the Renaissance been progressively dominated by the development of science. As a result, its glamour and its successes inevitably found expression also its view of man. Instead of a totality, man is reduced to the substance and materials of which he is thought to be made. In the second half the 20th century, with the increasing impetus of globalization, even older civilizations like China and India are following closely upon the footsteps of the West. The newspapers has just announced that the GDP of China has now overtaken that of America, for long the number one economy in the world. At the basis of materialist philosophy is the idea of material or matter. What is the origin of the idea of matter or subsantce in Greek philosophy, the source of modern Western thought? Last Saturday, I attended another talk at the HKSHP by Ip Tat Leung, a Ph. D candidate at a German university. Mr. Ip is well versed in both Greek and German. In his previous talks, he frequently refers to original texts of the Greek philosophers. Last Friday's talk was no exception.

According to Yip, Aristotle's idea on "substance" is set out mainly in three of his works, Metaphysics, On Categories and Physics but partly because the Metaphysics is a rather long work and partly because it was written rather unsystemmatically over a long period of time during which Aristotle used the same word rather loosely with various different meanings in different contexts, most scholars prefer to base their opinions of Aristotle's ideas on substance or matter upon his On Categories, a much shorter and more systemmatic work which conveniently forms part of his collected works, the Organon (literally instrument). In original Greek, the word equivalent to the modern word "substance" is "ousia". This translates into the Latin essentia (or being) or substantia ( sub meaning "under" and stantia being derived from the verb standere which means "stands" such that substantia means "that which stands underneath" the appearance of things. But ousia in Greek could also mean "realty" or "immobile property", something which is always there and connotes the idea of permanence or unchanging as distinguished from other things which move or changes or are otherwise impermanent.

The word ousia was first used by Plato in his theory of forms (or ideas) and was later clarified and elaborated upon by Aristotle as "being" or something whose existence does not depend on other things. Nowadays, when we talk about "substance", what we mean is more like material or matter but originally it is closer to being or essence or existence. Originally the word ousia was used by Aristotle rather loosely meaning sometimes matter or thing and at other times being or essence.

Originally, Aristotle talks about ousia in connection with logos or how words are being used. In Aristotle's Books 2 and 4 of On Categories", he talked about various ways ousia is related to various different kinds of beings. Here there are two concepts namely "S is in P" and "S is said of P". In the first case, something S is said of P but S is not in P eg. intelligence is said of Socrates but Socrates is not in intelligence. In the second category, something S is not said of P but S is in P eg. the word "silly"  is not said of a dictionary but the word "silly" is in a dictionary. Then in a third case, S is said of P and S is also in P eg. Man is said of Socrates ( in that Socrates is a man) and Socrates is also included in the category of man . Then finally, there is a fourth category in which something S is not said of P and neither is S in P . In this case, the subject has got nothing to do with the predicate of the sentence. In the last case, that something S is ousia or substance.

Later Aristotle futher refined the concept of ousia and found that that there are a total of 10 categories of "being" or "thing"  or 10 possible categories of predicates in a sentence in the context of logos, involving two "things" in a sentence viz.

1. ousia or what Aristotle's "substance"

2. quantity (how many)

3. quality ( of what sort)

4. relative (involving the relation between two things e.g. this is double or half of that, bigger or smaller than that etc)

5. where ( eg. I am in the market place)

6. when (eg yesterday)

7. being in a physical position ( eg. I am standing, sitting)

8. having something ( e.g having shoes on )

9. acting on ( e.g. I am cutting, burning a book)

10. being acted on ( I am being tortured by the Nazis)

Of these 10 categories, only category 1 is independent of the other. Categories 2 to 9 are all dependent in one way or another on the substance or being of the first category. Therefore only category 1 things or beings can be an independent subject. He calls this "primary substance" because what is said of that category 1 substance cannot be said of any other substance and the category 1 substance is not in any other category of substance. All the other substances or beings which do not belong to category 1 substances or beings are called by him "secondary substances" (substantia or beings). In this respect, Aristotle says: all other beings are predicated of them as they are predicated of the primary substances and they are only beings which reveal the primary substances.

In Aristotle's Metaphysics, a most difficult book in which Aristotle used the same word ousia  in different contexts and thus caused a great deal of confusion amongst scholars because he was then talking in rather loose terms. But when he dealt with the problems of metaphysics and not just physics, he began to talk about ousia in terms of what he calls actuality and potentiality, using the word "energeia" ( in its old meaning and not in its present day meaning ) or actualis for something which actually happened or occurred or is materializd or realized and distinguishes it from "dynamis" ( again in its old meaning not its present day meaning) or potentia which corresponds a little to the late Plato's theory of form in which the actual or hylé (materia) is always an imperfect example of a thing's ideal form or eidos (forma) . In this context, an actual man is a specific realization of his ideal form which is his soul or the form of mankind. In this context, each primary substance signifies something here which answers the question "what?" such that this what (as this) is separable from all other whats in nature and in logos (in knowledge) ( as what). Thus matter is "that from or out of which a being comes to be and which is present in that being". In other words, "matter" is "what is spoken of in relation to itself, not as any being by which or that from /out of which a being comes to be and that which is present in that being" . Matter is "something of which the beings of each category are predicated and something whose being is different from beings of each category" and something which when all the other beings are removed, nothing but that being remains. Matter is thus in that sense the most fundamental substance upon which all other secondary beings depend.

But in the later Aristotle, he returned to his teacher Plato's "form" and thought that matter or substance (ousia) is not as final as he originally thought and that there is something which is more ultimate ie. something like the "form" or "idea" or "essence" of Plato., something more universal than the more particular beings which belong to the category of ousia or substantia.