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Locke's Doctrine of Substance*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
In this paper I intend to discuss a series of views about substance. I take as my starting point certain things locke says about substance, argue that there are a number of logico-linguistic pecularities in his view, claim that the basic intuition is correct but that locke's final pronouncements are wrong, canvass three other possible but incorrect attempts to accommodate this correct intuition, and then sketch what I take to be the proper way to embrace the intuition. Finally I indicate what changes in lockean doctrine would be needed if Locke wanted to hold (what I think is) the correct doctrine of substance. My conclusion is: not many.
The places where Locke is most explicit about his views on substance are the Letters to Stillingfleet. The value of these letters as against Locke views in the Essay has been sometimes depreciated, but it seems clear that the views expressed in the Letters are merely a making explicit the views held in the Essay.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 4: New Essays on Rationalism and Empiricism , 1978 , pp. 121 - 140
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 1978
Footnotes
*
The present paper grew out of my comments on C.B.Martin's “Substance Substantiated”, both presented at a Locke Workshop, Univ. of Alberta, in October 1975. References in the text to Martin are to this paper. I thank Martin for his remarks on my comments and for his encouragement. I also thank Jonathan Bennett, Brian Cooney, Michael Ayers, and Charles Jarrett for their comments on an earlier draft.
References
1 References to these letters are to the pagination in Tegg's (1823) edition of Locke: Works vol. iv, as reprinted by Scientia Verlag Aalen (1963). The references to Essay Concerning Human Understanding are to Yolton's (1961) Everyman Library edition by Book, Chapter, and Section.
2 As by Jonathan Bennett Locke, Berkeley, Hume p.61: “ …is Locke likely to have been less clear and candid in his magnum opus than in his letters to a touchy and not very intelligent bishop?“
3 Martin's paper is especially clear and convincing on this point. Mabbott John Locke (London: 1973) Chapt. 3 takes the position that the Essay left a number of things unclear, most of which concerning substance were queried by Stillingfleet, thereby forcing a decision on Locke's part that he may not have explicitly made before.
4 Both remarks are contained in Fraser's comment on the end of II xxiii 2 in his edition of the Essay.
5 However, many moderns would make this caveat: if one decides that there is no idea (meaning) to be ascribed to ‘substance', then one cannot go on to suppose that there is (or isn't) any of the stuff in the world. vide Bennett op.cit. p. 62.
6 loc.cit.
7 Letter 1 pp. 5-8 and passim; see also Letter 3 p.448f and various letters to Molyneux (Works vol. ix) in which Locke and Molyneux are anxious to distinguish “logic” (conceptual analysis) from “metaphysics”.
8 I do not wish to be taken here or elsewhere as saying that Locke's ideas are always what we would call concepts. In fact they are not. But some clearly are; and, as I hope to show, ideas of substance are.
9 This distinction and these relationships are discussed more fully in my “NonSingular Reference: Some Preliminaries” Philosophia 1975. In both that paper and in R.X.Ware “Some Bits and Pieces” Synthese 1975, it is argued that the kinds of relationships possible are innumerable. Ware's conclusion, but not mine, is that therefore the mass/count distinction yields nothing of any real interest. One might have further queries on why ‘metal’ should be considered “basically mass with a related ‘kinds of’ count sense”, while ‘chicken’ is considered ambiguous. I skip lightly over these problems, acceding here to common (linguistic) usage; I argue in the Philosophia paper that there is no theoretical distinction to be made.
10 The use of ‘one’ here is perhaps peculiar— after all, the use of ‘substance’ is mass and equivalent to ‘substratum in general'. I use it here for emphasis, although I should add that it has the sanction of modern writers who would claim that the mass term ‘water’ denotes “one scattered object”, “one mereological whole”, or “one fusion”. (By respectively, Quine, W.V.Word and Object (MIT: 1960) p. 92Google Scholar; Moravcsik, J.M.E. “The Problem of Mass Terms in English” in Hintikka, Jaakko, Moravcsik, J.M.E., and Suppes, PatrickApproaches to Natural Language (Reidel: 1973Google Scholar); and Tyler Burge “Truth and Mass Terms” jour. Phil. 1972). The apparent pecularity is resolved when it is realized that, in addition to its role in the counting-series, ‘one’ has also the use wherein it denies the very applicability of counting.
11 William Carroll (1705) “Remarks upon Mr. Clarke's Sermons, Preached at St. Paul's against Hobbs, Spinoza, and other Atheists” and (1706) “A Dissertation upon the Tenth Chapter of the Fourth Book of Mr. Locke's Essay … Wherein the Author's Endeavours to Establish Spinoza's Atheistical Hypothesis, more especially in that Tenth Chapter, are Discover'd and Confuted”. Both are quoted in Yolton, JohnJohn Locke and the Way of Ideas (Oxford: 1956) pp.144- 145.Google Scholar
12 The mind—being every day informed by the senses of the alteration of those simple ideas it observes in things without; and taking notice how one comes to an end, and ceases to be, and another begins to exist which was not before; reflecting also on what passes within itself, and observing a constant change of its ideas, sometimes by the impression of outward objects on the senses, and sometimes by the determination of its own choice; and concluding from what it has so constantly observed to have been, that the like changes will for the future be made in the same things, by like agents, and by the like ways—considers in one thing the possibility of having any of its simple ideas changed, and in another the possibility of making that change; and so comes by that idea which we call power …. [T]he power we consider is in reference to the change of perceivable ideas. For we cannot observe any alteration to be made in, or operation upon anything, but by the observable change of its sensible ideas, nor conceive any alteration to be made but by conceiving a change of some of its ideas. (II xxi 1)
Our idea therefore of power, I think, may well have a place amongst other simple ideas and be considered as one of them, … (II xxi 3)
The mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great number of the simple ideas conveyed in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its own operations, takes notice also that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together; which, being presumed to belong to one thing, and words being suited to common apprehensions and made use of for quick dispatch, are called, so united in one subject, by one name; which, by inadvertency, we are apt afterward to talk of and consider as one simple idea, which indeed is a complication of many ideas together: because, as I have said, not imagining how these simpte ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result; which therefore we call substance. (II xxiii 1)
An obscure and relative idea of substance in general being thus made, we come to have the ideas of particular sorts of substances …. (II xxiii 3)
I do not see any differences in the first sections of each of these chapters which would justify the drastic differences between the third sections.
13 I take it this is the primary function of ‘qua’ in these formulae: water qua lake does, it seems, “divide into instances” as would substance qua man. But water qua water or substance qua substance seems not to.
14 Haecceity: The status of being an individual of a particular nature. Specifically, what makes something to be an ultimate reality different from any other.
15 R, Woolhouse. Locke's Philosophy of Science and Knowledge (Oxford: 1971). P.67.Google Scholar
16 op.cit. p.29.
17 Let me reemphasize the difference between this argument and the ontological one. The latter argument goes like this: “In reality, there are qualities such as redness, roundness, sweetness, solidity, etc. It is impossible that the mere occurrence of these qualities should constitute any object. Indeed, the mere occurrence of but one property demands a something in which it is grounded or inheres.” This metaphysical argument can be found at various places in the Letters, e.g., p. 133; as can the conceptual version. An unfortunate blending of the two can also be found in Letter 3, p.447:
… as long as there is any simple idea, or sensible quality left, according to my way of arguing, substance cannot be discarded: because all simple ideas, all sensible qualities carry with them a supposition of a substratum to exist in, and a substance wherein they inhere …
18 Sometimes in the Essay (especially at II xxiii 1,2) Locke would like us to take our idea of substratum as a “supposition”, but it is apparently his final position that the idea is derived from “reason”. See especially the Letters; note ‘imply', 'proof', ‘necessary connection', and ‘inconsistent’ in the following:
… by ‘carrying with them a supposition', I mean, according to the ordinary import of the phrase, that sensible qualities imply a substratum to exist in. (447)
We experiment in ourselves thinking. The idea of this action or mode of thinking is inconsistent with the idea of self-subsistence and therefore has a necessary connection with a support or subject of inhesion: the idea of that support is what we call substance; and so from thinking experimented in us, we have a proof of a thinking substance in us, … (p.33)
19 It must be admitted though in the text that Locke does not always stick to his official doctrine as quoted in the text here. For example, later in II xxiii 3 he gives the Bennett argument; the ontological version of the argument occurs throughout the Letters; and this might indicated some confusion on his part as to whether he is operating with the “decomposition” picture or the “constitution” picture. The only place I know where he addresses himself to the question is in a letter to Bold (May 16, 1699)
…I agree with you, that the ideas of the modes and actions of substances are usually in our minds before the idea of substance itself; but in this I differ from you, that I do not think the ideas of the operations of things are antecedent to the ideas of their existence, for they must exist before they can any way affect us, or make us sensible of their operations, and we must suppose them to be before they operate. (Works, vol. x, p. 320)
20 I think it's clear that the variables of ordinary quantification theory are to be taken to range over such entities: (a) Syntactically, monadic claims are made by concatenating a predicate to an entirely unspecified subject, x; (b) when we quantify over such an open formula, the variables range over all that is, totally apart from how they are characterized; (c) the theory of identity forces us to admit formulae such as ‘x = y’ as meaningful, and sentences such as ‘(x)(Ey)x = y' as either true or false; (d) the semantics of first order theories takes satisfaction to be a relation between a formula and model that has a domain of individuals which are completely unspecified except to say that they are distinct from one another and could have any formula truly characterize any of them. The only outlook on such claims I can see which will do all four things with equanimity is one which treats the variables as taking bare particulars as valves and “draping“ properties on them.
21 Locke also found the notion of bare particular difficult for these reasons (although perhaps he shouldn't have, given that he is forced by his own arguments to embrace them). See Letter 2, p.174.
Let us understand, if we can, what is the difference between things. Barely as several individuals in the same common nature, all other differences laid aside Truly, said I, this I cannot conceive.
22 I use here the translation of the New Essays by Langley, A.G. (Open Court: 1949).Google Scholar
23 B.Russell Inquiry into Meaning and Truth pp.120ff; Hume passim.
24 Some philosophers seem to think this comes from Locke's doctrine of sorts. It clearly does not; Locke included, in his sorts, the designata of mass terms such as 'gold'.
25 For a summary of the difficulties and differences, see Fred Feldman “Sortal Predicates” Nous 1974.
26 One wonders whether they would say ‘crown’ was sortal, in light of the fact that what Pope Paul puts on his head consists of many smaller crowns which consist of still smaller ones. Or whether they would call ‘house’ non-sortal in light of the birdhouses which are composed of many smaller birdhouses. Or whether they would deny ‘animal’ is a sortal because of amoebas which divide or maybe because of symbiosis.
27 When sortal predicates were first “discovered” 20 years ago, there was a lot of renewed interest in Aristotle by those who thought he used the notion in his doctrine of substance. Even among those who have outgrown their youthful belief that Aristotle's substance involved what they called ‘sortals’ (of the type that Geach, Frege, Anscombe, Strawson endorse, where every countable is a sortal), there still remains the false belief that Aristotle didn't allow any mass terms to be substance indicators. And there are still some who mistakenly think that Aristotle would allow artificial things to be substances— e.g., a watch under the description ‘a watch'. See Ray Elugardo and my “Sortal Terms and Aristotle's Conception of Substance” (in preparation).
28 Quiddity: the essential nature or ultimate form of some stuff; what makes something to be the type of stuff that it is.
29 For anyone who wants to give it a try, start with Wallace, JohnPhilosophical Grammar (diss. Stanford 1964Google Scholar), a portion of which is summarized in “Sortal Quantification Theory” Jour.Phil. 1965. My dissertation (UCLA 1971), Some Problems of Non-Singular Reference Sect. IV carries this (inadequate) analysis over to mass terms. Further hints can be obtained from Richmond Thomason” A Theory of Sortal Incorrectness” Jour.Phil.Logic 1974, Smiley “Syllogism and Many-Sorted Quantification” JSL 1962, Laycock “Theories of Matter”, Bealer “Predication and Matter”, Burge “Count Terms, Mass Terms, and Change” (the last three are in Synthese 1975). Objections to the logic of various other attempts can be found in my “Some Proposals for the Semantics of Mass Terms“ Jour. Phil. Logic 1973.
30 For this semantic mirroring of the snytax so as to make the logic genuinely innovative, see Smiley op.cit. and Wallace op.cit .. As nice as it looks, the attempt in my dissertation Sect. IV is incorrect. The semantical versions of the axioms for change can be dug out of Burge op.cit.
31 A particularly clear and illuminating discussion of this distinction can be found in Laycock op.cit.