Substance among Other Categories

This book revives a neglected but important topic in philosophy: the nature of substance.

Joshua Hoffman (Author), Gary S. Rosenkrantz (Author)

9780521039659, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 August 2007

212 pages, 7 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.2 cm, 0.287 kg

"Substance Among Other Categories is a useful essay in contemporary metaphysics. It would make interesting reading for graduate students and philosophers interested in the question of what substance is." Charlotte Witt, The Philosophical Review

This book revives a neglected but important topic in philosophy: the nature of substance. The belief that there are individual substances, for example, material objects and persons, is at the core of our common-sense view of the world yet many metaphysicians deny the very coherence of the concept of substance. The authors develop an account of what an individual substance is in terms of independence from other beings. In the process many other important ontological categories are explored: property, event, space, time. The authors show why alternative theories of substance fail, and go on to defend the intelligibility (though not the existence) of interacting spiritual and material substances.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Substance and other categories
2. Historically prominent accounts of substance
3. Collectionist theories of substance
4. The independence criterion of substance
5. Souls and bodies
Appendix 1: the concrete-abstract distinction
Appendix 2: Continuous space and time and their parts: a defense of an Aristotelian account
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology [HPJ]