can any one interpret Individual Substance by Aristotle?

Question

can any one interpret Individual Substance by Aristotle?

Answer 1

Aristotle said "man" is predicated of the individual man. He also said that the definition of "man" will be predicated of the individual man.
Then he made a contrast. He said that if we consider things that are present in a subject, neither the name nor the definition is generally predicable of the subject, though sometimes the name itself can be.

i.e. "Mr. Smith" is a man, but "Mr. Smith" has definitions (race, appearance, language, social class, etc.) not seen in all men. However, he represents "man" by the nature of his gender.

Answer 2

This is an idea that Aristotle brings up in his book "Categories". The purpose of "Categories" is to try and develop a systematic way of describing pretty much anything, and a way of describing things that is so complete that there is no other way to do so. An ambitious project!

Aristotle decides that of all the ways we describe things, all these descriptions really have to do with just two overarching ways of describing things. These are given the confusing names of 'predication' and 'inhesion', and these two terms are ballooned out into four general descriptions based on whether it has that quality or not.

An inherent property is something that doesn't exist by itself and is an individual characteristic. Shapes and colours are good examples - a ball can be round or flat and red or blue, but you can't take the round out of the ball and put it somewhere else. Knowledge is another commonly cited one. A predicate property is a way of describing a group of things with a similar characteristic. Think of it as being a part of a group - a person can be a man, a Norwegian, or left-handed. Aristotle contrasts the two by saying something is inherent if it is 'in' something else but not part of that thing, and something is predicate if it is 'said of' that thing.

This is relevant largely because what Aristotle thinks of as 'substance' is a way of describing something that is NOT a predicate AND is NOT inherent. And that's where it gets a little mind-twisting. The substance is what you have left when you've stripped away everything that is predicate and inherent.

So if you can imagine a ball that has no colour and no shape and none of the many other ways in which we might describe a ball, what you have left is the 'substance' of the ball. Whatever that is.

The individual substance is that part of the ball substance that is UNIQUE to one particular subject. It is what makes that subject different from every other example of that subject anywhere. It cannot be reduced to any smaller parts and it is not shared with anything else.

What, exactly, that individual substance IS or if it even exists can be a matter of debate. Perhaps obviously many religious people think of the soul as that kind of individual substance. Later philosophers rejected the notion of substance in the Aristotlean sense altogether. So it goes.

Answer 3

That would be the essence of the individual... which is the "I AM," or in eastern terms, the Self.

The free online resource "Gospel Enigma" gives a good explanation of it in the latter chapters... but the whole book is well worth reading. Find it at New Free Books.

Answer 4

I think Keith Richards can