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Philosophy vocabulary · Metaphysics

Substance

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

/ˈsʌbstəns/nounCommon term

In philosophy, substance means: In metaphysics, something that exists in its own right and has properties, rather than being a property of something else.

In Turkish: töz, cevher

How it is used

A key idea from Aristotle to the early modern period. Descartes recognized two kinds of created substance, mind and matter; Spinoza argued that there is only one substance, God or Nature. The everyday sense (a material, or a drug) is unrelated.

Example sentences

  1. For Spinoza, there can be only one substance, which he calls God or Nature.

  2. Descartes held that the mind is a thinking substance distinct from the body.

Common collocations

  • thinking substance
  • material substance
  • substance dualism
  • substance and attribute
  • essenceThe set of properties that make a thing what it is, without which it would not be that kind of thing at all.
  • dualismThe view that the mind and the body are fundamentally different kinds of thing, so that mental states are not simply physical states.
  • metaphysicsThe branch of philosophy that studies the basic nature of reality: what exists, what things are, and ideas such as time, cause, identity and possibility.
  • ontologyThe part of metaphysics that studies what exists and what basic kinds of things there are, such as objects, properties, events or numbers.

More terms: Metaphysics

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