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9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / e. Substance critique

[objections to the very concept of substances]

20 ideas
Substance cannot be conceived or explained to others [Gassendi on Descartes]
Descartes thinks distinguishing substances from aggregates is pointless [Descartes, by Pasnau]
We don't know what substance is, and only vaguely know what it does [Locke]
If a substance is just a thing that has properties, it seems to be a characterless non-entity [Leibniz, by Macdonald,C]
A die has no distinct subject, but is merely a name for its modes or accidents [Berkeley]
The only meaning we have for substance is a collection of qualities [Hume]
Aristotelians propose accidents supported by substance, but they don't understand either of them [Hume]
The substance, once the predicates are removed, remains unknown to us [Kant]
'Substance' is just a word for groupings and structures in experience [James]
An object produces the same percepts with or without a substance, so that is irrelevant to science [Russell]
We need not deny substance, but there seems no reason to assert it [Russell]
The assumption by physicists of permanent substance is not metaphysically legitimate [Russell]
We can escape substance and its properties, if we take fields of pure powers as ultimate [Harré/Madden]
Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil]
Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg]
A phenomenalist cannot distinguish substance from attribute, so must accept the bundle view [Macdonald,C]
When we ascribe a property to a substance, the bundle theory will make that a tautology [Macdonald,C]
Substances persist through change, but the bundle theory says they can't [Macdonald,C]
A substance might be a sequence of bundles, rather than a single bundle [Macdonald,C]
For corpuscularians, a substance is just its integral parts [Pasnau]