Is It Epistemically Certain That There are Substances?

Herewith, another episode in my ongoing discussion with Lukas Novak.  Here again is his list of propositions that he claims are not only true, but knowable with (epistemic as opposed to psychological) certainty:

a) God exists.
b) There are substances.
c) There are some necessary truths, even some de re necessary truths.
d) Human cognition is capable of truth and certainty.
e) There are no contradictions in reality.

I have already explained why I do not consider God exists to be certainly knowable.  I now consider whether it is certainly knowable that there are (Aristotelian primary) substances.  

We begin with the Moorean fact that there are tables and chairs, rocks and trees, cats and dogs. We may refer to such things generally as spatiotemporal meso-particulars. My work table, for example, is at a definite location in space; it has existed uninterruptedly for a long time; and it is a middle-sized object. Our question is not whether there are things like my table; our question is whether things like my table must be 'assayed' -- this useful term is from Gustav Bergmann -- as substances in the Aristotelian sense of the term.  Thus I am not using 'substance' as a stylistic variant of 'spatiotemporal meso-particular.' Such a use would be a misuse by my standards of rigor and would paper over the legitimate question whether tables and cats and such must be understood in terms of an ontology of substances.

It might be that there are tables and cats, but no substances. But if there are substances, then tables and cats are paradigm examples of them.

My thesis is not that there are no substances, but that it is not epistemically certain that there are.  Here is one consideration among several.

Persistence

My beautiful oak table has been around a long time. I reckon it came into existence in the early '80s. It will surely outlast me before passing out of existence.  Numerical sameness over the temporal interval of its existence is a Moorean fact. Its diachronic identity is a datum. Let us say that the table has persisted for a long time.  This word is 'datanic' as I like to say and thus theoretically neutral. I use it simply to record the datum, the Moorean fact, about which there can be no reasonable dispute, that the table has remained in existence, numerically one and the same, over a long period of time.

So far, I have been doing 'proto-philosophy.'  I have been collecting and commenting upon  some obvious data.  I have not yet asked a specifically philosophical question or made a specifically philosophical assertion.  

Perdurance or Endurance?

We get to philosophical questions when we ask: In what way does my table persist? How exactly is persistence to be understood?  What is the nature of persistence? The question is not whether tables and cats persist; the question is what it is to persist.  The question is not whether there are persistents; of course there are. The question is: What is persistence?

Now we come to a fork in the road.  Two very different theories obtrude themselves upon our attention. Does a thing persist by being wholly present at each time at which it exists, or does a thing persist by merely having a proper part that is present at each time at which the thing exists?

Perdurance

Suppose the latter. Then we say that the table persists by perduring, where the latter term is theoretical unlike the pre-theoretical or datanic persists. If the table persists by perduring, then it is a whole of temporal parts with different such parts at different times. This implies that at no time during its existence is the whole table temporally present.  On the perdurance scheme, tables and cats and such are four-dimensional entities, space-time worms if you will.  If this is right, then the difference between a table and a process such as a fire is not categorially deep but superficial and a matter of how we conceptualize things.

Our natural tendency is to think of a house and a fire that consumes a house as very different, so different as to constitute a categorial difference.  We are not inclined to call a house a process or an extended event; but we do not hesitate to call a fire a process or an extended event. A fire has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It unfolds over time and can be said to have temporal parts. It is not wholly present at each time at which it exists.  It becomes present bit by bit. It is spread out in time as well as in space. When we observe a fire we are not observing the whole of it but only its present phase.  It is natural to speak of fires and storms and wars and plays as having phases. It is not natural to speak of houses and soldiers as having phases.

On the perdurance view, however, there is no fundamental categorial difference between the house and the fire. Both persist in the same way, by perduring with different temporal parts present at different times. Both have both spatial and temporal parts. Both are 4-D objects.

Endurance

On the other theory, the table persists by enduring, where the latter term is also theoretical.  If my table is an endurant, then it is not a whole of temporal parts. It does not have temporal parts at all. It is wholly present at each time at which it exists.  It is nothing like a process.  When I look at my table I see the whole of it, not the current phase of it.

What is it for a thing to be wholly present at each moment of its existence?  One can understand it negatively: it means that the thing is not a whole of temporal parts. What does it mean positively? 

Persons may provide a clue. I regret things I did long ago, things that I did, not things some earlier self or earlier person-slice of me did.  I cannot shake the thought that I am numerically the same as the person who did those regrettable things. Connected with this is my conviction that my guilt is in no way diminished by the passage of time as it would be if I were a diachronic collection of person-slices as on a perdurantist view.  My conviction is that I have persisted by enduring, not by perduring. 

Of course, my psychological conviction does not prove that endurantism is true of persons, but it does help explain what it means for persons to be endurants as opposed to perdurants.

In the case of persons we can say that to be wholly present at every time at which the person exists is to be a substance that is 'there' at every moment beneath the flux of experiences and the flux of bodily changes as the self-same substrate of these psychological and physical changes. 

If  there are substances, then perdurantism is false, and endurantism is true

I have just sketched two theories of the persistence of material meso-particulars. Both theories go well beyond the Moorean fact of persistence.  Each has its arguments pro et contra. We needn't worry about these arguments here. The fact of persistence is such that if you deny it then you are legitimately labelled 'crazy.' But there is nothing crazy about questioning the perdurance and endurance theories.

The important point for present purposes is that theose who claim that there are Aristotelian primary substance are opting for endurantism.  Finally, my argument against Dr. Novak.

My Argument

a) It is epistemically certain that there are substances if and only if it is epistemically certain that endurantism is true.

b) It is not epistemically certain that endurantism is true.

Therefore

c) It is not epistemically certain that there are substances.

Related articles

Are Any Substantive Philosophical Propositions Epistemically Certain?

Disagreement in Philosophy: Notes on Jiří Fuchs

Comments

[Jim Soriano]

Bill,

Your thesis — there are substances, but they cannot be demonstrated with certitude — is the one I learned when I took my first steps in the garden of metaphysical delights. Substances exist, but there is something elusive in the definition.

I liked your “(p)ersons may provide a clue.” Angels are persons. They are incorporeal substances who, unlike the house and the fire, have no “spatial and temporal” parts. But, in what way, to use your question, do angels persist (if that’s the right word)? Would not the theories of perdurance and endurance apply only to corporeal creatures in a temporal world? If so, then there are some substances in the world whose existence does not depend on endurantism being true.

Not only angels, but also the separated souls of humans. Theologians call them “incomplete substances.” Do they persist or endure? I suppose on that day when all those incomplete substances get to have matter again we’ll see if there’s an epistemically certain definition for all of them there substances running around creation.

Cheers,
Jim

[BV]

Jim,

Thanks for your comments, but you didn't grasp my thesis. I take no position on whether there are substances in this entry. My thesis is that even if there are substances, it is not known with epistemic certainty that there are.

My interlocutor, Dr Lukas, maintains that (a) there are substances, and (b) that there are is knowable with certainty. I neither affirm nor deny (a), the ontological thesis, but I do deny (b), the epistemological thesis.

My concern is to oppose the dogmatism of those who confidently assert that certain knowledge is possible regarding highly controversial matters when -- if I am right -- the most one can hope for is reasonable belief.

Are angels in time or not? If they are in time, they have to persist. If they are not in time, then the endurantism vs. perdurantism question lapses.

[The London Ostrich]

Ockhamists say: if there are substances, it is known with epistemic certainty that there are.

[BV]

But why do they say that?

[The London Ostrich]

>>But why do they say that?

They are perceived. I expect you will then argue from Cartesian doubt or something like that.

[BV]

Come on, Ed. You have to do some work, and not just cut loose with a comment. You have to actually read the post. If you read it you would have seen what the argument is and why I am not invoking Cartesian/hyperbolic doubt.

[The London Ostrich]

I did read the post.

[BV]

While asleep? You obviously did not understand it. And yet it is so clear, so precise, so rigorous . . .