Ontology Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Substances === The category of ''substances'' has played a central role in many ontological theories throughout the history of philosophy.<ref name="kim">{{cite book |last1=Kim |first1=Jaegwon |last2=Sosa |first2=Ernest |last3=Rosenkrantz |first3=Gary S. |title=A Companion to Metaphysics |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/KIMACT-9 |chapter=substance|year=1994 }}</ref><ref name="Robinson"/> "Substance" is a technical term within philosophy not to be confused with the more common usage in the sense of chemical substances like gold or sulfur. Various definitions have been given but among the most common features ascribed to substances in the philosophical sense is that they are ''particulars'' that are ''ontologically independent'': they are able to exist all by themselves.<ref name="Borchert2"/><ref name="kim"/> Being ontologically independent, substances can play the role of ''fundamental entities'' in the ''ontological hierarchy''.<ref name="Tahko"/><ref name="Robinson">{{cite web |last=Robinson |first=Howard |title=Substance |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2020}}</ref> If 'ontological independence' is defined as including ''causal independence'', then only self-caused entities, like Spinoza's God, can be substances. With a specifically ontological definition of 'independence', many everyday objects like books or cats may qualify as substances.<ref name="Borchert2"/><ref name="kim"/> Another defining feature often attributed to substances is their ability to ''undergo changes''. Changes involve something existing ''before'', ''during'', and ''after'' the change. They can be described in terms of a persisting substance gaining or losing properties, or of ''matter'' changing its ''form''.<ref name="kim" /> From this perspective, the ripening of a tomato may be described as a change in which the tomato loses its greenness and gains its redness. It is sometimes held that a substance can have a property in two ways: ''[[Essence|essentially]]'' and ''accidentally''. A substance can survive a change of ''accidental properties'', but it cannot lose its ''essential properties'', which constitute its nature.<ref name="Robinson"/><ref name="Robertson">{{cite web |last1=Robertson Ishii |first1=Teresa |last2=Atkins |first2=Philip |title=Essential vs. Accidental Properties |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2020}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page