[Revised entry by Howard Robinson and Ralph Weir on May 6, 2024.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, wiggins.html]
Many of the concepts analysed by philosophers have their origin in ordinary – or at least extra-philosophical – language. Perception, knowledge, causation, and mind are examples. But the concept of substance is a philosophical term of art. Its uses in ordinary language tend to derive, often in a rather distorted way, from the philosophical senses. There is an ordinary concept in play when philosophers discuss “substance”, and this, as we shall see, is the concept of object, or thing when…

Originally appeared on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Read More