Re: Fwd: SUO Quo Vadis
Mark,
If you want to go to the etymology,
> what is it that makes us attach the term substance
> to, well, substance?
Aristotle's word was "ousia", which is derived from
one of the forms of "to be". He used the word
"to on" for the most general form of Being, but
he also used ousia for what was translated to Latin
as "substantia", literally, what stands under.
Aristotle also used the term _hypokeimenon_, literally
under-lying or substrate. And he also used the terms
"form" (morphos) and "matter" (hyle), and hyle itself
means wood or the material from which something is made.
All these issues have been analyzed and debated for
centuries. There are a lot of interesting points of
view on the subject. But the more perspectives and
viewpoints you get, the more likely it seems that no
single one of them can really claim to be fundamental.
That is another reason why I would recommend a framework
in which one could choose different perspectives for
different purposes.
John Sowa