The Review of Metaphysics

I

Picture an everyday object such as a vase. It will have certain properties. Perhaps it is pear-shaped, blue, two kilograms, and smooth. There is an important difference between the vase and its properties. The vase is objectlike. It is a thing in the strictest sense of “thing.” It is the kind of thing we naturally denote using a noun: We prefer to say “there is a vase on top of the table,” not “the top of the table is vase-ish.” The shape of the vase is unobjectlike. It is a thing only in a permissive sense of “thing.” It is the kind of thing we naturally denote using an adjective: We prefer to say, “the vase is pear-shaped,” not “the vase has a pear-shaped-ness.”

Countless other items belong in the same group as the vase: plants, animals, planets, and particles, for example. Likewise, countless other items belong in the same group as the properties of the vase: sizes, timbres, masses, and charges, for instance. The distinction between objectlike and unobjectlike things is ubiquitous. It appears to be a part of the basic structure of reality. So anyone interested in understanding the basic structure of reality should be interested in understanding this distinction.

How should we understand the distinction between objectlike and unobjectlike things? This essay defends a simple, traditional, but unpopular answer. I propose that the difference between objectlike and unobjectlike things is the difference between things that can and cannot exist by themselves. More picturesquely, objectlike things meet the minimum threshold for being. You cannot order less Château Margaux than a glass, and you cannot order less reality than an objectlike thing such as a vase.

I find the idea of something that could exist by itself as clear, simple, and vivid as any idea in philosophy. For this reason, I consider it suitable for use in our most severely rigorous theorizing. Furthermore, I think the idea of something that could exist by itself plays an important [End Page 265] part in the history of philosophy. For in my opinion, this just is Descartes’s idea of a substance, one that he takes, largely unaltered, from Aristotle. In urging that what distinguishes objectlike things is their ability to exist by themselves, I take myself to be urging that we embrace a traditional Aristotelian-Cartesian concept of substance.

I seem to be all but alone, however, both in my judgment that the idea of something that can exist by itself is clear, simple, and vivid, and in my conviction that this is what Descartes means by “substance.” In startling contrast to my view, the literature on this theme tends to present the idea of something that can exist by itself not as clear, simple, and vivid, but as incoherent. And in part for this reason, and for no other good reason I can find, commentators tend to suppose that this cannot be what Descartes means by “substance.” I hope this essay will alleviate my loneliness in both respects.

It should be clear that this essay has twin aims, one theoretical and the other historical. I defend the idea of substances as things that can exist by themselves both as a valuable tool for present-day philosophy and as an interpretation of Descartes. It is expedient to pursue these aims together because the same objection to the idea of substances as things that can exist by themselves has prevented its acceptance in both contexts. Here, as often, philosophy and the history of philosophy are most efficiently undertaken at once.

My primary objective is to defend the coherence of the idea of substances as things that can exist by themselves. I set upon that task in earnest in sections 5 and 6. But it might be helpful to sketch right away why philosophers reject the coherence of the concept of substance that I defend, and why I think they are mistaken. I discuss several examples of philosophers who reject the idea of substances as things that can exist by themselves in section 5.¹ Their principal reason [End Page 266] for doing so is that they suppose that...