Stoicism and Spinoza, for example, hold monistic views, that pneuma or God, respectively, is the one substance in the world.
Aristotle used the term "substance" (Greek: οὐσία ousia) in a secondary sense for genera and species understood as hylomorphic forms.
Pyrrho put this as: "Whoever wants to live well (eudaimonia) must consider these three questions: First, how are pragmata (ethical matters, affairs, topics) by nature?
Pyrrho's answer is that "As for pragmata they are all adiaphora (undifferentiated by a logical differentia), astathmēta (unstable, unbalanced, not measurable), and anepikrita (unjudged, unfixed, undecidable).
[9][10] Neoplatonists argue that beneath the surface phenomena that present themselves to our senses are three higher spiritual principles or hypostases, each one more sublime than the preceding.
John Locke views substance through a corpuscularian lens where it exhibits two types of qualities which both stem from a source.
The apple itself is also "pure substance in which is supposed to provide some sort of 'unknown support' to the observable qualities of things"[vague] that the human mind perceives.
Locke rejects Aristotle's category of the forms, and develops mixed ideas about what substance or "first essence" means.
These qualities are then used to group the substances into different categories that "depend on the properties [humans] happen to be able to perceive".
[14] The taste of an apple or the feeling of its smoothness are not traits inherent to the fruit but are the power of the primary qualities to produce an idea about that object in the mind.
"[17] The mind's conception of substances "[is] complex rather than simple" and "has no (supposedly innate) clear and distinct idea of matter that can be revealed through intellectual abstraction away from sensory qualities".
are not natural properties of the object itself, but things they induce in us by means of the "size, shape, texture, and motion of their imperceptible parts.
Kant observed that the assertion of a spiritual soul as substance could be a synthetic proposition which, however, was unproved and completely arbitrary.
The selfhood arises as result of several informative flows: (1) signals from our own body; (2) retrieved memories and forecasts; (3) the affective load: dispositions and aversions; (4) reflections in other minds.
[30] Humans are incapable of comprising all their experience within the current state of consciousness; overlapping memories are critical for personal integrity.
For this reason, Althusser's "anti-humanism" and Foucault's statements were criticized, by Jürgen Habermas and others, for misunderstanding that this led to a fatalist conception of social determinism.
[37] Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, as part of his critique of transubstantiation, rejected substance theory and instead proposed the doctrine of transfinalization, which he felt was more attuned to modern philosophy.
The 20th century Australian philosopher Colin Murray Turbayne also raised fundamental objections to the concepts of "substance" and "substratum", arguing that both have little if any meaning at best.
In Turbayne's view, such concepts are more properly described as linguistic metaphors which served as the foundation for the physicalist and mechanistic theories of the universe proposed by Isaac Newton and the mind-body dualism put forth by René Descartes.
Turbayne contends mankind has fallen victim over the course of time to such metaphors by misinterpreting them as examples of literal truth and subsequently utilizing deductive reasoning to incorporate them into the development of modern scientific hypotheses.
[38][39] He concludes that mankind can successfully embrace more beneficial theoretic constructs of the universe only after first acknowledging the metaphorical nature of these two concepts and the central role which they have assumed in the guise of literal truth within the realm of epistemology and metaphysics.
Substance theorists say that bundle theory is incompatible with metaphysical realism due to the identity of indiscernibles: particulars may differ from one another only with respect to their attributes or relations.
All of their qualitative properties are the same (e.g. white, rectangular, 9 x 11 inches...) and thus, the argument claims, bundle theory and metaphysical realism cannot both be correct.
Clement of Alexandria considered both material and spiritual substances: blood and milk; mind and soul, respectively.
[44] The ecclesiastics of the Cappadocian group (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa) taught that the Trinity had a single substance in three hypostases individualized by the relations among them.
Hildebert of Lavardin, archbishop of Tours, introduced the term transubstantiation about 1080; its use spread after the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215.
[45] Aquinas also deemed the substance of spiritual creatures identical with their essence (or form); therefore he considered each angel to belong to its own distinct species.
Our senses, perception, feelings, wishes and consciousness are flowing, the view satkāya-dṛṣṭi of their permanent carrier is rejected as fallacious.
The Buddhist metaphysics Abhidharma presumes particular forces which determine the origin, persistence, aging and decay of everything in the world.
[52] The disciplinary practice in the Sangha including reproaches, confession and expiation of transgressions,[53] requires continuing personalities as its justification.