Substance usually means something that can exist independently and bear properties. A table may be wooden, brown, and heavy, while the table itself seems to be the substance that carries these properties.
Substance matters because it helps us understand stability within change. A person ages, changes jobs, and changes opinions, yet we still regard them as the same person. Philosophy asks whether substances really exist, or whether they are convenient centers created by language. Aristotle emphasized substance, while Hume questioned whether we ever experience substance itself. Modern science and technology complicate the concept. Is software, a cloud account, or an AI model a substance? The question finally asks whether the world is made of stable things or of relations and processes.
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- What Is Property?
- What Is Identity?
- What Is Being?
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