Substance and Modern Science by R. J. Connell (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Substance and Modern Science. By R. J. CONNELL. Houston: Center for Thomistic Studies, U. of St. Thomas (Distributed by U. of Notre Dame Press), 1988. 280 pp., Bibliography, Index. $30 (cloth), $17 (paper) • This is a work in the philosophy of nature, more Aristotelean than Thomistic in orientation. The author's particular interest is in the existence, nature, and multiplicity of natural substances. The text is divided into a Preface, 23 relatively short chapters, and an Epilogue emphasizing the importance of " substance " as a natural rather than as a metaphysical consideration (p. 236; cf. pp. 33-34). The metaphysical consideration of substance can only come later, after the existence of non-physical entities has been established. There is also an Appendix summarizing Aristotle's three principles of change. In the Appendix he states: To summarize, then, we may say that coming to he requires three dis· tinct principles: subject, term, and privation. Stated in the words we employed in the earlier chapters, coming to be requires a material, a structure, and a privation of the structure that is acquired (p. 242). The author's intention is to present the position of Aristotle in contemporary dress, using Aquinas's commentary on the Physics as an aid in understanding Aristotle (p. v). Near the end of the work he states, " But apart from the difference in language, the position we have defended here was that of not only Aquinas but Aristotle before him" (p. 210). Given the widespread acceptance today, largely under the influence of modern science, of mechanistic, reductionistic, and even monistic, doctrines concerning nature, the question of whether or not Nature is an orderly collection of natures is an extremely important one. Is reality divided into a multiplicity of separate and semi-independent substance-things or is it only a collection of insubstantial property-things? Part I, chapters 1 to 5, discusses the reality of substance. Everyone admits that properties, that is, the various observed traits which qualify things, are real. The real is " that which exists; " and for the purpose of distinguishing intramental from extramental reality we can add "Outside the mind and imagination" (p. 11). A property is defined as "that which exists in another as in a subject" (p. 12). The "as in a subject" part is important because " One reality can be in another 331 BOOK REVIEWS in many ways" (loc. cit.) and it is significant that a prope.rty is in. a subject in a certain way, namely, as dependent on the sub1ect for its existence. A substance is defined as " that which exists in itself (or by itself) and not in another as in a subject" (p. 13). As an example of what a substance is, we ourselves are the most obvious cases of such rela· tively independent things. I recognize myself as the stable foundation for properties. However, being a substance does not mean having an unqualified permanence and independence. Substances are not absolute. Neither are they necessarily absolutely simple and uncomposed. Although a truly elementary particle is undoubtedly a substance, from what we know so far, any statement that claims substance is necessarily simple is gratuitous; whether this is or is not so is one of the principal issues to be considered in this book (p. 14) . The main villain in modern philosophy when it comes to an attempted elimination of substance is David Hume. Hume's position, however, which attempted to dissolve all substantial unities into mere bundles of properties somehow existing all on their own, and which formed the basis for later process philosophies, cannot stand up to the evidence of ordinary experience. Hume cannot explain how one property can modify another or how a mere collection of properties can constitute the unity of a natural thing such as an individual plant, animal, or man. When considering whether the world is composed of substance· things with properties, or property-things all on their own, we must take into account both observation and logic. In any philosophical approach to reality ordinary experience must he given the basic and primary role. Starting with the reality of properties, and realizing that they cannot go on inhering in each other or in...