University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation

SUBSTANCE AND THE SUBSTANCE OF MINDS IN DESCARTES AND LOCKE

EUGENIO E. ZALDIVAR

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2012

To Victoria and Maya, who make coming home better than anything else

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank the members of my supervisory committee and the Department of

Philosophy for their guidance, instruction and support throughout my years of study. I thank my friends and family for their encouragement and patience, especially Ron

Claypool for his comments and insight. Finally, I thank the chair of my committee,

Stewart Duncan, for his incredible support and hard work which made this dissertation possible; his mentoring and advice have raised the level of my work to heights I could not attain alone.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4

ABSTRACT ...... 7

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 8

1.1 Introductory Remarks ...... 8 1.2 Descartes ...... 9 1.3 Locke ...... 11 1.4 Summary Notes ...... 13

2 THE ARGUMENT FOR REAL DISTINCTION ...... 14

2.1 Introductory Remarks ...... 14 2.2 Descartes’ Consistency ...... 15 2.3 Dualism and what the Epistemological Argument is not...... 18 2.4 The Epistemological Argument ...... 20 2.5 Substances Are Identical With Their Principle Attributes ...... 31 2.6 How do Principal Attributes Relate to Each Other? ...... 39 2.7 A Single Argument ...... 47 2.8 Summary Notes ...... 51

3 TRIALISM ...... 53

3.1 Introductory Remarks ...... 53 3.2 Pluralism ...... 56 3.3 Hylomorphism ...... 58 3.4 Mixed Modes ...... 72 3.5 Summary Notes ...... 85

4 DESCARTES’ SUBSTANCE AND CONTEMPORARY OBJECTIONS ...... 86

4.1 Introductory Remarks ...... 86 4.2 Hobbes ...... 87 4.3 Gassendi ...... 96 4.4 Locke ...... 105 4.5 Summary Notes ...... 113

5 MYSTERIOUS SUBSTRATA AND COMPLETE INDIVIDUAL SUBSTANCES .... 114

5.1 Introductory Remarks ...... 114 5.2 Substratum and Substance ...... 115

5.3 Bennett: The Embarrassment of Mysterious Substrata ...... 130 5.4 McCann: The “No theory” Theory ...... 135 5.5 Ayers: A Material Substance ...... 141 5.6 Summary Notes ...... 158

6 THE LINK BETWEEN IDENTITY AND SUBSTANCE ...... 160

6.1 Introductory Remarks ...... 160 6.2 A Link Between 2.23 and 2.27 ...... 161 6.3 Persons Are Modes ...... 167 6.4 How Are Persons Related to Substance? ...... 171 6.5 Are Persons Also Substance Sorts? ...... 178 6.6 Thing-like Entities...... 181 6.7 Summary Notes ...... 187

7 PROPERTY DUALISM, SPIRITS AND SUPERADDED THOUGHT ...... 190

7.1 Introductory Remarks ...... 190 7.2 Consistency Throughout 2.23 ...... 190 7.3 Was Locke a Dualist? ...... 197 7.4 Superaddition ...... 214 7.5 Simple Superaddition ...... 223 7.6 Naturalistic Superaddition ...... 228 7.7 Summary Notes ...... 231

8 CONCLUSION ...... 235

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 238

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 245

Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

SUBSTANCE AND THE SUBSTANCE OF MINDS IN DESCARTES AND LOCKE

Eugenio E. Zaldivar

December 2012

Chair: Stewart Duncan Major: Philosophy

In this work I present an analysis of Rene Descartes’ and John Locke’s theories of substance and their ontology of minds. I first take a close look at each philosopher’s general theory of substance and then consider various interpretations of each theory.

The picture that emerges of Descartes’ view is one in which he is absolutely confident in our ability to comprehend the nature of substance and to forge an understanding of our own minds based on that knowledge. He further concludes that there are only two kinds of substance and that minds are unmistakably immaterial substances. Locke’s understanding of substance is more cautious and grounded in our inescapable epistemic limits. His considered view of a mind is that it is, strictly speaking, a combination of a bare substratum and mental qualities. More specifically, a mind is a perfection that emerges from the proper arrangement of physical qualities.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introductory Remarks

In this work I will present an analysis of Rene Descartes’ and John Locke’s theories of substance and their ontology of minds. I shall proceed by first taking a close look at each philosopher’s general theory of substance. In doing so, I will consider various interpretations of important aspects of each theory and either suggest alternative interpretations or provide novel arguments in defense of traditional positions.

A natural question to ask at this point is “Why focus on Descartes and Locke?”

Why work on both of them? This is a fair question.

Descartes and Locke are often held up as the flag bearers of Rationalism and

Empiricism. Indeed they are in many ways the central figures of these respective schools of thought. Subsequent philosophers such as Spinoza, Malebranche, Berkeley and Reid often felt the need to respond to Descartes and Locke. The latter group informing our understanding of, and even defining, the work of the former pair. In contemporary instruction and discussion the later Rationalists and Empiricists are often taught as evolutionary projects grounded in paradigms established by Descartes and

Locke.

Interestingly, Descartes and Locke are also often cast as philosophical antagonists; it is perhaps too easy to split them into opposed, or at least divergent, camps. Descartes the rationalist defender of innate ideas; Locke an early leader in championing empirical analysis. Descartes the metaphysician; Locke the epistemologist. Descartes the mathematician; Locke the political theorist. Descartes the well known dualist. And Locke? A dualist? A monist? Agnostic?

When we look into Locke’s view of the sorts of things that exist in the world it is remarkably unclear what his view really is. He has been labeled a dualist, a materialist, an idealist, a thinker disinterested in the question and a skeptic. In this work I attempt to untangle the various strands of his thought and answer the questions: what did Locke think about substance and what is the metaphysical status of minds?

On the other hand Descartes’ reputation is very well established. He is a dualist, full stop. Or perhaps the more nuanced reading is that he believed in two created substances, mind and body, and one necessary substance, God. We can also note a reading which argues that Descartes believes that there are many mental substances, but only one physical substance. Then there is the newest interpretation: Descartes was a trialist. He believed in three created substances: mind, body and human beings. In this work I consider how the trialist reading of Descartes as well as his general claims on substance.

Still, why the two of them at once? In short each takes the opposite view of the question “Is a substance identical with its attribute,” and that difference plays an underappreciated role in forming their ultimate conclusions. Indeed, in the case of

Locke, his theory is partially predicated on an argument against Descartes’ answer to the question.

1.2 Descartes

Descartes’ view of mind is really just what is now the traditional view: minds are the finite immaterial, i.e. mental, substance in a dualistic ontology. The other substance is, of course, body, which is to say the material, i.e. physical, substance of a dualistic ontology. These two substances are fully distinct and independent, each capable of existing even if the other were completely annihilated. Thus Descartes thinks that

almost all things in the created world are comprised of either body or mind while human beings are comprised of both body and mind working synergistically.

This traditional reading has come under attack lately by a movement to introduce a third kind of substance: a hylomorphic union of mind and body. This integrated substance is said to be a created substance in its own right, a created substance that is really distinct from mind and body. However, the argument does not go so far as to argue that it is fully independent of mind and body. Ultimately—and unsurprisingly given my relatively traditional reading of his metaphysics—I argue that this new account of

Descartes’ basic ontology is unsuccessful.

In the following, I begin by considering Descartes’ argument for the real distinction of mind and body. There is some dispute in Descartes studies as to how he argued for real distinction. Margaret Wilson suggests that Descartes offered an argument based on epistemic foundations presented in the second of Descartes’

Meditations. Marleen Rozemond suggests that Descartes’ real argument is grounded in his metaphysics and most clearly presented in his Principles. I argue that Descartes really meant to offer a single argument that involves both epistemic and metaphysical premises. The upshot of the argument for real distinction is thus that, for Descartes, minds are, metaphysically speaking, completely unrelated to bodies. If every physical thing in the world were to cease to exist the status of minds, as it relates to their ongoing existence, would be unaffected.

From there I offer an analysis of the most important points of the trialist’s reading of Descartes: physical substance pluralism, hylomorphism and a peculiar understanding of mixed-modes. While pluralism is perhaps the most tenable of the trialist’s positions—

indeed many non-trialists consider it to be Descartes’ considered view—it is not sufficient for establishing the trialist reading. Hylomorphism and their reading of mixed- modes clearly contradict Descartes’ well established positions in metaphysics. Indeed if we accept either of the latter interpretations, we run the risk of rendering Descartes’ view almost incomprehensible. Thus, the trialist assertion that minds are, in some sense, incomplete substances that, when incarnate, form part of a single composite substance simply cannot go through.

Having considered several contemporary interpretations of Descartes’ views. I turn to three historical antagonists: Hobbes, Gassendi and Locke. Considering each of their views helps highlight Descartes’ view—reinforcing the interpretation offered above—while paving the way for the discussion of Locke’s view. In response to

Hobbes, Descartes emphasizes the incorporeality of mind and thus its break from body.

In response to Gassendi, Descartes insists on the identity of mind and thought, substance and attribute, even though this forces him into some problematic positions.

Finally, the contrast with Locke highlights Descartes’ belief that we can have clear and distinct ideas of substance while giving us our first insight into Locke’s belief that substance is, in one sense, fundamentally unknowable. The picture that emerges of

Descartes’ view is one in which he is absolutely confident in our ability to comprehend the nature of substance and to forge and understand of our own minds based on that knowledge. Finally, Descartes concludes that there are only two kinds of substance and that minds are unmistakably immaterial substances.

1.3 Locke

The belief that Locke argued for a limited concept of substance is not a new one, it goes as far back as Leibniz. However, recent scholarship has focused on arguing that

either Locke held the view reluctantly and inconsistently or that he didn’t have that view at all; Bennett and Alston are noteworthy members of the former side, while McCann and Ayers can be counted as holding the latter position—albeit for different reasons.

Locke’s view, in its simplest form, is that there are two kinds of things in the world that answer to the name “substance”: unknowable substrata and individuals. The substratum substances are really bare substances, in essence devoid of any quality though having potentially many qualities accidentally. Individuals are distinct things in the world. Human beings, stars, chunks of gold, etc. are all substances in this sense.

These complete individual substances are actually the combination of substrata and qualities. Thus the main consequence of this view, in terms of Locke’s understanding of minds, is that a mind is, minimally, the combination of a substratum and mental qualities.

There are several related consequences that can be inferred from his position.

First, it is clear that Locke did have at least a basic theory of substance. Second, it is clear that this theory is not one in which micro-structures of atomic corpuscles are the ontological foundation of perceivable qualities.1 Furthermore, it seems that the unknowable status of substrata is the reason that our ability to track the identity of individuals over time is dependent on continuity of consciousness.

However, perhaps the most interesting observation of Locke’s views on substance is the conclusion that Locke was a property theorist. That is to say, Locke believed that whether an individual counts as a mental or physical substance depends on what properties inhere in its substratum. This is, of course, a sharp contrast to

1 This is not to say that Locke’s view is incompatible with the existence of atoms or an explanatory atomic theory.

Descartes’ substance-attribute identity thesis. More specifically, Locke argued that for some thing to be a spirit—a term he sometimes uses for some thing with a mind—it need merely have mental qualities and this is sufficient even if the thing also has a physical qualities—and thus a body. Finally, Locke concludes that given our limited understanding of the world, the best way to explain how a body comes to have thoughts is by superaddition. With respect to substrata the superaddition is simple. With respect to complete individuals the superaddition is naturalistic.

Taken all together, Locke’s considered view of what a mind is, is this: a mind is the combination of a substratum and mental qualities. Strictly speaking, these qualities can inhere in a substratum even though the substratum has no physical qualities inhering in it simultaneously. However, in the world as it is, God has arranged it so that the substratum acquires its mental qualities only if it has properly arranged physical qualities. That is to say, a mind is a perfection that is, in some sense, related to and dependent on the proper arrangement of physical qualities.

1.4 Summary Notes

The preceding sketch of the analysis that follows paints a clear and interesting picture of Descartes’ and Locke’s views on the metaphysics of mind.

In Descartes the conclusion is primarily motivated by his belief that the essence of a substance is knowable. From this starting point the general notions of the mind as thought and of individual minds as necessarily immaterial follow rather straightforwardly.

In Locke the rather more obscure notion of mysterious supporting substances forces Locke into a more cautious position. Nevertheless, the basic view still allows him to argue that the mind of a human being is a combination of a substratum and mental, qualities the latter of which are attached to suitably fit entities.

CHAPTER 2 THE ARGUMENT FOR REAL DISTINCTION

2.1 Introductory Remarks

In this chapter I will argue that Descartes employed a single argument for the real distinction between mind and body which included both epistemic and metaphysical claims. More specifically I will argue that the Epistemological Argument, thought to be central to the Meditations, (Wilson 1976), and the Principal Attribute Thesis, featured prominently in the Principles, (Rozemond 1998) are at the very least intimately related, if not components of a single argument.

I will begin by arguing for the likelihood that Descartes’ view did not vary significantly amongst his major works. This will allow me to argue more easily that even though Descartes’ view is scattered amongst different works there is nonetheless only a single argument at work. I will then discuss Descartes’ argument for the real distinction of mind and body as it is found in the Meditations. The analysis will feature what

Margaret Wilson described as the “Epistemological Argument” for a real distinction between mind and body. I will show that there is a crucial lacuna in this argument which renders it incomplete on its own. Following that, I will consider a putatively competing explication of real distinction provided by Marleen Rozemond—an analysis, based on

Descartes’ thoughts on principal attributes. I will show that this analysis also falls short. I will conclude by suggesting that there is good reason to think of the two readings as parts of a single, larger argument for real distinction. Thus, my thesis is that Descartes had a multi-step argument that is not fully captured by either epistemological or metaphysical principles alone.

The Epistemological Argument suggests that Descartes’ aim in the Meditations was to argue for his belief in the distinction of mind and body on the basis of how we conceive of them. The Principal Attribute Thesis, taken primarily from the text of the

Principles, argues that the real distinction of mind and body is grounded in a theory of substance and has little, if anything, to do with epistemic notions.1 However, these analyses do not really concern distinct arguments at all, but merely two incomplete aspects of a single argument. It is only when the two interpretations are combined that they give a coherent and accurate account of Descartes’ view of substance. To be clear, it is not merely the case that the two arguments are complimentary, they need to be combined; individually each is invalid and fails to capture Descartes’ full reasoning.

2.2 Descartes’ Consistency

Descartes in his Discourse On Method wrote “Those long chains composed of very simple and easy reasonings, . . . had given me occasion to suppose that all the things which can fall under human knowledge are interconnected in the same way” (AT

VI 19, CSM I 120).2 This ability to construct important conclusions from chains of simpler demonstrations and the ability of this method to bring complex relationships to light are two of the main benefits of his geometric method. From this bit of insight we might conclude that Descartes meant his work to be taken as an interconnected and self-sufficient whole. While, it would of course strain credulity to argue that this single line should stand as evidence that there is a single unified vision woven throughout

1Rozemond specifically questions the adequacy of the Epistemological Argument (1998, 30)

2Quotations of Descartes will be cited with notations from the Adam & Tannery editions of his Oeuvres De Descartes (designated AT) and the Cottingham, Stuthoff, and Murdoch translations (designated CSM) or the Cottingham, Stuthoff, Murdoch and Kenny translations (designated CSMK) followed by a page number. In both cases roman numerals between the acronym and page number refer to volume numbers.

Descartes’ many works, the extent to which Descartes’ works do seem to stand together is striking. Descartes maintains a remarkable consistency in his terminology and fundamental positions throughout his published works and correspondence.3 This anecdotal claim to general consistency is buttressed by several observations.

His two major philosophical works—the Meditations on First Philosophy and the

Principles of Philosophy—were published within three years of each other. The

Meditations, in Latin, were completed in 1640 and published in 1641. The Principles were first published, also in Latin, in 1644. Interestingly, there is evidence that

Descartes was working on the Principles as early as 1640 while he began work on the

Meditations as early as 1638.4 This indicates that he likely began working on the

Principles as he published the Meditations, and began working on the Meditations soon after publishing, in French, his Discourse on the Method—another important work—in

1637. Furthermore, a later version of the Discourse—in Latin with corrections by

Descartes—was published in 1644, two years after the second edition of the

3A brief example: he begins both the Meditations and the Principles by arguing that the search for truth begins with doubt: “I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last” (AT VII 17, CSM 12); “It seems that the only way of freeing ourselves from these opinions is to make the effort, once in the course of our life, to doubt everything which we find to contain even the smallest suspicion of uncertainty” (AT VIIIA 5, CSM I 193); and while he does not describe it as a once-in-a-lifetime event he suggests the very same recourse to extreme doubt in the Discourse: “But since I now wished to devote myself solely to the search for truth, I thought it necessary to do the very opposite and reject as if absolutely false everything in which I could imagine the least doubt, in order to see if I was left believing anything that was entirely indubitable” (AT VI 31, CSM I 31). Descartes also defended his so-called method of doubt in a letter to Buitendijk, dated 1641, (AT IV 62-4) and in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, dated 1647, (AT VIIIB 367-68, CSM 309-10).

Another example can be found in his consistent position that a real distinction exists between things that can be conceived independently of each other. He makes the claim in a letter to Regius, dated 1642, (AT III 567, CSMK 214), in the Principles (AT VIIIA 28, CSM I 213), in the Passions of the Soul, published in 1649, (AT XI 329, CSM I 329) and, of course, in the Meditations (AT VII 78, CSM II 54).

Of course, I do not make the claim that Descartes’ views did not evolve, merely that his works are all grounded in a consistent and common framework.

4For the comment on the Principles see CSM I 177. For the comment on the Meditations see CSM II 1.

Meditations was published, and in 1647 there appeared a French translation of the

Meditations— vetted by Descartes—well after the first publication of the Principles. So, in fact, it seems that while he originally worked on the three projects consecutively, the later editions and approved translations of the early works were developed concurrently with the later material. Given this time line it would be surprising, indeed shocking, if important details in each work were incompatible with each other. Most, if not all, contemporary scholars treat the works as expressions of a single theory. Indeed, even though the rather early publication date of the Discourse on Method, 1637, suggests that it might contain significantly different views from the Meditations, and Principles, it is explicitly referenced in the introduction to the Meditations and could be considered a prolegomenon to the Meditations.5

It seems clear that the proximity and overlap of the publication dates along with the similarity in their themes should serve as signals that Descartes was unlikely to have changed his mind significantly from one work to the other.6

Furthermore, at least with his two major works, we do have clear evidence that they are to be taken as expressions of a single theory. Descartes notes in the preface to the French translation of the Principles that in order to gain a sound understanding of the first book of the Principles one should first read the Meditations. That is, he found so little difference between the views expressed in the two works that he saw the

5“I briefly touched on the topics of God and the human mind in my Discourse on the method of rightly conducting reason and seeking the truth in the sciences, which was published in French in 1637. My purpose there was not to provide a full treatment, but merely to offer a sample, and learn from the views of my readers how I should handle these topics at a later date. . . . But now that I have, after a fashion, taken an initial sample of people’s opinions, I am again tackling the same questions concerning God and the human mind; and this time I am also going to deal with the foundations of First Philosophy in its entirety” (AT VII 7 CSM II 6 – AT VII 9 CSM II 8).

6The publication dates and speculation about the work periods are taken from the volumes one and two of the Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch translations.

Meditations as a primer for, or perhaps a more thorough going exegesis of, the material in the first part of the Principles. Not surprisingly, but tellingly, parts of Book 1 of the

Principles read as a rough summary of the points in the Meditations.7 Of course, it is possible that Descartes was wrong in his estimation of the similarity between the works.

Nevertheless, it seems reasonable, given the parallels in both works and Descartes’ proclamation, that the default view should be to take them as being largely in sync.

If we can agree that Descartes was championing a single view, or at least a set of coherent views, in these varied works, it should not be surprising to find that an argument presented in one could lean on —or be illuminated by—claims made in another. Thus, the central claim of this chapter that there is a single argument for the real distinction of mind and body is, at least, not weakened by the finding that crucial steps of the argument are distributed amongst diverse works.

2.3 Dualism and what the Epistemological Argument is not.

Descartes, tradition tells us, is a dualist; a substance dualist, to be precise.8 That is, Descartes argued that there are two fundamentally different kinds of things in the world: mind and body. Each of these fundamental categories has its own properties and modes, and each is fully independent of the other in a very strong sense. Simply put,

Descartes is said to have held that a mind does not need a body in order to exist, and vice versa. This is not an insignificant claim. It gives rise to quite a few problems: One might ask how these substances are meant to interact or how we can be sure that a particular quality belongs to one substance and not the other or why we need to believe

7At the very least, the content of first 38 principles parallels the content of the first 4 meditations very closely.

8(Woolhouse 1993)

in multiple substances at all. How do we differentiate substances; on what grounds, or by what means, do we establish that there are two, and only two, fundamentally distinct, types of things in the world?

For his part, Descartes leaves little room for doubt about his conclusion. In the subtitle to the Meditations, In Which the Existence of God and the Distinction Between

Mind and Body are Demonstrated, he clearly indicates that this work, at least, was meant to stand as an argument for the conclusion that the world is populated by mind and body—primarily, if not alone.9 So, it is not surprising that one of the key questions facing that work is whether or not Descartes’ argument for the distinction of mind and body is successful and unproblematic.10 Part of this larger problem is the question of how Descartes attempted to establish their independence from each other.11

Wilson believes that his proof for their distinction—at least in the Meditations—is largely epistemological. In other words, she argues that Descartes’ contention that we should hold that minds are distinct from bodies is based on certain claims grounded in our observations of ourselves and of the things around us. Interestingly while, traditionally, the sixth meditation is often thought to contain the important parts of the argument—thus the title of the section: “Of the real distinction between the Mind and the

9This is technically the second subtitle; the first subtitle “in which are demonstrated the existence of God and the immortality of the soul” appears in the first edition, published in Paris by Michel Soly. Descartes, unhappy with Soly, arranged for a second edition in 1642 in which the above-quoted subtitle replaces the original. (CSM I 1).

10Some other key questions are concerned with the success of his proof for God and his solution to radical skepticism.

11In Chapter 3 I will revisit and defend Descartes’ claim that there are only two created substances. Of course, the question of how substances are distinguished from each other is distinct from the question of how many substances there are in toto.

Body of Man”—Wilson argues that there are several points made in the second meditation that are crucial for establishing a real distinction between mind and body.

However, before we take a look at the second meditation in more detail we should take a moment to consider what the Epistemological Argument is not; it is not what might be called a conforming argument. That is, it is not an argument to the effect that the world conforms to what we think; mind and body are not distinct just because we are apparently about to conceive of them as being distinct. It is true that Descartes does indeed rely heavily on the claim that if an idea of some aspect of the world is clear and distinct, we can be certain that the world can be that way—in other words,

Descartes does hold that we can derive metaphysical certainty from epistemological certainty. However, his position is that while God is able to make true what we clearly and distinctly conceive, he is not compelled to do so. His role is not merely to make the world conform to our ideas. So, while it depends on clear and distinct ideas of mind and body, the Epistemological Argument does not employ the claim that because we clearly and distinctly perceive minds apart from bodies, minds must exist apart from bodies.12

So what is the argument?

2.4 The Epistemological Argument

The Epistemological Argument, as Wilson presents it, is really quite straightforward. In The Meditations, Descartes tries to establish the real distinction of mind from body with an argument grounded primarily in our conception of ourselves.

However, while the bulk of the argument is given in the sixth meditation, it is facilitated

12The argument is also grounded in certain ideas about the nature of God: specifically Descartes posited that God is not a deceiver and God can create the world as we clearly conceive it to be (Meditation 6).

by positions adopted in the second meditation. More specifically there are two conclusions drawn in the second meditation that set the stage for the work of the sixth.

At the end of the first meditation, Descartes finds himself in a position of extreme skepticism toward his beliefs. He has determined that even his most seemingly indubitable knowledge claims are in fact susceptible to doubt and uncertainty. He is

“finally compelled to admit that there is not one of my former beliefs about which a doubt may not properly be raised” (AT VII 22, CSM II 15). But, of course, all is not lost. Early in the second meditation Descartes observes that “I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind”(AT VII 25, CSM 17). He then augments the assertion that he exists necessarily by arguing that he exists as a thinking thing. “At present I am not admitting anything except what is necessarily true. I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks, that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason . . . I am a thing which is real and which truly exists”(AT VII 27, CSM 18). He is careful to not inflate his conclusion beyond this deduction. In fact, he does not deny that he has a body, preferring the agnostic conclusion that as far as he knows he could still be a thinking and extended thing: “And yet may it not perhaps be the case that these very things which I am supposing to be nothing, because they are unknown to me, are in reality identical with the ‘I’ of which I am aware? I do not know, and for the moment I shall not argue the point, since I can make judgments only about things which are known to me”

(AT VII 27, CSM II 18). Even though body and mind have different attributes and can be contemplated without any need to consider the other, he is not yet willing to state that they are actually independent. This is, of course, not an entirely agnostic position; he

does claim definitively that he is a thinking thing. In other words, a mind is at least a thinking thing, but for all we know it might be more; it might have other properties, even other necessary properties.13

Another important element of the second meditation is Descartes’ avowal that understanding is achieved by reasoning, not perception; “I normally say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax. Yet do I see any more than hats and coats which could conceal automatons? I judge that they are men. And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgment which is in my mind” (AT VII 32, CSM II 21). His stance here is simply that we come to know the nature of things in the world through the use of reason and not simply through the accumulation of experience. Even innate ideas, like the idea of God, must be considered rationally before we can employ them in argumentation and draw certain conclusions. Furthermore, it is only by applying reason to clear and distinct ideas that we can be certain to arrive at truth. Reliance on clear and distinct ideas, such as his ideas about his own nature, is the mechanism by which Descartes thinks to avoid the skeptical doubt raised in the first meditation.14

13Interestingly in the Discourse Descartes reaches the conclusion that he is not a body with much greater alacrity: “I saw that while I could pretend that I had no body and that there was no world and no place for me to be in, I could not for all that pretend that I did not exist. . . . From this I knew I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is simply to think, and which does not require any place, or depend on any material thing, in order to exist” (AT VI 32-33, CSM I 127). Of course, the ambitious comment in the Discourse only seems to disagree with the material in the Meditations. The former is merely a succinct encapsulation of the entire chain of reasoning in the latter. That is, in the Discourse Descartes presents what will become the more thorough observations of the second meditation and the conclusion of the sixth meditation in one fell swoop.

14And while it would take us too far afield to delve into a thorough investigation of clear and distinct ideas, we can make a few, brief, comments. Descartes characterized having a clear and distinct idea as one presented to his mind “so clearly and distinctly that I had no occasion to doubt it” (AT VI 18, CSM I 120). Elsewhere he notes that clear and distinct ideas are the basis for certain and indubitable judgments (AT VIIIA 21-22, CSM II 207). Finally, Wilson felt that the key to understanding clarity and distinctness is that

Having established those two foundational claims in the second meditation

Descartes pursues other aims before returning to the issue of the relationship between mind and body in the sixth meditation. It is there that we see the bulk of the

Epistemological Argument:

First, I know that everything which I clearly and distinctly understand is capable of being created by God so as to correspond exactly with my understanding of it. Hence the fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another is enough to make me certain that the two things are distinct, since they are capable of being separated, at least by God. The question of what kind of power is required to bring about such a separation does not affect the judgement that the two things are distinct. Thus, simply by knowing that I exist and seeing at the same time that absolutely nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing, I can infer correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing. It is true that I may have (or, to anticipate, that I certainly have) a body that is very closely joined to me. But nevertheless, on the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking, non-extended thing; and on the other hand I have a distinct idea of body, in so far as this is simply an extended, non- thinking thing. And accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it. (AT VII 78, CSM 54)

Essentially the argument is that we can conclude that mind and body are really distinct because: first, we conceive them as able to exist independently by virtue of conceiving of mind as nothing more than a thinking thing and body as nothing more than an extended thing; and second, any two things that can exist independently, even if only by an act of God, must actually be distinct. We should note the clear reliance on the claims initially offered in the second meditation. We should also note, however, that there is one rather significant hole to be filled in. Can Descartes explain why we are able to conceive of mind and body as being able to exist independently?

Descartes directly addresses this concern in the fourth replies: an idea can never be clear and distinct if its negation can itself be clearly and distinctly perceived to be true ((Wilson 1976, 5)).

Mind can be perceived clearly and distinctly, or sufficiently so for it to be considered a complete thing, without any of those other forms or attributes by which we recognize that body is a substance, as I think I have sufficiently shown in the Second Meditation; and body is understood distinctly and as a complete thing without those which pertain to mind. (AT VII 223, CSM II 157)

First, notice that Descartes makes it clear that the strong distinction between mind and body, which he arrives at in the sixth meditation, is the continuation of the work of the second meditation. Which is to say, it is because he establishes that he can consider his mind without having to include any element of body in the notion—a point established in the second meditation—that he is then able to assert that they are really independent in the sixth meditation. More generally, Descartes presents two criteria for establishing metaphysical independence.

Thus, the first criterion for establishing the metaphysical independence of two things is that we can clearly and distinctly conceive of them as different.15 Which is to say, when we consider mind and body we perceive them to have no attributes in common; the clear and distinct concept of one shares nothing with the clear and distinct concept of the other. Of course, the mere claim that two purportedly different things are knowable under different conceptions is not enough to establish their difference in reality: while God’s mercy and justice can be thought of independently, they are not actually distinct from each other; that is, they cannot actually exist apart.16 Thus, he

15That we can clearly and distinctly conceive of two things as different from each other is the criterion, not that we do think of them differently at any particular moment. Two metaphysically independent things would be independent whether or not anyone has taken the time to think of them as different things.

16This objection is raised by Caterus in the second set of replies (AT VII 100). The language of the objection is taken from Scotus’s theory of distinctions. While the language in the objection and the example (the distinction between attributes of God) are more naturally read as a discussion of Cartesian conceptual distinction—a distinction used to describe the relationship between ideas of putatively, but not really, different things or things that are inseparable; Caterus is actually concerned with Cartesian modal distinctions—a distinction used to describe the relationship of a non-essential property and its substance

needs a second criterion for establishing the metaphysical independence of two things: that we have a complete idea of each. So, because Descartes does think that we can have complete, distinct ideas of both mind and body, we can conclude that mind and body are really independent:17

I have a complete understanding of what a body is when I think that it is merely something having extension, shape and motion, and I deny that is has anything which belongs to the nature of a mind. Conversely I understand the mind to be a complete thing, which doubts, understands, wills, and so on even though I deny that it has any of the attributes which are contained in the idea of a body. This would be quite impossible if there were not a real distinction between the mind and the body. (AT VII 121, CSM II 86)

His conclusion about minds and bodies is based not just on the claim that we can think of them differently but on the more nuanced notion that we can think of them as different and complete things. When we notice descriptions for putatively distinct things we inquire into the nature of the things described. If we see that the things do not need each other we can say that they are really distinct from each other. If we notice that they each need nothing else, we can also say that we have a complete idea of each. That is, they are things that we are entitled to take to be complete things, each without any of the attributes of the other.

or the relationship between two non-essential properties of the same substance. That Descartes understands the objection in this way is shown in the quotation from the replies.

17We should note that for Descartes, a complete idea of a thing seems to be nothing more than an idea of the thing that includes only, or at least, those properties a thing needs to be recognized as an independent entity—e.g. its principle attribute; we do not need to have an idea of all of its properties. Specifically, Descartes seems to believe that it is relatively simple to have a complete idea of a thing: “after saying that I had ‘a complete understanding of what a body is’, I immediately added that I also ‘understood the mind to be a complete thing’. The meaning of these two phrases was identical; that is, I took ‘ a complete understanding of something’ and ‘understanding something to be complete’ as having one and the same meaning. . . . by a ‘complete thing’ I simply mean a substance endowed with the forms or attributes which enable me to recognize that it is a substance” (AT VII 222, CSM II 156).

Once we see that our idea of a thing is rich enough so that the thing would need nothing else in order to exist, we can conclude that it is metaphysically independent of anything else, and we can be certain that God could create the thing independently of all other things. That is, once we have a clear and distinct idea of some thing such that we see that it could exist without any other thing, then our idea of it is complete and we know that it is really distinct from everything else. Thus, while it is true that simply noting a distinction between two ideas is insufficient for establishing the existence of two different things, Descartes’ claim is that we have distinct ideas of mind and body not just as different things but as distinct and complete things, and this claim is sufficient to establish independence.

It is important to remember that completeness, of ideas, does not require exhaustive knowledge. Descartes does not need to show that his knowledge of his mind is exhaustive to show that he has a complete idea of it as a thinking thing. All that he needs is to show that a mind, with nothing more than the attribute of thought, and including none of the attributes of body, is already such that it can exist independently of everything else and is therefore a complete thing. In other words, it is not necessary to have exhaustive knowledge of a thing in order to know its nature, and knowing the nature of a thing is enough to know whether it is a complete thing or not.

This is why, in his reply to Arnauld (AT VII 223, CSM II 157), he concludes that the mind is a complete thing qua thinking thing and subsequently denies that this claim goes beyond the claims made in the second meditation. He simply does not think that it is particularly difficult to show that two properly conceived things are or are not

independent of each other. There is evidence that Descartes is right when he claimed to

Arnauld that all of this was already packed in to the material in the second meditation:18

If the ‘I’ is understood strictly as we have been taking it, then it is quite certain that knowledge of it does not depend on things of whose existence I am as yet unaware; so it cannot depend on any of the things which I invent in my imagination. . . . Yet I know for certain both that I exist and at the same time that all such images and, in general, everything relating to the nature of body, could be mere dreams. . . . I thus realize that none of the things that the imagination enables me to grasp is at all relevant to this knowledge of myself which I possess, and that the mind must therefore be most carefully diverted from such things if it is to perceive its own nature as distinctly as possible. (AT VII 27-28, CSM II 18-19)

Here Descartes asserts that since we do not need to incorporate any of the features of bodies in order to grasp the nature of mind, it must be the case that we have a complete idea of a mind. We could thus generalize the claim in this way: having a clear and distinct idea that some thing, A, is a complete thing neither requires nor entails having adequate knowledge of A, but merely knowing enough about A to know that it can exist independently of any other thing.

So, recognizing a real distinction between two substances just is recognizing that the two substances have attributes that allow each substance to be complete independently of each other.19

18This should not be taken as an assertion that there is no difference between the claims in meditations 2 and 6. I believe that Descartes meant to say that one could derive the claims in the sixth meditation from the claims in the second meditation. Of course, there are differences, for example Descartes position on the minds distinction from body in the second meditation is one of agnostic uncertainty rather than the strong claim of a real distinction in the sixth meditation.

19We might now be prompted to ask whether a substance can have more than one, for lack of a better phrase, completing attribute. The short answer is that a completing attribute is really just principal attribute and each substance can have only one of those. I shall address this claim in the section on the Principal Attribute Thesis.

Is this an accurate representation of Descartes’ reasoning? Is the argument strong enough to stand on its own? I think the answer to the first question is yes, but the answer to the second question is no.

If we are to take Descartes’ conclusion in the sixth meditation seriously, then I see no other way, in the Meditations, to get to it other than by way of this argument.

However, as it stands, there is a troubling aspect of the argument that I wish to focus on in the remainder of this section: there is no argument provided by Descartes to justify the shift from showing that there is a thinking thing to the claim that the nature of mental substances is thought. Which is to say that Descartes frames the conclusion of the argument as being grounded in the incompatible essential natures of mind and body

(which we discover through our clear and distinct ideas of distinct and complete substance), but, he offers no argument for the claim that mind is essentially a thinking thing. So, is he entitled to that conclusion?

Wilson was also troubled by this problem. In her 1976 essay she observed that in the second meditation “Descartes does not seem to offer justification for the transition from ‘I think’ to ‘Thought belongs to my nature’ ” indicating that this shift is at least problematic and at worst capable of derailing the project (Endnote 1). However, in the updated version of the same essay included in Descartes (1978) Wilson offers a different conclusion:

I think these observations also help understand Descartes’ notorious tendency—in works other than the Meditations—to move without visible transition from cogito ergo sum to sum res cogitans. The cogito reasoning is supposed to show that we can clearly and distinctly conceive the self as a complete entity, or ens per se, merely in conceiving it as thinking. But, providing only that our clear and distinct perceptions are reliable guides to reality, and extension is a property distinct from thought, this amounts to

saying that we need only thought, and not extension in order to exist. And this is to say that we are only thinking things. (197)

It seems that in the time between writing the essay and the book Wilson came to believe that there was a way to explain Descartes’ lapse.20 However, she fails to notice that “we need only thought . . . in order to exist” is not equivalent to “thought belongs to my nature.” The former can be true even while the latter is false; that thinking is sufficient for existence does not mean that a thing which thinks is necessarily a thinking thing. This is to say, there is logical space for the idea of a thing that exists solely because it thinks, but does not have the property of thinking as a matter of necessity.21

The transition from “I think” to “I am a thinking thing” raises two problems for

Descartes. Is he justified in switching from an epistemological claim to a metaphysical one without explanation? A reasonable, initial, response would be that he is not.

Furthermore, even if Descartes successfully arrives at a metaphysical view that addresses this concern, is he entitled to use it in the second meditation?

In other words, one could simply argue that Descartes is question-begging the claims of the sixth meditation. He assumes the truth of real distinction, which, in the second meditation, he has yet to establish, and uses it to underwrite the problematic switch from the epistemological claim to the metaphysical one.

20It is interesting to note that both Dutton and Ayers shared Wilson’s initial concern, but not her later response. Dutton argued that “To infer from this that the thinking substance that conceives by this idea is also non-extended requires a leap of faith for which there is no justification at this point in the argument” (2003, 400). Ayers’s observed that “In effect [Descartes] needs to argue that the ‘I’ does not have some more fundamental property , known or unknown, such as extension subject to certain motions, on which its thinking dependently supervenes” (2005, 27)

21Counter examples include predicate views (including the bare substance view) and multiple-attribute views like Paul Hoffman’s (Hoffman 2002).

With respect to this problem we should note that when Descartes observes

“Thinking? At last I have discovered it - thought; this alone is inseparable from me. I am,

I exist - that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking. For it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist” (AT VII 27, CSM

I 18). He does not claim that he is only a thinking thing, or that he has only thinking as his essence—which he does ultimately endorse in the sixth meditation—, he makes the more modest claim that as far as he can see his existence depends on his continuing to think and in that sense alone, thought is necessary. Given this weaker position, I do not think that the charge of question begging should be leveled here. This, of course, does nothing to alleviate concerns of the viability of switching from the cogito claim to the essentialist claim.

But, what if there is another way to think of the lacuna? What if it is merely an affectation adopted in the second meditation for a rhetorical purpose? In other words, it seems possible that Descartes has a consistent metaphysical picture which avoids the charge of question begging and allows him to transition from the observation that he thinks to the conclusion that he is essentially a thinking thing. Since there is good reason to think he had a consistent position across his major works, it is not hard to believe that he had a full-fledged theory in mind as he wrote the second meditation, and that a portion of that theory was simply, purposefully omitted. If we take a broader look at his work we should be able to bring the omitted elements into view.

Nevertheless, as it stands, that epistemological argument for the distinction of mind and body is problematic; it incorporates an unjustified premise about the nature of thinking things.

2.5 Substances Are Identical With Their Principle Attributes

Can we explain how Descartes transitions from the observation that a mind thinks to the claim that minds are thinking things by reviewing Descartes’ notions on the nature of substance? As Rozemond suggests the central reason for the distinction of mind from body is not that mind can exist without body, rather what is “crucial to the argument is Descartes’ conception of substance, including important claims about the relationship between the nature or essence of a substance and the properties it can have” (Rozemond 1998, 1). So, conceiving that a thing, A, can exist apart from some other thing, B, is only a sign that the two things are really distinct, not the reason that they are distinct.

The idea is just that, for Descartes, determining that a distinction can be properly said to obtain can only be a recognition of the way the world already is.22 Accordingly, in

Principles 1.51, a substance is said to be a thing able to exist without anything else: “By substance we can understand nothing other than a thing which exists in such a way as to depend on nothing else.”

This way of arguing for the real distinction of mind from body is supported by

Descartes in several places. In his response to Caterus, Descartes states that he can

“understand the mind to be a complete thing . . . though I deny that it has any of the attributes which are contained in the idea of a body. This would be quite impossible if there were not a real distinction between mind and body” (AT VII 121, CSM II 86). That is, the idea that minds and bodies are complete and independent things depends on the actual occurrence of a real distinction between two substances. We see him make a

22Except for perhaps a certain kind of conceptual distinction, see Kaufman 2005 (and my note 26).

similar claim in the fourth reply of the Meditations: a real distinction “can be inferred only if we understand one thing apart from another completely, or as a complete thing. . . . by a ‘complete thing’ I simply mean a substance endowed with the forms or attributes which enable me to recognize that it is a substance” (AT VII 221-222, CSM II 156).

Here, Descartes clearly asserts that a real distinction between two things can only be inferred to obtain between independent substances. As Rozemond suggests, “the conclusion that he aims for is that mind and body are different subjects of inherence, each of which actually has an entirely different set or properties” (Rozemond 1998, 6).

In short, it is because substances are things which are inherently self-sufficient that mind and body are really distinct.

Of course, this is not incompatible with the aim of the Epistemological Argument.

The goal now, as then, is to show that mind is independent of body, that they are really distinct.

Unfortunately, in order to show that mind and body are really distinct it is not enough to argue that, in general, substances are fully independent, because either mind, body or both might still fail to be substances; as some have thought, either or both could be merely distinct modes of another substance. To establish a real distinction between mind and body we need to show not just that being a substance entails being independent of all other substances, but also that individual mind and body are substances (and not merely qualities or modes, for example). The best support for this is found in the Principles:

To each substance there belongs one principal attribute; in the case of mind, this is thought, and in the case of body it is extension.

A substance may indeed be known through any attribute at all; but each substance has one principal property which constitutes its nature and

essence, and to which all other properties are referred. Thus extension in length, breadth and depth constitutes the nature of corporeal substance; and thought constitutes the nature of thinking substance. Everything else which can be attributed to body pre-supposes extension, and is merely a mode of an extended thing; and similarly, whatever we find in the mind is simply one of the various modes of thinking. For example, shape is unintelligible except in an extended thing; and motion is unintelligible except as motion in an extended space; while imagination, sensation and will are intelligible only in a thinking thing. By contrast, it is possible to understand extension without shape or movement, and thought without imagination or sensation, and so on; and this is quite clear to anyone who gives the matter his attention. (VIIIA 25, CSM I 210)

We can see that Descartes’ view is that every substance has a single attribute that differentiates it from other kinds of substance and of which every other property is a mode. Furthermore, this is not just a necessary property, it plays a central role in determining the features of a substance. All other properties are metaphysically dependent on the principal attribute.23 “A substance may indeed be known through any attribute at all; but each substance has one principal property which constitutes its nature and essence, and to which all its other properties are referred” (AT VIIIA 14,

CSM I 201).24 A principal attribute is more “like the atomic structure of, say, gold, which determines the properties of gold, such as its color, weight, solubility in aqua regia”

(Rozemond 1998, 9). Descartes’ basic idea is that every substance has one primary

(principal) attribute which determines all of the other attributes that the substance has to have and the modes that it may have; there is no shape without extension, no judgment without thought. It is in virtue of having different principal attributes that two substances

23As Rozemond notes, Descartes’ “view is a particular version of the idea that a substance has a nature that determines and explains what properties that substance has” (Rozemond 1998, 9).

24All other properties are either modes or qualities “we employ the term mode when we are thinking of a substance as being affected or modified; when the modification enables the substance to be designated as a substance of such and such a kind, we use the term quality; and finally, when we are simply thinking in a more general way of what is in a substance, we use the term attribute” (AT VIIIA 26, CSM I 211)

are really distinct. This is a crucial point: every substance has a principal attribute that is that substance’s essential nature.

Descartes’ views on principal attributes allows us to argue that mind and body are not the same substance because mind has the principal attribute of thought and body has the principal attribute of extension. This is to say, if extension is not a property determined by thought and thought not a property determined by extension, mind and body could not be modes of each other. From this it is but a short step to conclude that they are thus really distinct from each other. And yet while this may be an accurate summation of Descartes’ view we ought to consider some objections before rushing to assent.

One major objection to Rozemond’s primary attribute interpretation is the possibility that Descartes adhered to the more traditional bare subject view of substance as nothing more that the subject in which properties inhere. As Rozemond notes, if substances are bare subjects, then “properties inhere in the subject, but are not constituents of a substance. The subject constitutes the entire substance” (Rozemond

1998, 10). The key difference between the bare subject view and Descartes’ principal attribute thesis is that substance, according to the bare subject view, has no constituent properties, and can exist without any property whatsoever, even if only by an act of

God, while on Descartes’ theory a substance just is its principal attribute. One cannot exist without the other. If Descartes is a bare substance theorist, thought might still be the primary attribute of a mental substance, but it would not be essential to the nature of the substance. Which is to say that, strictly speaking, believing that thinking plays a primary role in the constitution of mind is compatible with the notion that no substance

has any attribute as a matter of necessity or identity. Furthermore, on the bare subject view, substances qua substance would be qualitatively identical—since no substance has any essential properties. In effect, there would be no difference, qua substance, between the substance of a mental thing and the substance of a physical thing, and thus no a priori reason why they could not be interchangeable.25 This result is most troubling in its apparent incompatibility with Descartes’ well established substance dualism in which substances are not interchangeable.

Fortunately, we do not have to rely on extrapolated conflicts. We can do more than observe that the consequences of a bare substance reading conflict with

Descartes view of the nature of substance. Descartes speaks directly to the viability of a bare substance theory:

Thought and extension can be regarded as constituting the natures of intelligent and corporeal substance; and then they must be conceived not otherwise than as thinking substance itself and extended substance itself, that is, as mind and body. . . . For we have some difficulty in abstracting the notion of substance from the notions of thought and extension, since the distinction between these notions and the notion of substance itself is merely a conceptual one. (AT VIIIA 30-31, CSM I 215)

By explicitly denying that we can have a clear and distinct idea of substance without including an idea of the principal attribute of that substance, Descartes makes it impossible to read his metaphysics as incorporating bare substances. Yet, he does claim that there is a conceptual distinction between attribute and substances, and this might be taken as evidence for the existence of something—perhaps a bare substance—that is distinct from its attribute. This possibility, however, can be quickly dismissed if we recall that Descartes identifies attribute with substance in the beginning

25We might accept that such an exchange of substances would only occur via miraculous intervention, nevertheless bare substances are interchangeable in a way that mind and body are not.

of the quotation. Descartes’ assertion that there is only a conceptual distinction between principal attributes and substances suggests that the link between substances and attributes might be stronger than the bare subject view could support—if we understand two things to be conceptually distinct, then the things are either identical or absolutely inseparable.26 If the conceptual distinction between substance and attribute is such that the attribute and the substance are identical, then the bare subject view is obviously false. If the conceptual distinction between substances and attributes is such that they are inseparable, then they are still closer than the bare subject view would allow. On the bare substance view a substance does not, strictly speaking, require any attribute in order to exist—although it may be the case that bare substance is always accompanied by an attribute, in nature, it can, strictly speaking, exist without one, if only by miracle. It should also be noted that given that his criterion for completeness rests on clear and distinct perceptions, we cannot be confident that something exists, if we do not have a clear and distinct conception of it. So, even if there is some room for the notion that bare substance is not absolutely incompatible with Descartes’ position on attributes, it seems that Descartes would have been unable to argue for that view. Furthermore, there is evidence against attributing the bare substance view to Descartes.

26In my Thesis— Zaldivar 2005, 84–88— the complete argument for this is extrapolated from AT VIIIA 1.62 and AT VII 49 and is indebted to the work of Dan Kaufman (2005).

In brief, Descartes had two ways of thinking about conceptual distinction: conceptual distinction with respect to identity and conceptual distinction with respect to inseparability. The latter is exemplified by the conceptual distinction between a triangle’s trilaterality and its triangularity. The former is exemplified by thinking of Descartes’ understanding of God’s mercy and God’s wisdom. When we think of God’s different attributes, we are not denying that he is a simple entity but merely attributing to him a distinction found in us. Thus to claim that God’s mercy is Conceptually Distinct from his wisdom is just to claim that we can think of them as being different by an analogy from the clearly distinct modes of mercy and wisdom in man. This is a notion of Conceptual Distinction to differentiate ideas that have a single thing as their intentional object. See Kaufman 2005 for the complete argument. I have just argued that the conceptual distinction between a substance and its principal attribute is a conceptual distinction with respect to identity.

In his response to Arnauld’s concerns about complete ideas: having a complete idea of a thing is equivalent to having an idea of a complete thing, and complete ideas require knowing the principal attribute.27 So, being complete requires having a principal attribute.28 That is, being the kind of thing that can exist without anything else requires, contrary to the bare substance view, that we be unable to conceive of a substance existing without its principal attribute.

Showing that he could not maintain the bare substance view does not get us out of the woods, entirely. There is another theory of substance that Descartes could have adhered to: the Scholastic view.29 According to this theory, corporeal substance was composed of prime matter and defining forms. Prime matter is in some ways similar to the substance in the bare subject view, it is a featureless subject that gains or loses attributes solely in accordance with the form imprinted on it. This similarity to the bare substance view, leaves it open to the same attacks leveled against that reading of

Descartes. While a bare substance is metaphysically a very different beast from prime matter, these two elements of their respective metaphysical systems share similar weaknesses with respect to Descartes’ requirement for completeness and conceptual

27Once I have a clear and distinct idea of some thing such that I see that it could exist without any other thing, then my idea of it is complete and I know that it is really distinct from everything else. Having an an idea of a substances principal attribute meets this criterion. See Zaldivar 2005, 9–11, for the explication of how Descartes’ moves from a complete idea to an idea of a complete thing, the claim is grounded in Descartes’ reply to Caterus’s objection (AT VIII 222).

28See pages 22-25 in this chapter for that discussion.

29I shall use “scholastic” to represent philosophical positions common in Europe before and during Descartes’ time and derived largely from Aristotle’s works. There is, of course, no single Scholastic theory, but there is precedent for grouping certain philosophers together under this title. Hoffman, Rozemond, Greene, Locke, Leibniz and many others take similar liberties. Some philosophers that are commonly labeled scholastic are Aquinas, Ockham, Scotus (Hoffman 1986) and Suarez (Kaufman 2008).

distinction. We have seen that these problems exist for bare substance and mutatis muntandis we can run the same arguments against prime matter.

But, again, we do not have to rely on just our analysis, Descartes also speaks directly against a scholastic interpretation of his views. In The World he notes that his matter is not “the ‘prime matter’ of the philosophers, which they have stripped so thoroughly of all its forms and qualities that nothing remains in it which can be clearly understood” (AT XI 33, CSM I 91). And, further on, he writes:

Nevertheless, the philosophers are so subtle that they can find difficulties in things which seem extremely clear to other men, and the memory of their ‘prime matter’, which they know to be rather hard to conceive, may divert them from knowledge of the matter of which I am speaking. Thus I must tell them at this point that, unless I am mistaken, the whole difficulty they face with their matter arises from its external extension – that is, from the property of occupying space. In this, however, I am quite willing for them to think they are right, for I have no intention of stopping to contradict them. But they should also not find it strange if I suppose that the quantity of the matter I have described does not differ from its substance any more than number differs from things numbered. Nor should they find it strange if I conceive its extension, or the property it has of occupying space, not as an accident, but as its true form and essence. For they cannot deny that it can be conceived in this way. (AT XI 35-36, CSM I 92)

Descartes makes two points against Scholastic prime matter. First, he explicitly contends that the idea of a material subject of inherence with no necessary properties is not clearly and distinctly conceivable.30 Second, he states quite clearly that, as far as he is concerned, extension is not an accident, i.e. a non-essential property, of physical substance but its “true form and essence.” Extension is not had by its substance, but rather is identical with physical substance. It would be odd indeed for Descartes to make that assertion while adhering to the Scholastic theory.

30 Asserting that his view cannot be denounced as inconceivable reserves for his theory one of the hallmarks of clear and distinct ideas.

It would seem then, that we can confidently conclude that Descartes’ views are incompatible with any reading of substance that denies the identity of substance and principal attribute. Substances are, according to Descartes, unambiguously identical with their principal attribute. If mind and body are substances then they must be identical with their own principal attributes. From that we can infer that if their attributes are incompatible, mind and body must be really distinct from each other. However, there is still a problem.

There is a distinction to be made between the general metaphysical claim that substances are distinct by virtue of being identical with incompatible attributes and the specific claims that thinking and extension are incompatible and that mind and body are substances. Thinking could still be a quality of body or a mode of extension and extension could be a quality of mind or mode of thought.

2.6 How do Principal Attributes Relate to Each Other?

We have already seen that to be a substance is merely to be a complete thing:

“by a ‘complete thing’ I simply mean a substance endowed with the forms or attributes which enable me to recognize that it is a substance” (AT VII 222, CSM II 156). So, if we can show that the clear and distinct idea of mind is complete, we will prove that mind is a complete and thus fully independent substance. To do this we must show that the idea of mind, considered only as a thinking thing, is independent of any ideas of body or extension.

First, we need to consider the possibility that either attribute is a mode of the putatively incorrect substance. Fortunately, careful attention to the epistemic requirements for thinking of a mode rules out this possibility. “[W]e can clearly perceive a substance apart from the mode which we say differs from it, whereas we cannot,

conversely, understand the mode apart from the substance” (AT VIIIA 29, CSM I 214).

Since our ideas of modes are dependent on our ideas of substances, we are unable to conceive of them without also conceiving of their substance—except in a confused way.

If thought is a mode of extension, we should be unable to consider the former clearly and distinctly without including some notion of the latter. Descartes uses this point in the second meditation to show that thought is not a mode of body when he asserts that he can think of himself as a mind clearly and distinctly without also thinking of himself as an extended thing. “If the ‘I’ is understood strictly as we have been taking it, then it is quite certain that knowledge of it does not depend on things of whose existence I am as yet unaware; so it cannot depend on any of the things which I invent in my imagination. . . .

Yet I know for certain both that I exist and at the same time that all such images and, in general, everything relating to the nature of body, could be mere dreams “ (AT VII 27-28, CSM I 18-19).31 Descartes, of course, is at this point in the

Meditations, agnostic about the existence of bodies, and yet he still takes a thinking thing to be complete in itself as nothing more than a thinking thing that does not depend on being extended.

Reasoning along these lines also precludes the possibility that minds and bodies are themselves modes of some third thing. If you clearly and distinctly consider two modes you will be compelled to consider the substances in which they inhere. If they both inhere in the same substance, it stands to reason that you will notice that they are both modes of the same substance.

31Terms inside angle brackets”< , >“ are found in the French text, but not the Latin.

But even if thinking is not a mode of body and extension is not a mode of minds, there is the chance that our ideas of thought and extension are only conceptually distinct from each other, or from some third idea, and as a result thought and extension might be identical or inseparable from each other or some third thing. This would be the case if they were both principal attributes of the same substance. But as Descartes writes in a letter from 1641, “When things are separated only by a mental abstraction, one necessarily notices their conjunction and union when one considers them together.

But one could not notice any between the body and the soul, provided that one conceives them as one should, the one as that which fills space, the other as that which thinks” (AT III 420-421, CSMK 188). So, just as we cannot fail to notice a link when we consider a mode and its proper substance at the same time, we also cannot fail to see their “conjunction and union” when we consider two conceptually distinct ideas.32 Simple conceptual exercises show that neither thought, nor extension, is dependent on any other quality or mode.33

Where do we stand now? We have seen that thought is not a mode of extension.

We have also seen that thought is not identical or inseparable from body, and therefore we do not conceive of them as being merely rationally distinct.

32More accurately Descartes should say (and surely meant) that if we have a clear and distinct conception of each putatively conceptually-distinct attribute we cannot fail to notice their conjunction and union. One reason that would plausibly support this claim is that we cannot have a clear and distinct idea of an attribute without including a notion of its proper substance and vice versa (AT VIIIA 1.63).

33We will see that Descartes explicitly rules out the possibility of a substance having multiple principal attributes in Principles 1.53 but this quotation rules out any scenarios in which we might have thought it was possible to confusedly consider the same attribute to actually be two different attributes.

But might it be the case that extension is a mode or quality of mind making mind in fact extended? To prevent this conclusion Descartes needs only to establish that including nothing but extension enough to give us a complete idea of the thing.

The existence of an extended thing that does not think is likely to be obvious to anyone, and Descartes makes it clear that thinking is not an essential attribute of physical things in his discussion of the piece of wax in the second meditation. “Let us concentrate, take away the everything which does not belong to the wax, and see what is left: merely something extended, flexible and changeable” (AT VII 31, CSM II 20). In a move analogous to how we showed the independence of thinking from extension, the wax example shows us that we can have a complete idea, which is clear and distinct, of an extended thing that does not in any way include the idea of thinking. So, extension is not a mode of thought and ideas of extension are not merely conceptually distinct from ideas of thinking.

In the previous section of this chapter we saw that substances must be identical with their principal attributes and we have just seen that thought and extension are unrelated to each other. So, a substance identical with mind is in no way dependent on extension and vice versa. We are left only with the need to show that each substance can have only one principal attribute.34

Fortunately, Descartes seems to say exactly this in Principles 1.53 “each substance has one principal property which constitutes its nature and essence.” So, why do we not simply take that assertion as definitive? Unfortunately Descartes gives

34It is possible that a substance could, somehow, have , and be identical with, two or more principal attributes. Thus, because we have not shown that thought and extension are incompatible, it is possible that a substance might have both thought and extension as its principal attributes.

scant support for that claim in his other works, leaving it a possibility that his real meaning is something other than the prima facie reading. Paul Hoffman and Justin

Skirry, for example, have each presented a reading of Descartes in which substances have many principal attributes.35

We can begin to address the question by looking at the available text. In the

Fourth Replies Descartes writes: “No one who has perceived two substances through two different concepts has ever failed to judge that they are really distinct”. Rozemond analyzes the passage in this way:

The concepts in question are those of the mind as a thinking complete thing and body as an extended complete thing, where neither concept contains what belongs to the other concept. The idea is that mind and body are perceived through thought and extension respectively. I think that what is behind this comment is Descartes’ view that two principal attributes yield two substances. The comment suggests that he regarded this view as pretty obvious, or that he simply assumed it - which might explain why he does not make the Attribute Premise more explicit when he states or discusses the Real Distinction Argument. (1998, 25)

If the possibility of multiple principal attributes were a live option, Descartes would likely have qualified the claim by alluding to the possibility of perceiving a single substance through two attributes. That he does not make such a qualification can be taken as evidence that he did not take multiple principal attributes in a single substance to be a metaphysical possibility.

We can also draw support for the principle attribute reading from Descartes’

Comments on a Certain Broadsheet:

As for the attributes which constitute the nature of things, it cannot be said that those which are different, and such that the concept of the one is not contained in the concept of the other, are present together in one and the same subject; for that would be equivalent to saying that one and the same

35Hoffman 2002, Skirry 2005

subject has two different natures - a statement that implies a contradiction, at least when it is a question of a simple subject (as in the present case) rather than a composite one. (AT VIIIB 349-350, CSM I 298)

The most natural reading of this passage is one in which Descartes is clearly declaring that a single, simple thing cannot have multiple, different principal attributes. In fact, he seems to conclude that the contrary would entail a contradiction. Nevertheless, at least one philosopher reads this passage as evidence against the principle attribute theory.36

But that reading both overlooks the grammar of this passage and trades on an ambiguous reading of Descartes’ use of the term “subject.” In the CSM translation, used here, there is a comma before the ‘and’ and after ‘other’ in the first sentence. This is usually a grammatical structure that introduces an unrestricted clause. In this case, a clause that is functioning appositionally. So, the line should be read as something like this: ‘it cannot be said that those (principal attributes) which are different from each other, where different is defined as the concept of one not being contained in the concept of the other, are present together in one and the same thing.’ This reading follows the grammar of the sentence and fits the definition of principal attributes in the

Principles. Yet—even though the original Latin gives no sign that this is a poor translation—perhaps it would be best to avoid arguing over the grammar of translated texts.37 Certainly it would be preferable to avoid that discussion if there were better evidence at hand, and in this case there is better evidence.

36Hoffman in his paper on Cartesian distinctions (2002).

37In actuality, the case is stronger than this. The use of commas indicating the appositional function of the clause originates in the Latin text “De aliis autem attributis, quae rerum naturas constituunt, dici non potest, ea, quae sunt diversa, & quorum neutrum in alterius conceptu continetur, uni & eidem subjecto convenire” (AT VIII 349-350). Anyone arguing for a translation that avoids including the clause with its appositional syntax would have to make a strong argument against the prima facie reading of the CSM translation.

Reading the passage as support for a multi-attribute reading of Descartes depends on an equivocation between “subject” and “substance.” That is, the proponent of the multi-attribute reading must insist that when Descartes uses “subject” in the

Comments he really meant substance. This is not, in itself, a problem in so far as any substance would seem to be a subject (throughout his works Descartes often uses

‘subject’ where we would expect ‘substance’). Further, it is reasonable to suppose that

Descartes intended ‘subject’ and ‘substance’ to be synonymous in this passage. So taking “subject” to mean substance in the passage seems like a natural, and even justified, reading, generally speaking. However, Descartes preempts that reading in the last, easily overlooked line. In that line he fixes the content of the debate in the parenthetical note “as is the present case.” The present case in question is a discussion of whether or not it is conceivable that a substance can have two attributes. Specifically, this excerpt is a response to a claim, by Regius, that mind could be considered a co- attribute of bodies (along with extension).38 Thus, Descartes explicitly denied the co- attribute claim, going so far as to say that Regius was confusing modes with attributes, and that the claim that “attributes are not opposites, but merely different” is a contradiction.39 So, this passage is an explicit denial of the possibility of multiple

38Henricus Regius, a physician and philosopher, was a correspondent of Descartes. In the second section of the Broadsheet Regious argued that “So far as the nature of things is concerned, the possibility seems to be open that the mind can be either a substance or a mode of a corporeal substance. Or, if we are to follow some philosophers, who hold that extension and thought are attributes which are present in certain substances, as in subjects, then since these attributes are not opposites but merely different, there is no reason why the mind should not be a sort of attribute co-existing with extension in the same subject.”

39This claim, or something like it, is a necessary step for a multi-attribute reading. If one cannot establish that attributes are in some way compatible and thus able to co-inhere in a substance, a multi-attribute substance would be impossible. In any case, given the ambiguity in the text’s use of “subject”, the identity of substance and subject would have to be established independently. Later in that passage Descartes has ample opportunity to assert that a human being is a substance, but he describes a human being as a mere entity.

attributes inhering in the same subject. It would seem then to be out of bounds as support for a multiple attribute reading.

There is also a passage from the work Conversation with Burman in which

Descartes is quoted as saying:

You can however pose the following question: since thinking or thought is an attribute, to what substance does it belong? To a corporeal substance? Or rather to incorporeal and spiritual substance? The answer to this is clear. You have a clear conception of corporeal substance, and you also have a clear conception of thinking substance as distinct from, and incompatible with, corporeal substance, just as corporeal substance is incompatible with thinking substance. In view of this, you would be going against your own powers of reasoning in the most absurd fashion if you said the two were one and the same substance. For you have a clear conception of them as two substances which not only do not entail one another but are actually incompatible. (Cottingham 1976)

In this statement Descartes lays out the position that we would expect him to take in accordance with the principal attribute premise, even referring to attributes explicitly.

Thinking is an attribute of mind (“incorporeal substance”) and it would be “absurd” to think that it could be the attribute of any other substance. Further, his tone fits well with

Rozemond’s conjecture that, for Descartes, the premise that a substance has one and only one principal attribute is a basic idea that needs to be neither argued for nor analyzed. Thus, we should conclude that, for Descartes, principal attributes mutually exclude each other.40

If our investigations of Descartes are not faulty, his fundamental ontology is one in which every substance has one and only one principal attribute. This principal attribute is a unique feature of substance that determines what other attributes or

40I will not pursue the issue here, but there is an excellent paper by Richard Brockhaus for the incompatibility of thought and extension grounded in Descartes’ claim that the former is indivisible while the latter is divisible (1983)

modes it might have. It is, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from the substance itself, if not identical with it. And it is the mutually exclusive nature of the attributes, and thus substances, that make the substances really distinct.

In developing the points of this and the previous section it is tempting to conclude that the metaphysical argument is indeed the primary, if not only, argument for the real distinction of mind and body. However, as we shall see in the next section, there is reason to think that this argument alone is insufficient to accomplish the task set out for it by Descartes.

2.7 A Single Argument

Rozemond thinks that her interpretation renders Wilson’s unnecessary, or, at least, she shows Wilson’s theory to be incomplete with respect to the separation of mind from body. Rozemond’s main point on the issue is that you cannot establish that mind and body are actually distinct substances without the principal attribute premise

(Rozemond 1998, 30–31). In the following, I will argue that while Rozemond is correct to note that Wilson’s interpretation is incomplete, her own interpretation is also incomplete.

Interestingly, Descartes seems to anticipate Rozemond’s analysis in the fourth set of replies:

the notion of a substance is just this—that it can exist by itself, that is without the help of any other substance. . . . I should have added nothing more to demonstrate that there is a real distinction between the mind and the body, since we commonly judge that the order in which things are mutually related in our perception of them corresponds to the order in which they are related in actual reality. (AT VII 226, CSM II 159)

And we can further buttress the notion that real distinction is not grounded in conceptual separability by noting that Wilson’s project can simply be read as an attempt to explain one way that Descartes can argue that mind and body are distinct; she does

not claim that the distinction between mind and body is grounded in epistemological arguments featured in the Meditations. In other words it is not clear that the

Epistemological Argument for real distinction is meant to compete with the Principal

Attribute Thesis.

We should also remember that Wilson expressed lingering doubts about the adequacy of the Epistemological Argument. Specifically, she was concerned about

Descartes’ assertion that he is a thinking thing, when, so far as he shows in the second meditation, he has only noticed that he is a thing that thinks. More specifically, the move from noticing that there is some thinking going on in a mind to asserting that minds are essentially thinking things is a suspect one, and it is in this mysterious maneuver that there is a place for Descartes views on substances and principal attributes. This is to say that rather than preempting Wilson’s epistemological reading the Principal Attribute

Thesis actually supplements it. To unpack the support for this claim we can return to

Rozemond’s analysis.

Rozemond’s theory, as I see it, shows that the Epistemological Argument for a real distinction between mind and body depends on Descartes’ theory of substance.

The Principal Argument Thesis shows us that mind and body are not merely separable but fully independent and essentially dissimilar. That is, the Principal Attribute Thesis shows us why Descartes is entitled to conclude that minds are essentially thinking things once he notices that minds think.

Rozemond’s main point can be boiled down to two ideas: substances are the kinds of things that have only one attribute; thinking and extension are attributes, and thus mutually exclusive. When we observe both tenets we can see why merely

recognizing that a mind has thoughts is enough to generate the conclusion that a mind is an essentially thinking thing, or in other words a thinking-kind of substance. So, it seems that the Epistemological Argument found in the Meditations needs the theoretical underpinnings presented in Principal Attribute Thesis found in the Principles.41 But, this just seems to confirm Rozemond’s feeling that her own reading of Descartes is more fundamental than Wilson’s. How then can we arrive at the conclusion that the theories are mutually dependent, as I have suggested?

To do that we simply need to notice that the claims that thinking and extension are not modes of each other and that thinking and extension are not modes of some other attribute seem to require some justification of their own. Merely stating that thinking is not a mode of extension, and vice versa, is not enough to establish that they are each attributes. Even if we grant that they are not modes at all, there would still seem to be a gap between concluding that they are not modes and concluding that they are principle attributes.42 So, how can we establish that they are indeed principal attributes?

41 This prompts a concern over whether the skeptical meditator, working through the Meditations in order, is entitled to material found in the Principles—and likely not available in the Meditations until the 6th. The short answer is probably not. The longer answer is that while, rhetorically, this appears to be a misstep for Descartes it is not necessarily a logical misstep. See the previous section on Wilson, pgs. 29-30 for a fuller treatment.

42For example, Descartes describes existence and duration as attributes in Principles 1.56. So it is reasonable to conclude that existence and duration are not modes of some other attribute, but neither are they principle attributes.

In general, Descartes has two tests for principal attributes. Attributes, whether principal or not, are such properties of a substances that do not change (AT VII1.56). Principal attributes would, of course need to pass that test. Furthermore, principal attributes are also those attributes which determines all of the other properties that a substance can have (AT II 1.53). In order to establish that thinking is not a mode of extension, but its own principal attribute we would then need to show that thinking an unchanging property of minds and that thinking is the property to which all other mental properties are referred.

See section 2.6 for a fuller consideration of thinking and extension and their status as attributes or modes.

We might start by noticing that Wilson accomplishes a very similar task in her analysis. She uses Descartes’ notions of clearly-and-distinctly-conceiving and completeness to generate the claim that mind and body are distinct. The key lies in noticing that, if we can clearly and distinctly conceive of two things without incorporating notions of the other, then they must be independent from each other. In the second meditation we see that we certainly can clearly and distinctly conceive of thinking without including any notion of extension, and vice versa. So, thinking and extension must be independent of each other. And, because we can think of each of them without thinking of any other properties, they must be properties of the sort that Rozemond needs, i.e. they are fully independent properties suitable for being principal attributes.43

Without this bit of reasoning Rozemond’s analysis is in jeopardy.

So, it seems that neither interpretation is valid on its own; both must turn to the other for assistance. The Epistemological Argument is, in itself, unable to justify the claim that minds are thinking things. The Principal Attribute Thesis is, in itself, unable to justify the claim that thinking and extension are principal attributes and not some other kind of property.

But why characterize them as a single argument and not independent arguments with shared premises?

Primarily, I favor the single argument reading because, to be honest, it is hard to see the motivation for insisting that there are two distinct chains of reasoning which coincidentally share crucial premises, reach the same conclusion, and which must both be sound if either is to be valid. To insist that there are two arguments despite their

43Conversely, while existence and duration are not modes of thought or extension, they cannot be attributed to a substance independently of thought or extension, and so fail the completeness test.

being so thoroughly intertwined is to argue for a needlessly convoluted reading of

Descartes’ views.

There is, however, another alternative: we could decide that there is one general—perhaps a priori—line of reasoning and two applications of it using distinct observations. In the Epistemological Argument we take certain premises, distributed between the Meditations and Principles, and combine them with some observations— e.g. I think; I don’t seem to need a body—to generate the conclusion that mind and body are distinct. In the Principal Attribute Thesis we take the very same premises and combine them with different observations—e.g. thinking and extension are distinct properties; substance are identical with their attributes—to reach the very same conclusion. The general idea here is, roughly, that our ideas about independence and completeness combined with various kinds of evidence can convince us that mind and body are really distinct via different chains of reasoning.

However, this analysis seems to me to be unnecessary. The observed evidence is so similar that one might consider them equivalent, or, at least, one might admit that they follow each other very closely. And, of course, an argument that can be fed different evidence is still a single argument. So, we are left with little reason to deny the single argument account that I champion. It is simpler to conclude that Descartes held a single complete, valid argument for the real distinction of mind and body, and that the disparity is due to different rhetorical focuses in different works.

2.8 Summary Notes

Questions about the number of arguments aside, the indisputable lesson is that the putatively distinct arguments are intimately related and mutually dependent.

Whatever the story that we choose to tell about their relationship, we cannot deny one without destroying the other.

The evidence that Descartes believed in two distinct and fully independent substances, one material and one immaterial, seems to be overwhelming. As Descartes argues, to suppose that the mind could co-exist with extension as attribute of a single substance belies a “manifest contradiction” (AT VIIIB 349, CSM I 298).

CHAPTER 3 TRIALISM

3.1 Introductory Remarks

In Chapter 2, I offered an analysis of arguments that supports the conclusion that

Descartes believed in the existence of two fully distinct, created substances: mind and body.‡ This leaves room for an interesting question: “Should we suppose that Descartes believed that there are only two distinct, created substances?” A growing number of scholars have concluded that the answer to this question is “no.” They argue, rather, that the traditional view of Descartes’ ontology is wrong, or at least incomplete. Instead of the commonly held view that, according to Descartes, the world consists of two kinds of substance, they argue that Descartes’ believed in three kinds of substance.

Alongside the traditional Cartesian substances, mind and body, they argue that the union of mind and body is a substance in its own right. So, on this trialist account each human being is an example of a consistently overlooked class of substances. This is, of course, a radical break with the received view.1

While there is not a single unified argument put forth by the new movement, there are five tenets that tend to appear in one form or another throughout the literature: belief in a plurality of physical substances, changes in the traditional understanding of real and rational distinction, a belief that the mind is the form of a human being, a belief that in certain contexts an otherwise complete substance might be said to be incomplete, and a belief that there are mixed modes which require mixed substances.

‡ Reprinted with permission from The British Journal for the History of Philosophy

1In this chapter, and throughout, I will use the term trialist as a title for the philosophers that interpret Descartes as a trialist [e.g Skirry and Hoffman]. I’ve adopted this convention as a small convenience, the alternative is the much more tedious “philosophers that interpret Descartes as a trialist.” On the rare occasion in which I refer to Descartes proper as a trialist it shall be obvious in context.

These five tenets, or sometimes a subset of them, are together taken to constitute good reason to read Descartes as believing that the mind and body exist in a hylomorphic union that is itself an ens per se, that is, a complete substance.2

While it should be stressed that not all trialist interpretations rely on every one of these claims, three of these claims must be a part of any trialist reading: pluralism, hylomorphism, and mixed modes.3

However before we delve into the specifics of the trialist’s arguments, it would seem appropriate to investigate, briefly, whether we should even consider their project at all. Not surprisingly I would offer an answer in the affirmative.

It is clear that Descartes thought of the relationship between mind and body in a human being to be special—perhaps unique in the world. There is the oft-quoted line from the sixth mediation in which the relationship is described as something more than the relationship between a sailor and his ship (AT VII 81, CSM 56). In other passages

Descartes stresses the special nature of our ideas about human beings and the mind- body relationship. “I distinguish three kinds of primitive ideas or notions, each of which is known in its own proper manner . . . the notions we have of the soul, of body and of

2 Briefly, an ens per se, is a complete, individual substance whose existence depends on nothing else— or, as in the view of many theistic philosophers, on nothing but the concurrence of God. A less common , and more controversial, position also maintains that an ens per se should have no proper parts. Nevertheless, the central idea is that an ens per se is a true unity, a thing that is not merely an aggregate of parts. Conversely an ens per accidens is just such an aggregate: a collection of parts united only contingently. On this reading, in the context of the current discussion, a mind is an ens per se, but a crowd of humans is an ens per accidens.

3Pluralism is the view that in the created world there are any number of physical substances, i.e. bodies, just as there are any number of mental substances, i.e. minds. Hylomorphism is the view that each union of mind and body, is the result of the union of form and matter. This union creates an ens per se, a single, independent substance. On the trialist reading Cartesian minds play the role of a form and bodies play the role of matter. Mixed modes are said to be the properties of substances that are not limited to a single, principal attribute. Thus, on the trialist reading a human being, i.e. a single substance, has both the attribute of thought and and the attribute of extension.

the union between the soul and the body” (AT III 691, CSMK 226). It is also likely that

Descartes thought that a special union between mind and body could play an important explanatory role. In Conversations with Burman Descartes, when pressured by Burman to explain how the mind and body could interact, argues that “here our experience is sufficient, since it is so clear on this point that it just cannot be gainsaid” (Cottingham

1976, 44). And in the Discourse on Method Descartes claims that the thoughts that “are the only ones that belong to us as men” could only be attributed a rational soul that is

“joined to [a] body in a particular way” (AT VI 46, CSM I 134). Furthermore, as we shall see in the subsequent parts of this chapter, Descartes certainly seems to at least consider the possibility that mind is the form of a human being.

So, it is safe, it seems, to conclude to that Descartes did indeed consider the relationship between mind and body to be special and philosophically significant.

Furthermore, it is certainly not an understatement to say that he left the exact nature of the relationship woefully vague and unexplored. Thus, the trialist’s promise to address this lacuna is, to say the least, intriguing.

Nevertheless, in the remainder of this chapter I shall focus on the metaphysical claims made by the trialist and argue that their reading of Descartes is not merely problematic but flawed beyond repair. More specifically, I will argue that pluralism, although the most plausible of the trialist’s tenets, is by itself insufficient evidence for taking Descartes to be a trialist. I will then argue that the hylomorphic union of mind and body is not compatible with clear and indubitable positions staked out by Descartes.

Finally, I will argue that the trialist interpretation of mixed modes is simply not Descartes’

view, and even if this new reading were viable it would still not be compatible with

Descartes’ clear and well established positions.

3.2 Pluralism

Perhaps the trialists’s most plausible claim is that Descartes believed that every body—every physical thing—is itself a substance. But, though plausible, this claim is not unproblematic. The trialist needs to get beyond the well-known reading of Descartes which holds that, strictly speaking, there is only one created physical substance; all particular bodies are nothing more than modes of that single substance.4 If the trialist fails either to refute or modify this monist interpretation of Descartes, his project will amount to nothing more than the claim that a substance could be formed out of the combination of one substance and the mode of another substance; a position that seems likely to fail.

Monist readers of Descartes commonly point to a passage in the synopsis of the

Meditations in which Descartes seems to endorse monism explicitly: “we need to recognize that body, taken in the general sense, is a substance, so that it too never perishes” (AT VII 14, CSM II 10). However, as Skirry points out, “it is reasonable to conclude that . . . the “Synopsis” passage refers to what all particular bodies have in common qua bodies” and not as conclusive evidence for the monist position (2005, 74).

Thus, there is at least some room for the pluralist reading. In fact, I find Skirry’s reading of the synopsis passage to be compelling.

Of course, this is not in and of itself an argument for pluralism, but it does seem to take away one of the monists’ main pieces of evidence. However, what Descartes

4 I will call this traditional reading the monist position. See Lennon, Secada, and Williams for examples of philosophers who support the monist interpretation.

writes immediately after the quoted line from the synopsis is also telling: “But the human body, in so far as it differs from other bodies, is simply made up of a certain configuration of limbs and other accidents of this sort; whereas the human mind is not made up of any accidents in this way, but is a pure substance” (AT VII 14, CSM II 10).

Here we see Descartes explicitly contrast body with the mind, and the contrast indicates that only minds are pure substances. This would seem to reinforce the notion that

Descartes did not consider individual bodies to count as individual substances.5

Nevertheless the pluralist reading of Descartes has two more observations in its favor. First, we should note that Descartes refers to particular bodies as substances on several occasions. As he writes to Gibieuf “I consider two halves of a part of matter, however small they may be, as two complete substances . . .” (AT III 477, CSMK 203).

Furthermore, in the fourth set of replies Descartes also notes that “by a ‘complete thing’

I simply mean a substance endowed with the forms or attributes which enable me to recognize that it is a substance. Thus a hand . . . is a complete substance when it is considered on its own.” (AT VII 222, CSM II 157).6 These passages are, of course, read most plausibly as explicitly establishing Descartes as a pluralist. If Descartes did not believe in individual physical substances, these passages would have to be given an unintuitive reading. Finally, Descartes explicitly states that modes are not parts, but the monist interpretation would seem to entail that particular bodies, i.e. modes of the single

5Hoffman, arguing for the pluralist reading, addresses this last point by asserting that Descartes recognizes a strong and weak notion of substance. A strong substance (also called a pure substance) can be created or destroyed only by God. Examples include individual minds and body taken as a whole. Weak substance (or impure substance) includes individual physical things and individual men. The distinction between pure and impure substances is itself unusual. But, rather than argue against that part of Hoffman’s interpretation I am willing to take it on board for the sake of argument.

6See also AT VIIIA 7, CSM I 195. And for passages that entail individual substancehood see, AT IV 349, AT VII 255; AT VIII 28.

physical substance, are nothing but parts of a simple material substance (AT VII 433,

CSM 192).

However, as it features in the debate between the trialist and dualist interpretations of Descartes’ worldly ontology, the question of whether Descartes was a monist or a pluralist may be beside the point. Indeed, pluralism is only a necessary condition for trialism and not, in and of itself, evidence for the trialist reading. So perhaps it would be best to set this debate aside—especially since I am not confident that it could be resolved in a single chapter of this work. There are more definitive grounds upon which the larger issue can be settled.

3.3 Hylomorphism

Since, it is entirely possible for Descartes to be a pluralist but not a trialist, the trialist interpreters must show that there is more to their claim. One way to do this is to argue that Descartes took the union of mind and body to be a substance in its own right.

One way to achieve that goal is to liken Cartesian human beings to substances very much like those of the Scholastics and Aristotle. The goal of this comparison is to show that Descartes believed that human beings are entia per se in virtue of being hylomorphic unions of mind and body.

Interestingly there is some textual evidence in support of the claim. In a letter to

Regius, dated January 1642, Descartes seems to argue that the soul is the substantial form of human beings and that it is the only substantial form:

substantial forms and real qualities should not be rashly expelled from their ancient territory. . . . we merely claim that we do not need them in order to explain the causes of natural things. . . . if the soul is recognized as merely a substantial form, while other such forms consist in the configuration and motion of parts, this very privilege it has compared with other forms shows

that its nature is quite different from theirs. . . . these forms are not to be introduced to explain the causes of natural actions (AT III 500, CSMK 207)7

So, substantial forms, Descartes seems to argue, illegitimately map the unique relationship between a mind and a body on to every other particular thing. Thus, the mistake of the Scholastics is not that they believed in substantial forms but rather that they improperly projected substantial forms onto the world, and thus wrongly anthropomorphized the natural world.

Furthermore, unlike the other substantial forms the human mind is not, for

Descartes, just an abstract construct postulated to explain mysteries. One of the main points of the second meditation is that our own existence as a thinking thing, and a fortiori the existence of our mind, is known through an indubitable and immediately perceived idea. Our mind is known to us better than any object of sensation or thought.

Descartes writes, “I know plainly that I can achieve an easier and more evident perception of my own mind than of anything else” (AT VII 34, CSM II 22-23). Thus, it could be said that, for Descartes, the form of a human being is neither superfluous nor a mysterious, merely abstract, construct. Thus any arguments seeking to show that

Descartes denied any evidence for substantial forms would seemingly face a significant challenge.

However this reading of Descartes is carried off rather quickly. Descartes never explicitly endorses the existence of substantial forms of any kind; his position is rather more ambiguous. In the letter to Regius Descartes is primarily interested in arguing that a human being is an ens per se, but being a hylomorphic union is clearly not a

7See also AT VII 442, CSM II 298 for another example of projecting onto the world.

requirement for being an ens per se.8 In another putative example of Descartes endorsing a hylomorphic union, and thus the claim that minds are substantial forms, he mentions the union of mind and body: “as regards the soul and the body together, we have only the notion of their union” (AT III 665, CSMK 218). But this claim falls short of giving us an explicit statement that the metaphysical nature of the union is a hylomorphic one. These passages, at best, serve only to show that Descartes could accept the possibility of the existence of human substantial forms; they do not show that he in fact believed in their existence. But of course, there are many philosophical positions that Descartes could have adopted without contradicting himself.9 This does not prove that Descartes actually believed any of them. It is certainly tempting to conclude that when Descartes describes a human being as an ens per se, he is using the term in the traditional, Scholastic sense. However, absent strong theoretical support we must refrain from indulging this temptation.10

In fact, to even begin to establish that Descartes did believe in substantial forms we would have to be given an explanation for the discrepancy between Descartes’

8Will every philosopher that denies the existence of Aristotelian forms be forced to abandon the notion of non-accidental unities? Furthermore, consider that on a pluralist reading of Descartes each physical thing is a substance, i.e. an ens per se, but, as we have seen, Descartes denied that individual physical things had forms. So, at least in Descartes’ mind entia per se did not need hylomorphic forms.

9It seems, at least prima facie, that Descartes could have accepted a version of Plato’s forms without too much trouble.

10Grene notes nineteen instances of Descartes supposedly referring to the mind as a scholastic substantial form (Grene 1991). However, as I see it, none of those instances are proof of a belief in substantial forms. Most of them are merely further examples of ambiguous claims that are compatible with a belief in substantial forms. Some claims are even less compelling: for example the claim in the Rules (AT X 411, CSM I 40) that the body is informed by the mind is troubling, in that on the trialist’s reading we should expect the mind to be the form of a human being not a human body.

common assertion that minds and bodies are complete in themselves and the

Scholastic position that form and matter are essentially incomplete.11

The Scholastics argued that a substance can have parts but only so long as none of the parts are complete things in themselves. For Scholastic philosophers such as Scotus and Ockham, the form of man is an incomplete thing in itself and the matter of man is also incomplete in itself. Thus the union of the two is not merely an ens per accidens. In other words, in their minds the distinction between minds and bodies was akin to Descartes’ idea of a conceptual distinction. But if Descartes followed this model, he would be forced to conclude that neither mind nor body could be considered complete substances in their own right. Yet, Descartes clearly asserts that mind and body are complete in themselves. “Mind can be perceived clearly and distinctly, or sufficiently so for it to be considered a complete thing, without any of those other forms or attributes by which we recognize that body is a substance, as I think I have sufficiently shown in the Second Meditation; and body is understood distinctly and as a complete thing without those which pertain to mind” (AT VII 223, CSM II 157).12 So, the

Scholastic position that mind and body can unite to form an ens per se because they are incomplete seems to fail as a reading of Descartes.

In an attempt to avoid this pitfall, one might argue that Descartes actually had a very low standard for determining that some thing is a substance: being a substance is

11The problem, in Hoffman’s words: “[The] most important sort of objection to the view that Descartes can use the form-matter model to explain the unity of the man derives from medieval accounts of per se unity, and ultimately from Aristotle. The objection is that even if the mind does inhere in the body as form inheres in matter, nevertheless, no substance, and hence nothing which is an ens per se, can be constituted from another substance or substances” (1986, 362).

12See also AT VII 27-28, CSM II 18-19.

nothing more than being able to exist without anything else existing.13 This, it might be argued, is analogous to the Scholastic notion of incomplete substance since they believed that the substantial components could exist independently of each other, even though only by the power of God.14

One way to strengthen this reading of Descartes is to show that, like the incomplete substances of the Scholastics, at least one Cartesian substance requires union with the other, thus generating the kind of necessary union needed for an ens per se. Descartes might say, for example, that mind requires union with body. But this line of reasoning is itself problematic. If the body does not require union with the mind then it would seem that the union of mind and body is still just an ens per accidens.

Two more solutions to this problem suggest themselves. First, we might argue that Descartes held that a thing which can be split only by God is really an ens per se.

Second, we might argue that a thing may be both an ens per se and an ens per accidens, at the same time, depending on how it is being considered.

The first option is essentially the claim that as long as two things are united in such a way that only the power of God can separate them, the composite counts as an ens per se. This option is problematic, on two accounts. First, we seem to have clear evidence that minds and bodies can be separated from each other without divine action.

So, if there are such things as substances that can only be separated by God, human beings do not seem to be in that category. Second, Descartes explicitly repudiates the

13See Principles 1.51 (AT VIIIA 24, CSM 210)

14Hoffman asserts,that “Scotus, Ockham, and Descartes are in fundamental metaphysical agreement that things which can exist apart from each other can form an ens per se, provided that they stand in the appropriate relation to one another” (1986, 364). Thus Hoffman concludes that just as some scholastics could have an ens per se that was nevertheless composed of parts existing independently of each other, so could Descartes.

distinction between divine and natural cause: “coming to pass naturally is nowise different from coming to pass by the ordinary power of God, which does not differ at all from his extraordinary power” (AT VII 435, CSM II 293). For Descartes there is no distinction between a natural cause and a divine cause, at least for the causes that determine worldly interactions. So, if we combine this suggestion with Descartes’ position on causes we are left with the absurd conclusion that every separation is, in a sense, a divine separation and thus every composite an ens per se.

The second option is to argue that, according to Descartes, the ontological status of a thing depends, at least sometimes, on which of its relationships are being considered. This relativising move is a bit hard to grasp at first, but there are at least two places where Descartes seems to endorse it. In a letter to Regius, dated December

1641, Descartes writes:

That which is an ens per se can be made per accidens, for mice are generated or made by accident from dirt, and yet are entia per se. . . . body and soul, in relation to the whole human, are incomplete substances, and it follows from their being incomplete that what they constitute is an ens per se (AT III 460, CSMK 200).

And in the Replies to the Fourth Objections Descartes writes:

It is also possible to call a substance incomplete in the sense that, although it has nothing incomplete about it qua substance, it is incomplete in so far as it is referred to some other substance in conjunction with which it forms something which is a unity in its own right. . . . And in just the same way the mind and body are incomplete substances when they are referred to a human being which together they make up. But if they are considered on their own, they are complete (AT VII 222, CSM II 157).

The quotation from the letter to Regius is often dismissed as nothing more than political advice designed to get Regius, who had been championing Descartes’ philosophy, out of trouble with his peers. However, the position gains significant weight when coupled with the passage from the replies to Arnauld. In both texts Descartes seems to endorse

a kind of relativistic understanding of substance. That is, whether a thing is a substance, an ens per se, depends on what description we are considering it under. This is, to say the least, a controversial claim.15 However, it is possible that this reading is defensible.

In a passage from his Replies to the First Objections, Descartes discusses what I will call the “triangle-in-square” example and draws a curious conclusion: he concludes that both the parts of a thing and the entire thing itself can have immutable, and unique, natures.16 Thus, a triangle can have an immutable nature that is different from the immutable nature of a triangle-inscribed-in-a-square. More important, however, is the assertion that the triangle-in-square has an immutable nature only when it is considered in a certain way. Descartes concludes that when considered as the origin of one or more new, composite properties, we should conclude that the composite thing has a nature just like the nature of thing which is truly an ens per se. “In order to examine those things which arise from the conjunction of the two, then its nature will be no less true and immutable than the [nature of the] square or triangle” (AT VII 118, CSM II 84).

The triangle-in-square is a mere composite, without an essential nature of its own, until it is considered in its role as the source of the composite properties, then it must be considered to have its own immutable nature just as if it were an ens per se. This relatively brief observation can be taken to shore up the idea that a substance may be considered incomplete from one perspective but complete from another. If two substances are united to form some third per se unity, then the two substances can

15 One concern is that it things generated by per accidens ought to be aggregates, ens per accidens, and not ens per se. However, it seems possible that something could be made from parts that is nevertheless a true unity. Aristotle’s thinking of humans as entia per se despite being made from a union of form and matter would seem to be an example.

16Descartes considers the idea of a triangle inscribed in a square in order to illustrate the point that the combined figure could be said to have an essential nature. AT VII 117-118, CSM II 84.

indeed be said to be incomplete, at least, they are incomplete when referred to the per se unity.

What if this is exactly what Descartes intended in his reply to Arnauld? As we saw, Descartes seems to be making a relativising move when considering the relationship between mind, body, and human beings. Seen in the light of the triangle-in- square exposition, the comments about the complete and incomplete nature of mind and body seem more plausible. That is, it seems plausible to say that because a human being has an immutable nature—and thus should count as an ens per se—we are able to conclude that a mind is, in some sense, an incomplete thing; it is an incomplete part of a human being.

Of course, the claim that a mind is an incomplete substance would count as significant evidence for a hylomorphic understanding of human beings. But, because this possibility largely hinges on Descartes’ letter to Regius, it would be a good idea to take a closer look at Descartes’ comments in that letter to see if they unambiguously support the trialist project.

In the same letter Descartes wrote:

All of the arguments to prove substantial forms could be applied to the form of a clock, which nobody says is a substantial form. . . . It is inconceivable that a substance should come into existence without being created de novo by God; but we see that every day many so-called substantial forms come into existence; and yet the people who think they are substances do not believe that they are created by God; so their view is mistaken. This is confirmed by the example of the soul, which is the true substantial form of man. For the soul is a substance. Hence, since the other “forms” are not thought to be created in this way, . . . they should not be regarded as substances (AT III 505, CSMK 208).

Descartes’ position in this quotation is somewhat hard to unpack. He is clearly arguing against the existence of substantial forms in general by denying that we need them to

make sense of clocks and the like. But then he switches to talk of the substantial form of man and seems to conclude that it exists and is a substance. Initially, as we noted earlier, this may seem to support the claim that the mind is the form of a substantial human being, but I do not think that the case is clear cut.

First we should note that Descartes does not say that a human being is a substance only that the mind is: “For the soul is a substance.” This is, of course, in straight forward agreement with the sixth meditation, where he establishes that a mind is a substance in its own right.17 So, that line, itself, is not direct evidence for the substantial standing of human beings. Nevertheless, Descartes does seem to be at least considering the idea of the soul as a substantial form. Thus, straightforward readings of the text seem to provide evidence both for and against a hylomorphic reading of Descartes. Nevertheless, the evidence is not equally distributed on both sides.

According to the quotation Descartes asserts that substances can only be created de novo, from nothing, and not through the combining of parts. And while

Descartes is clearly thinking about the nature of physical things, when he argues that they cannot be substances because no one thinks that particular physical things are created by God from nothing, the same argument could easily be run against the claim that human beings are substances. Descartes is simply denying that anything created from parts is a substance. In doing so he leaves no room for composite substances.

This forces the trialists into the uncomfortable position of either having to accept that

17AT VII 13, CSM 9

every human being is a creation of God de novo, or having to explain why human beings are exempt from that explicit requirement.

As an aside it is noteworthy that Descartes’ insistence that substance cannot come into being except as a direct creation of God is an effective argument against the pluralist position. Since it is the case that a particular thing that is not created by God cannot be a substance, we should not conclude that clocks, beds and balls of wax are substances. To be substances in their own right they would need to be created de novo.

It seems more reasonable to conclude that particular physical things are merely modes of a single physical substance.

Returning to the question of hylomorphic unions, later in the same letter

Descartes notes that “considering the body alone, we clearly perceive nothing in it on account of which it demands to be united with the soul, as we perceive nothing in the soul on account of which it must be united to the body” (AT III 461, CSMK 200). But this is exactly the opposite of what we would expect Descartes to say if he thought that the soul and body of a human being called for union with the other in order to form a hylomorphic union. This last quotation clearly supports the view that body, in general, does not need mind, or minds, in any way, and mind is equally indifferent towards body.

Thus, while it may certainly be the case that the independent existence of a mind and a body may only be possible, in this world, by a miraculous act, it is nonetheless the case that they do not need each other. So, at least one conclusion that we should draw from the letter is that mind and body have no built-in requirement to go together in Descartes’ account. This is a significant stumbling block for the hylomorphic reading, since on that

account, we would need the component substances to be called into union with each other.18

Unfortunately, Descartes sees fit to complicate the matter. While denying that minds and bodies have any need for each other, he also makes this claim: “if a human being is considered himself as a whole, we say of course that he is a single ens per se, and not an ens per accidens; because the union which joins a human body soul to each other is not accidental to a human being, but essential, since a human being without it is not a human being” (AT III 508, CSMK 209). It seems clear, at least prima facie, that this could plausibly be read as evidence in favor of a hylomorphic reading. So, does

Descartes contradict himself? I think that answer here is no.

The first thing to notice is that the latter claim maintains that it is an essential part of the nature of a human being, to have a soul and body, while the earlier claim—about independence—is about bodies and minds in themselves. Strictly speaking, this is enough to remove the taint of a straightforward and obvious contradiction.

The second thing to notice is that simply having an essential nature does not entail being a substance. Consider that triangles, according to Descartes, have essential natures even though they are not substances. Consider also that there seems to be no reason to deny that a color has an essential nature, but it would be odd to extrapolate from that claim to the notion that the color red is a substance. So, while

Descartes clearly states that it is part of the nature of a human being to have both a mind and a body—and to have them as a matter of necessity—the mere fact that human beings have immutable natures does not, in itself, lead us to conclude that

18This is also a significant difficulty for the attempt to link Descartes’ notion of substance with the Scholastic position.

human beings are substances. Thus, it seems that even in this letter to Regius—which at first glance seems to be good evidence for the hylomorphic reading—there is, in the end, little reason to suppose that Descartes believed that human beings are substances in their own right.

It is interesting to note that at each turn in the discussion so far we keep coming back to Descartes’ ideas about substances. So, perhaps it would be wise to take a moment to flesh out his theory, if just briefly, and consider whether it can shed some light on the trialist project.

In the Principles Descartes offers this definition of substance: “By substance we can understand nothing other than a thing which exists in such way as to depend on no other thing for its existence” (AT VIIIA 24, CSM I 210). However in, the Second Replies

Descartes notes that substance “applies to every thing in which whatever we perceive immediately resides, as in a subject, or to every thing by means of which whatever we perceive exists” (AT VII 161, CSM II 114). So, what are we to make of the different definitions? The difference lies in the purposes of each passage.

In the Second Replies Descartes is primarily interested in giving a brief presentation of his ontology, and so, the thumbnail sketch emphasized the role that substances play in his metaphysics; in the Principles passage he is in the middle of a discussion of dependence relationships, and so, he emphasizes that aspect of his concept.19 In brief then, a substance is that which depends on nothing except God and

19It is interesting to note that in the French edition of the Principles Descartes allowed this comment to be appended to the definition of substance “In the case of created things, some are of such a nature that they cannot exist without other things, while some need only the ordinary concurrence of God in order to exist. We make this distinction by calling the latter ‘substance’ and the former ‘qualities’ or ‘attributes’ of those substances” (AT VIIIA 24, CSM I 210). It strikes me, though I will offer no further argument for the claim, that this clause is not only compatible with the definition in the Second Replies, but really just a

is the subject of all properties. That is, a substance is basically the metaphysical grounding for properties without which they could not exist.20 It is hard to see how this understanding of substance can be understood in relativistic terms. Furthermore, if a thing is dependent on something else, it is not a substance; yet, if a thing is not dependent on anything—except God—it is a substance. So, it is hard to see how a hylomorphic union could be a substance since it is dependent on a mind, a body, and

God. It seems clear that a straightforward reading of Descartes’ views on substance place the trialist project in danger.

restatement of the same idea. If that is right, then my claim that the two positions are complimentary is strengthened.

20As for the properties that inhere in substances, Descartes made a distinction between necessary and accidental properties; the former he called attributes the latter modes. He thought of attributes as “that which always remains unmodified – for example existence or duration in a thing which exists and endure” (AT VIIIA 26, CSM I 211-212). and noted that “each substance has one principal property which constitutes its nature and essence, and to which all its other properties are referred” (AT VIIIA 25, CSM I 210). So, attributes are the properties that are essential to a substance, cannot change, and determine what other properties it can have. For our purposes here I wish to draw special attention to two features of these comments: first, attributes are the that “to which all other properties are referred;” second, attributes are nothing but the substance itself.

This last claim, often referred to as the principal attribute thesis, is somewhat controversial, the trialists would deny it, but I believe there is good textual grounding for it. In the Principles Descartes writes “Thought and extension can be regarded as constituting the natures of intelligent substance and corporeal substance; they must then be considered as nothing else but thinking substance itself and extended substance itself – that is, as mind and body” (AT VIIIA 30-31, CSM I 215). And in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet he writes “But considered in itself, the extension itself—the subject of these modes—is not a mode of the corporeal substance, but an attribute which constitutes its natural essence” (AT VIIIB 348-349, CSM I 297). Here, Descartes explicitly claims that extension is the subject of modes, and seems to signify via the em-dashed clause that extension just is body. Further if we consider the claim that extension is the subject of the physical modes alongside the claim in the Second Replies that substance is the subject of modes, we can safely take this as evidence that substance and attribute are equivalent. If not, we need to give an account of how both could be the subject of inherence of modes.

One common alternative to the principal attribute thesis rests on the distinguishing a thing’s essence from the thing itself. Yet, Descartes implies that whatever is true of a things nature is true of it claiming that “[w]hen we say that something is contained in the nature or concept of a thing, this is the same as saying that it is true of that thing, or that it can be asserted of that thing” (AT VII 166, CSM II 117). Since establishing the difference between natures and things would depend on saying at least one thing that is true of one but not the other, this passage would seem to make it difficult to deny the identity of attributes and substances.

However, some have argued that Descartes’ understanding of substance was a bit more complex than I have so far recounted. Specifically, Marjorie Grene argues that

Descartes believed that a substance could be a property: “one cannot exclude the possibility that a substance could occur as the property of another substance” (1991,

38).21 If this reading of Descartes is accurate, then trialists have some reason to be confident after all. That is, if substances can act like properties, then mind and body could more easily be said to combine to form a new substance (with mind playing the role of a property).

So what, if anything, can be said against the position suggested by Grene? We can begin by noting that, on her reading, one substance in the relationship would count as a mode. Yet, if a thing inheres in something else—as a property inheres in a substance—it would be impossible to have a clear and distinct idea of the inhering property without also including at least some notion of supportive substance in the idea of the property. In the Comments Descartes makes this point explicitly and then considers its consequences:

the nature of a mode is such that it cannot be understood at all unless the concept of the thing of which it is a mode is implied in its own concept. Our author admits that the mind can sometimes be understood apart from the body, viz. when there are doubts about the existence of the body. It follows from this that, at least when such doubts are entertained, the mind cannot be said to be a mode of the body. Now what is sometimes true of the essence or nature of something is always true of it. Nevertheless the author asserts that ‘the nature of things leaves open the possibility that the mind is merely a mode of the body’. These two statements manifestly contradict each other. (AT VIIIB 355, CSM 302)

It would seem that this is a clear repudiation of the position. Descartes is clear in his belief that the mind cannot be a mode of the body. The attempt to save the hylomorphic

21She also notes that one substance can “serve as accident or mode” of another (Grene 1991, 39).

view of human beings by arguing that minds can inhere in bodies as modes, is unlikely to succeed.

It would thus seem appropriate to conclude that the textual evidence on

Descartes’ belief in the hylomorphic union of mind and body is, at best, inconclusive.

While he does make some remarks that seem to endorse hylomorphism he also makes many that deny it. Furthermore, hylomorphism is incompatible with Descartes clear position on substance, modes, and their relation to each other.

But let us suppose, for the moment, that the relativising move actually works and that Descartes really did understand human beings to be hylomorphic unions of minds and bodies. Would we then have an unproblematic series of steps terminating in the conclusion that a human being is a substance? Not quite.

3.4 Mixed Modes

Recall that one objection to the triangle-in-square analogy was grounded in the lack of new properties generated be the union of mind and body. That is, if there are no properties that arise only from the union of mind and body and not from either mind or body alone, the analogy between a human being and a triangle inscribed in square would break down. One way to respond to this objection is to argue that the union of mind and body does generate new properties. However, this claim is actually more than just an attempt to rescue the relativising maneuver, it is one of the hallmarks of the trialists’ reading of Descartes.

Skirry, in his defense of trialism, offers the argument that nothing less than the hylomorphic union of mind and body can explain Descartes’ comments on the nature of sensation and imagination. Given a standard reading of Descartes’ ideas on modes and their relationship to substances, the case can be made that these, so-called, mixed

modes require the existence of mixed substances. Indeed, if the trialists can show that

Descartes believed in mixed modes, they may be able to conclude that he must have believed in hylomorphic unions.

But, before we can assess the standing of these mixed modes we should get clear on how Descartes pictured modes. In the Principles Descartes suggests that “we employ the term mode when we are thinking of a substance as being affected or modified” (AT VIIIA 26, CSM I 211 ) and in the Comments he offers that a mode is

“susceptible of change, . . . a bodies being spherical constitutes one mode, being square a different mode” (AT VIIIB 348-349CSM II ). So, a mode, in the strict Cartesian sense, is just a variable accident of a substance; it is a way of being of the substance. In other words, modes are the those non-essential properties that are metaphysically dependent on substances—they inhere in substances.

This suggests that since modes are ways of being of substances, their types will be matched by the types of substances available. Oddly, John Cottingham, in

“Cartesian Trialism,” argues that while there are only two types of substance in

Descartes’ view, there are three types of modes. He suggests that there are purely physical modes, purely mental modes, and mixed modes that are both physical and mental. However, while Cottingham stops short of arguing for the existence of a substance that corresponds to the mixed modes, the trialists do not. They argue that the mixed modes should count as evidence for counting human beings as substances.

Indeed, if Cottingham’s analysis of the so-called mixed modes were accurate, it would be a great advantage for the trialist interpretation of Descartes. The way would be open for them to argue that sensations are not just modes, but modes that emerge only

from a unified human substance. So, one important element of their interpretation of

Descartes must be that the modes of imagination and sensation are unsupportable by anything less than the union of mind and body as an ens per se. Cottingham seems to support this understanding of the unusual nature of mixed modes. He argues that the

“results of our analysis of Descartes’ account of imagination and sensation thus show that these faculties are not, for Descartes, straightforwardly ‘mental’ (after the fashion of, e.g., understanding.) . . . They are not readily assignable either to a res cogitans or to a res extensa” (Cottingham 1985, 224). Of course, modes must be modes of some substance, and if they are neither modes of mind nor body, then there must be some third substance of which they are a mode.

The initial step in the trialist interpretation of Descartes’ views on the special mixed modes is to notice that as early as the second meditation Descartes seems to segregate imagination and sensation from the other mental faculties. As Cottingham writes, “A thinking thing is a thing which doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling-and also which imagines and has sensory experience. The last two verbs are paired together and tacked on to the rest of the list almost as an after thought. Why should this be” (1985, 220)? Cottingham goes on to argue that Descartes was hinting at the eventual conclusion that imagination and sensation are significantly different from the other mental faculties.

The difference is that while the other faculties are purely mental, imagination and sensation require that the mind be intimately related to a body, as Descartes notes, they

“arise from the union and as it were intermingling of the mind with the body” (AT VII 81,

CSM II 56). Of course, since not all mental activity requires a body, any activity that

does is different in kind from the rest, at least prima facie. So, what should we make of the mental activity that requires a body?

One obvious option is to conclude that these mixed modes require a special substance: one that is both mental and physical. If we think of modes as the determinate features of determinable substances, the existence of mixed modes would seem to require the existence of mixed substances. What better candidate for a mixed substance than the mind-body union? The trialists take this point as clear support for their view: “only a complete substantial human nature (i.e. a mind and a body united per se) entails the propria or proper accidents of a human being, viz a capacity for having sensations” (Skirry 2005, 117).

But the question that these philosophers fail to address is that of the kind of dependence that normally exists between modes and substances and whether or not the mixed modes are related to their putative substance in that way. That is, do sensation and imagination require the union of body and mind in the same way that willing requires a mind and shape requires a body? Do mixed modes conform to

Descartes’ views on modes in general or do they require some new and possibly exotic relationship to substances? If they do conform to Descartes’ general view, then this would certainly be a strong argument for trialism. Unfortunately for the proponents of trialism this does not seem to be the case.

We know that modes inhere in their substances and cannot exist otherwise. So, if the mixed modes are really modes of the mind-body union they should be expected to inhere exclusively in human beings. That is, we should expect them to be ontologically

dependent on the unified substance alone, and not occur in either of the component substances individually.

However, Descartes is on record as saying that, strictly speaking, sensation and imagination are modes of mind that can be had even in the absence of bodies. When

Descartes considers which of the putatively mental activities can survive the doubts of the first meditation:

Which of all these activities is distinct from my thinking? Which of them can be said to be separate from myself? The fact that it is I who am doubting and understanding and willing is so evident that I see no way of making it any clearer. But it is also the case that the ‘I’ who imagines is the same ‘I’. . . . the power of imagination is something which really exists and is a part of my thinking. Lastly, it is also the same ‘I’ who has sensory perceptions. (AT VII 29, CSM II 19)

This passage does not lend itself to any interpretation but the understanding of imagination and sensation as modes of thought.22 Descartes explicitly identifies the subject—i.e. the substance—that supports volition, understanding, and doubt with the subject that supports imagination and sensation. He continues that seeing when considered strictly as just “having a sensory perception . . . is simply thinking” (AT VII

29, CSM II 19). That is, when carefully considered, perception is nothing more than a kind of thinking. It is, of course, beyond doubt that, for Descartes, thinking is exclusively a property of minds, and modes of thought inhere only in minds.

Furthermore, later in the Meditations he gives us this telling passage:

Besides this, I find in myself faculties for certain special modes of thinking, namely imagination and sensory perception. Now I can clearly and distinctly understand myself as a whole without these faculties; but I cannot, conversely, understand these faculties without me, that is, without an intellectual substance to inhere in. This is because there is an intellectual act included in their essential definition; and hence I perceive that the

22See also AT VII 33, 360; CSM II 22, 249 and AT XI 342, 343; CSM I 335-336 for similar comments.

distinction between them and myself corresponds to the distinction between the modes of a thing and the thing itself. (AT VII 78, CSM II 54; italics mine)

Notice that italicized portions provide an unambiguous and undeniable categorization of imagination and sensations as modes of an “intellectual substance.” Of course, the trialist could argue that “intellectual substance” is meant to refer to a human being and not just a mind. Indeed, this move has some plausibility in that the quotation comes from the sixth meditation, wherein Descartes is attempting to argue that the mind and body are not as independent as they might seem. But, it seems unlikely that this move would work for the other, earlier, passages. Regardless, the point is not yet lost for the trialist.

There is plenty of textual evidence to suggest that sensation is dependent on the union of mind and body. In the sixth meditation Descartes is quite clear that the body is what causes a mind to feel pain or see red. “it may possibly be this very body that enables me to imagine corporeal things” (AT VII 73, CSM II 51) and “[t]here is nothing that my own nature teaches me more vividly than that I have a body, and that when I feel pain there is something wrong with the body, and that when I am hungry or thirsty the body needs food and drink, and so on” (AT VII 80, CSM II 56). It is safe to conclude that without a body the mind could have no such sensations; it would not be stimulated in the right way. So we must acknowledge that sensation and imagination must have some special relationship to bodies. As Skirry notes, the trialist interpreter of Descartes wants to unpack this relationship in a way that requires a substance neither purely mental nor purely physical: “the confused modes of sensation would not arise if minds were united to their bodies as sailors are present in their ships” (2005, 103).

But, the dependency of these special modes on bodies does not have to be a ontological dependence; imagination and sensation can be dependent on body as an effect is dependent on its efficient cause. The point is simply this, while sensation is causally dependent on bodies, we should say that it is ontologically dependent only on minds. There is, in fact, a fair amount of textual evidence to support this reading.

In his responses to Gassendi Descartes offers a fairly clear claim to the effect that sensation, strictly speaking, does not need a body in order to occur: “I was not here dealing with sight and touch, which occur by means of bodily organs, but was concerned solely with the thought of seeing and touching, which, as we experience every day in our dreams, does not require these organs” (AT VII 360, CSM II 249). So, while seeing the world requires that we have bodies providing the right sort of causal connections, having the mental activity associated with seeing the world—what

Descartes called “the thought of seeing”—does not require having a body. This is important, as Descartes is arguing that a mind does not need a body in order to have the modes of thought that are sensations. There is no easy way to reconcile this claim with the trialist’s position that those self-same modes inhere only in the union of mind and body.

The claim that we do not need a body in order to have sensations is made, once again, in the Principles:

one can raise the question of whether this thing is God or something different from God. But we have sensory awareness of, or rather as a result of sensory stimulation we have a clear and distinct perception of, some kind of matter, which is extended in length, breadth and depth, and has various differently shaped and variously moving parts which give rise to our various sensations of colours, smells, pain and so on. And if God were himself immediately producing in our mind the idea of such extended matter, or even if he were causing the idea to be produced by something which lacked

extension, shape and motion, there would be no way of avoiding the conclusion that he should be regarded as a deceiver. (AT VIIIA 40-41, CSM 223)

As part of the proof for an external world Descartes makes the point that our sensations could be caused by God and not the external world’s impressions on our body. This point is reinforced in the sixth meditation where Descartes admits that the efficient cause of a sensation does not even have to be a body:

it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it. Besides this, I find in myself faculties for certain special modes of thinking, namely imagination and sensory perception. Now I can clearly and distinctly understand myself as a whole without these faculties; but I cannot, conversely, understand these faculties without me, that is, without an intellectual substance to inhere in. This is because there is an intellectual act included in their essential definition; and hence I perceive that the distinction between them and myself corresponds to the distinction between the modes of a thing and the thing itself. . . . [I do not have the ability to cause sensations in me] So the only alternative is that it is in another substance distinct from me - a substance which contains either formally or eminently all the reality which exists objectively in the ideas produced by this faculty (as I have just noted). This substance is either a body, that is, a corporeal nature, in which case it will contain formally everything which is to be found objectively in the ideas; or else it is God, or some creature more noble than a body, in which case it will contain eminently whatever is to be found in the ideas. (AT VII 78-79, CSM II 54-55, italics mine).

In this quotation we see two interesting bits of evidence. First, we see Descartes repeat the claim that sensation does not require the existence of material bodies; it could instead be caused by God. Second, we see Descartes explicitly refer to imagination and sensation as modes of thinking. And though he once again uses the ambiguous phrase

“intellectual substance” here it is clear that the intellectual substance is “distinct from my body and can exist without it.” That is, the intellectual substance is clearly a disembodied mind and not a mind-body union. And in the third meditation he notes that

“even though the objects of my sensory experience and imagination may have no

existence outside me, nonetheless the modes of thinking which I refer to as cases of sensory perception and imagination, in so far as they are simply modes of thinking, do exist within me—of that I am certain” (AT VII 34-35, CSM II 24; italics mine).

So, Descartes consistently and clearly asserts that imagination and sensation— although the latter, at least, is normally caused by external factors—are nothing but plain mental modes. We do need bodily organs in order to perceive things successfully, but we do not need them to have sensory ideas. While it is true that, in the normal course of things, the confused modes of perceptions, the mixed modes, would not arise without the mind being intimately related to the body, it does not seem to be the case that they could not arise from other causes. That is, I might feel pain regardless of whether I have a body or not, but it will not be a veridical sensation unless I have a body, and this is so because, qua modes, sensation and imagination are nothing but modes of minds.

And this is not the only reason to dismiss the trialist reading of mixed modes. To see why we need only remember the basic ontological picture in Descartes, presented explicitly in Principles 1.53: “each substance has one principal attribute . . . to which all its other properties are referred” (AT VIIIA 25, CSM I 210). If every property is to be referred to an attribute, to which attribute, i.e. essential nature, should we refer the mixed modes? If we argue that they are a modification of either extension or thought, then they are no longer mixed modes. If we argue that they are a modification of both thought and extension, we face a significant problem; we have no textual evidence for such a metaphysical item. Indeed, as we have seen, all of the textual evidence points toward imagination being nothing more than a mode of thought. Furthermore, it is

unclear to me that we could even conceive of a single “way of being” that encompasses two fully distinct attributes. The third option is, of course, to find a third attribute, that is, a third substantial nature which would entail a third substance. But this option also fails to have any textual support, and further the only attribute which even suggests itself is unity, but how is the sensation of pain supposed to be a modification of unity?

Skirry responds to this objection by arguing that the scope of the claim in

Principles 1.53 is limited by Descartes in 1.48. That is, the claims made in 1.53 apply only to the nature of mind and body and not to the nature of all created substances.

Thus, there is no need to give a notion of an attribute to which sensation must be attributed, because 1.53 does not apply to the substantial foundation of all modes in general. The substance of the mixed modes is exempt from the principal attribute thesis even if minds and bodies, independently, are not.

This is an interesting response, and not without merit. Taken on its own 1.48 can indeed be thought to limit the scope of 1.53. Thus, rendering the claim that there is a third kind of substance distinct from mind and body compatible with the claims found in

1.53. But should we accept this rebuttal? One problem that springs immediately to mind is Descartes’ silence on the existence of the third kind of substance. Given that the

Principles are meant to be a definitive statement of his philosophy, why would he forgo explicitly mentioning a fundamental component of his ontology?23 It would be a bizarre

23Descartes describes the purpose of the Principles thusly: “I would have wanted next to put down the reasons which serve to prove that the true principles, enabling one to reach the highest degree of wisdom which constitutes the supreme good of human life, are the principles which I have set down in this book. . . . Admittedly, I have not dealt with all things, for this would be impossible. But I think I have explained all the things I have had occasion to deal with in such a way that those who read the book attentively will be convinced that in order to arrive at the highest knowledge of which the human mind is capable there is no need to look for any principles other than those I have provided” (AT IXB 9). So, in theory the existence of a third—presumably non-ultimate—substance should, would at least be deducible from the explicit premises in the Principles. It is hard to see how to accomplish such a deduction.

oversight. Would Descartes neglect to mention a crucial component of his metaphysics—a component that could have silenced many of his critics—from a work that he intended to be used as the only truly necessary resource in the universities of

Europe? This alone should give us pause when considering Skirry’s answer to the claims in 1.53. Yet, even allowing for the limited scope rebuttal, should we accept the claim that the mixed modes imply a unified substance? I don’t think we should.

In fact, if we take the spirit of Skirry’s observation to heart, that each principle informs and limits or at the very least takes precedence over the principles after it, we will find evidence to deny the trialist reading of the mixed modes. In Principles 1.9

Descartes asserts that “thinking is to be identified here not merely with understanding, willing and imagining, but also with sensory awareness. . . . as often happens during sleep, it is possible for me to think I am seeing or walking, though my eyes are closed and I am not moving about; such thoughts might even be possible if I had no body at all”

(AT VIIIA 7, CSM I 195). This passage is interesting for several reasons. First, he, once again, acknowledges that imagination and perception are modes of thought just as willing and understanding. Second, he, once again, acknowledges that we can have perceptions even without having a body. Third, these two claims clearly entail that imagining and sensing are modes of the mind. All three claims, of course, corroborate the passages in the Meditations and Principles, cited earlier. But this is not the only passage before 1.48 in which Descartes groups the various modes of thought together.

In Principles 1.17 he notes that “[w]hen we reflect further on the ideas that we have within us, we see that some of them, in so far as they are merely modes of thinking, do not differ much one from another” (AT VIIIA 11, CSM I 198). And in Principles 1.32 he

reinforces the claim explicitly. “All the modes of thinking that we experience within ourselves can be brought under two general headings: perception, or the operation of the intellect . . . and volition . . . Sensory perception, imagination and pure understanding are simply various modes of perception” (AT VIIIA 17, CSM I 204 ). So, it is clear that, contrary to Cottingham’s reading of the second meditation, Descartes considered imagination to be, metaphysically speaking, nothing more than a mode of thought just like the other modes. And, significantly for the problem at hand, he makes these claims before the putatively scope limiting comments in 1.48.24 So, even if the claims of 1.51 are not applicable to so-called substantial unions, it is nevertheless the case that imagination and sensation are modes of the pure minds mention in 1.48, and not modes of human beings.

These passages clearly show that imagination and sensation are properly thought of as modes of thought, that is of disembodied minds, and not of a united substance. But is this enough? Suppose we argued that the text is at least ambiguous enough to show that while imagination is a mental mode, it could, somehow, also be a mode of the mind of a substantial union. Would this be enough to count as evidence for a trialist reading of Descartes? Probably not.

There are two problems with this attempt. First, in the places that Descartes mentions the modal status of imagination and sensation, Meditations 2, 3, and 6,

Principles 1.7, 1.11, 1.17, 2.1, it is beyond doubt that he is only discussing the modes of the mind, disembodied, complete, and by itself. Perhaps most importantly in Principles

1.53, a passage squarely within the suggested limiting scope of 1.48 he notes that

24He also reiterates the point in Principles 1.63: “There are various modes of thought such as understanding, imagination, memory, volition, and so on” (AT VIIIA 31, CSM I 215).

“imagination, sensation and will are intelligible only in a thinking thing.” Granted, it would be clearer if he said, explicitly, that they are only modes of “pure mental substances.”

But the context and the meaning of the passages is so clear, that it strains credulity to claim that he was ambiguous in all of these instances.

Furthermore, recall that when speaking of modes Descartes argues that “we can clearly perceive a substance apart from the mode which we say differs from it, whereas we cannot, conversely, understand the mode apart from the substance” (AT VIIIA 29,

CSM I). Which is to say, we cannot clearly and distinctly conceive of a mode without also conceiving of its substance. Given that stance, it would be impossible to conceive of imagination and sensation without also thinking of a unified substance, if in fact imagination and sensation were modes of unions and not just minds. That is, if we grant, for the sake of argument, that there are some modes confusingly named sensations that are indeed modes of human beings, distinct from the similarly named modes of disembodied minds, then it must be the case that these modes are inconceivable as except as modes of human beings and inconceivable as a mode of a disembodied substance. And we should expect this inconceivability to be as forceful as the inconceivability of a attaching a mode of shape onto to mental substance or a mode of understanding onto a physical substance. That no mode of imagination which is inconceivable as a mode of disembodied substance presents itself should count as evidence that no such mode exists in Descartes.

Imagination and sensation are merely modes of immaterial minds, although modes with special causal chains. Ideas of sensation can be experienced by minds even though no bodies exist in the world. There is no evidence that mixed modes are

anything but modes of thought, which is only an attribute of minds. There is no complex substance that is a necessary part of our ideas of imagination and sensation. There is no textual evidence for the claim that Descartes believed in special modes and substances that resemble the typical modes and substances found in the Meditations and Principles but yet differ in ontologically fundamental ways. So, we must conclude that the mixed modes are not evidence for the existence of a third kind of substance in

Descartes.

3.5 Summary Notes

In this chapter I have argued that there are three essential components for the trialist reading of Descartes: pluralism, hylomorphism, and mixed modes. I have argued that while the evidence for pluralism is compelling it is not definitive and, even if it were, pluralism is merely a necessary condition for Cartesian trialism which cannot, on its own, lead us to that conclusion. I have argued that the textual evidence for hylomorphism is weak and that hylomorphic substances cannot meet all of the requirements for substancehood. They are neither created de novo, nor do they have principal attributes. Finally I have argued that the trialist reading of the so-called mixed modes cannot support the claim that they inhere in a unified substance, but more importantly the reading is flatly contradicted by Descartes’ own words. Thus I cannot help but conclude that the trialist reading of Descartes fails.

In light of this failure and given Descartes’ views that a substance’s nature is just is its principal attribute, his thoroughgoing dualism and his ideas about the distinction of substances it seems clear that minds, if not persons, are nothing more than single, complete and independent substances that have thought as their nature and principal attribute.

CHAPTER 4 DESCARTES’ SUBSTANCE AND CONTEMPORARY OBJECTIONS

4.1 Introductory Remarks

In Chapters 2 and 3, I have argued that Descartes’ specific and unambiguous views on substance lead him to a particular understanding of the substance of minds.

Of course, those chapters are primarily focused on excavating Descartes’ theory from his own work. In this chapter I will take a look at some of the errors that others accuse

Descartes of making in his attempt to discover the nature of mind. Specifically, Hobbes,

Gassendi, and Locke thought that Descartes made some crucial errors, especially in the work of the second meditation. In order to have a more complete sense of Descartes’ views it would be worthwhile to examine their criticisms and Descartes’ responses.

All three critics can be seen as launching related but distinct attacks on

Descartes’ system. Gassendi and Hobbes are both concerned with the way in which

Descartes arrives at the conclusion that mind is nothing but a thinking thing; they are both concerned with what they take to be Descartes’ misconception of minds. More specifically, Hobbes focuses on Descartes’ conception of the relationship between a substance and its attributes. He alleges, in effect, that Descartes does not have firm ground to stand on when he argues that a substance is identical with its primary attribute. Gassendi finds Descartes’ claims about the nature of mind unsatisfying and points out an important counter example to one of Descartes’ main tenets. Locke seems to adopt a different stance altogether. He attempts to overthrow not just Descartes’ particular views on mind, as Hobbes and Gassendi try to, but the very notion that such a

metaphysical inquiry can be completed. Indeed, Locke argues that gaining a clear and distinct idea of substance is beyond our abilities.1

In the following I shall look at each of the critiques in turn.

4.2 Hobbes

One of Hobbes’s goals in the third objections is to argue against Descartes’ claims about the immaterial nature of minds. So, it would be easy to cast Hobbes’s as a straightforward materialist. Indeed this is the generally received view of his metaphysical stance.2 And yet, some scholars have suggested that this is not the right view of Hobbes. For example, Samantha Frost, argues that while Hobbes is a materialist in the sense that he believes only in the existence of bodies, he does not accept the Cartesian understanding of physical substance and is therefore not a straightforward materialist (2005, 497).3 Be that as it may, for the purposes of this discussion whether or not Hobbes is a simple materialist is not the central concern, neither are we really concerned with his exact understanding of minds. For our purposes, we need merely accept that he thought Descartes was clearly wrong about the metaphysical status of minds. On this point, there is no disagreement.

The basic attack pursued by Hobbes is that Descartes misunderstands the nature of the things which think and the nature of thinking itself. Fittingly, he centers his objections on the material in the second meditation, offering two significant objections.

1Here we should note that, in his ninth objection, Hobbes provides a very brief, yet similar attack on Descartes’ claim that he has a clear and distinct idea of substance. Descartes’ response fails to engage the claim to any significant degree. Because of the brevity of both the objection and the response I will focus on Locke’s more robust treatment, however I do look at Hobbe’s comments a more closely in note 80.

2Garber (1988) and Laird (1934), for example take this view.

3See also Stewart Duncan, “Hobbes’s Materialism in the Early 1640s” for a third view, in which Hobbes, or at least the early Hobbes of the 1640s, is simply not a materialist.

First, he argues that the cogito is a poor argument that leads to unintended and unsupportable consequences. Second, he argues that it is simply not possible to have thought without matter. Descartes, he observes, has badly misunderstood the nature of thought when he concludes that a mind can think even if no bodies exist. This second attack actually consists of two distinct arguments: first, Hobbes claims that thinking is a material process; second, he claims that imagination, which requires physical substance, is the fundamental mode of thinking. We shall explore all three contentions individually.

Hobbes first attacks Descartes by accusing him of conflating a thing’s attributes with its essence. When Descartes concludes that he is a thinking thing in the second meditation, he is, on Hobbes’s reading, ignoring the distinction between an agent and the agent’s properties. Descartes is not entitled to conclude that he is essentially a thinking thing simply because he thinks (or can think). Noting that “M. Descartes is identifying the thing which understands with intellection, which is an act of that which understands. Or at least he is identifying the thing which understands with the intellect, which is a power of that which understands.” Hobbes sharpens the critique by then noting that “all philosophers make a distinction between a subject and its faculties and acts” (AT VII 172, CSM II 122). Hobbes feels that Descartes should be willing to consider that he might exist without thinking. It is indeed impossible to have an act without an agent but this impossibility does not license identifying the agent with the act.

As Hobbes puts it, “I who am thinking am distinct from my thought; but my thought . . . is distinct from me in the same way in which . . . jumping is distinct from the jumper” (AT

VII 177). Hobbes’s point is simply this: Descartes is conflating properties and agents in an ill-advised way.

If we were to generalize Descartes’ move to define an agent’s essence merely by referring to some characteristic property we would unwittingly underwrite some truly odd agents. In effect, if we accept the reasoning about essences embedded in the cogito,

Hobbes suggests that we should also accept a parallel reasoning in an ambulo argument: “I am walking, therefore I am a walk” (AT VII 172, CSM II 122). Hobbes intends for this to be a reductio and thus evidence for his position that an “an entity is one thing, its essence is another” (AT VII 173, CSM II 122).4 Of course, whether the ambulo is a successful reductio is less important than the principal point about

Descartes’ illegitimately helping himself to the notion that he is, in essence, a thinking thing.5

Descartes responds first by insisting that Hobbes is being obtuse in his use of terminology and that no reasonable person would accuse Descartes of illegitimately conflating an agent with its properties.

4There is a question of translation here. C. F. Fowler suggests that the Hobbes’s ambulo ought to be “I might just as well argue from ‘I am permabulating’ to ‘I am perambulation’(Fowler 1999, 175)” This translation is interesting in that it suggests the parallel translation “I am walking, therefore I am the activity of walking.”

Paloma Rodriguez, Santa Fe College, in personal correspondence suggests that “sum ambulans, ergo sum ambulatio” ought to be translated as “I am a walking being, therefore I am the act of going for a walk.” Given either of these translations, Descartes’ response that he does not equate thinking thing to intellection, the act of having a thought, but rather to a “thing endowed with the faculty of thought” actually makes more sense. The point, in the following paragraph, that Descartes’ initial response is to correct Hobbes’s misunderstanding of the former’s, then novel, use of terminology remains intact.

5In this example it may that I have given a more plausible, but less accurate, account of the ambulo then is found in the third objections. If I have done so—and I am not entirely sure that I have—I believe that this reading still captures an interesting point that can be plausibly derived from Hobbes’s own words. Another, more successful, counterargument—that still follows Hobbes’s line of reasoning—might be this: from the fact that we cannot conceive of bodies except as divisible things we cannot conclude that body is identical with divisibility.

When I said ‘that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect or reason’, what I meant by these terms was not mere faculties, but things endowed with the faculty of thought. . . . I do not say that the thing which understands is the same as intellection. Nor, indeed, do I identify the thing which understands with the intellect, if ‘the intellect’ is taken to refer to a faculty; they are identical only if ‘the intellect’ is taken to refer to the thing which understands. (AT VII 174, CSM II 123)

This response is, however, unsatisfying for two reasons. First, it does not really matter that Hobbes made this reading error, the fundamental point about the distinction between properties and subjects remains untouched. Second, Descartes should actually disagree with Hobbes. Instead of accepting the general point that properties are distinct from the things they inhere in and then arguing that he does not make that mistake, he should insist that this principle is not true without exception. Descartes should point out that at least some properties—namely principal attributes—are indeed identical with their subject.6

In the case of thinking things, Hobbes clearly thinks that at some point the thing and the thinking can come apart. That is, even if it would take some miraculous event, it could happen that a thing which normally thinks is stripped of its attribute. However, as I noted in Chapter 2, the Principal Attribute Thesis does not allow Descartes anything more than a conceptual distinction between mind, qua substance, and thinking, qua attribute. As we’ve seen, Descartes depends on identifying substances and principal attributes in order to move on from the observations in the second mediation to the conclusions of the sixth meditation.

Interestingly, Descartes might simply accept that, so far as the second meditation is concerned, Hobbes might be right; it might be the case that the substances and

6See Chapter 3 Section 6.

attributes are not identical. This response is plausible in so far as it is not unreasonable to conclude that since Descartes casts himself as an agnostic about the substance of minds, in the second meditation, he might also be willing to cast himself as an agnostic on the question of the relationship between attributes and substances. He should be willing to admit that at that point in the work there is nothing in the two possibilities— between identity and separability—to indicate that one is clearly better than the other.

Descartes would of course ultimately have to argue that Hobbes is wrong, but he does not have to argue that his point is already established in the second meditation.

Finally, Descartes could also note that Hobbes’s attack depends on our ability to conceive of a subject for thought that is independent of thought. Descartes might just note that this doesn’t seem possible. That is why he can say that he is a thinking thing, and not a walking thing.7 There is something to the idea of a walker (extension in space) beyond the idea of walking. There is nothing to the idea of a thinker beyond thinking.

This maneuver is heavily dependent on Descartes’ argument in the second meditation that we can divorce our concept of ourselves as thinking things from any idea of body. If that maneuver succeeds, it would seem that Descartes’ identification of mind and thought is much more likely.8

Interestingly, Hobbes’s view would seem to imply that the thing that thinks has a nature that is not thinking. That is, since it is not identical with thought it must have some nature that is not thought, or not exclusively thought. One might then ask, just what is that essence? Is the thing identical with its essence? If so, then Hobbes only

7By comparing thinking thing to walking thing and not to “a walk” we are being generous to Hobbes, while recognizing the validity of his objection.

8Indeed, one is struck by how much Descartes’ theory seems to depend on the identification of a substance and its principal attribute.

disagrees with Descartes on the kinds of substances that exist; they only disagree about the principal attributes of extant substances. Alternatively, Hobbes might be suggesting that a substance can be conceived as having no essence. In this case the dispute is about the intelligibility of substances that have something like non-necessary essences: a bare-substance reading of substance would be such a view. However, it is hard to imagine Hobbes’s arguing for that view.9

Perhaps this is why Hobbes argues that the proper inference from the observation that we think is that there is a material thinking thing: “it seems that the subject of any act can be understood only in terms of something corporeal or in terms of matter” (AT VII 173, CSM II 122). Hobbes does not merely argue that the observation of a the self as a thinking thing does not suggest that the self is immaterial, but rather that the observation of a the self as a thinking thing entails that existence of a concrete, material thinker because we are unable to separate “thought from the material that is thinking” (AT VII 123, CSM II 122). This much stronger claim, if true would, of course, derail Descartes’ project.

Descartes however, notes that Hobbes’s own theory does not entail Hobbes’s claim that a mind must be a material thing. “It may be that the subject of any act can be understood only in terms of a substance (or even, if he insists, in terms of ‘matter’, i.e. metaphysical matter); but it does not follow that it must be understood in terms of a body” (AT VII 175, CSM II 123). Hobbes’s observations can only entail that there must be a subject that is thinking. The further claim that the thinking subject is physical does

9 In the Third Objections, Hobbes argues that we have no idea of substance, by which he means we do not perceive substance. Instead, he argues we establish the existence of substance solely by reasoning (AT VII 185, CSM II 130). This, of course, does not necessitate a bare-substance view. Interestingly, it anticipates Locke’s view.

not follow. Hobbes’s own argument does not accomplish what he wants it to.

Interestingly, as we have noted, in the second meditation Descartes avoids the parallel mistake of arguing that the mind must be immaterial because it can be conceived of independently from the body. While he does conclude that it is possible to conceive of the mind without including any notion of body or bodily attributes in the concept, he stops short of arguing for the immateriality of the mind opting, instead, for a weaker agnostic position.10 Of Descartes’ variety of possible responses to Hobbes’s objection to the identification of mind and thought, this last seems the strongest, as it turns Hobbes’s own reasoning against him.

Neverthelees, while Hobbes’s position on substance and properties does not on its own establish a corporeal status for mind, his second general objection offers a two part argument for the conclusion. First, Hobbes argues that the foundation of thought is imagination and that imagination is a faculty of the brain. Thus, thinking is a process of the brain: “imagination will depend (as I believe it does) merely on the motions of our bodily organs; and so the mind will be nothing more than motion occurring in various parts of an organic body” (AT VII 178, CSM II 126).11 Since thinking is a kind of motion, it must be an activity of material things. If Hobbes is right, Descartes is simply wrong to claim that there is no notion of body and its attributes entailed by his concept of mind.

Once Descartes admits that the mind is “A thing that doubts, understands, affirms,

10See Chapter 2 Section 4 for a more thorough treatment of his agnostic conclusion.

11Furthermore Hobbes argues elsewhere that, in general, there can be no change without motion, thus there is no action without motion. “It is not conceivable that there could be vision without action nor action without motion”(Rogers and Ryan 1988, 39). That is, he thinks that motion is the mechanism underlying all action. (The original source of quotation is in F. Alessio (ed.), “ Tractatus Opticus: prima edizione integrale”, in Rivista critica di storia della filosofia 18 (1963), pg. 150.) Richard Tuck offers a nice summary of Hobbes’s adherence to the conception of thought as motion (1989 p.39).

denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” the conclusion that a mind is material will follow straightaway (AT VII 28, CSM II 19 italics mine).

Descartes’ response is to remind Hobbes that there is a distinction between imagination and a “purely mental conception” (AT VII 178, CSM II 126). What he means by this was explored in Chapter 3. Descartes can acknowledge that while imagination, at least in us, is indeed dependent on the brain, or more generally imagination is dependent on corporeal bodies, the kind of dependence in question is not the metaphysical dependence involved in having a faculty. That is imagination is not a mode of body but a mode of mind, even though it seems to depend on bodies in some way.12 Even while Hobbes is right that imagination depends on brains, he is wrong to extrapolate from that that imagining is a property of brains.

Alternatively, since Hobbes’s theory hinges on our inability to think without also imagining, Descartes could derail the argument by showing that we are capable of conceiving of thoughts and minds without using our imagination; he could try to demonstrate that not all thinking is grounded in imagination. When Hobbes claims that it is unimaginable that reasoning might occur without a brain, Descartes can argue against this in one of two ways. If the claim is that it is unimaginable because it is impossible, Descartes can assert that that such an event is actually entirely possible— even if only by an act of God. Indeed, as we saw in Chapter 3, Descartes makes exactly this argument. Second, if the claim is that we simply do not have the capacity to imagine how thinking can occur without a brain, Descartes could also argue that while it is

12For a more thorough discussion of this point see Chapter 3 Section 5.

unimaginable, it is conceivable. The reason that we cannot imagine the occurrence of thinking without a brain is that imagining is simply the wrong faculty for understanding that possibility.13

Certainly, if thinking is dependent on imagining and imagination is a process of the brain, then concluding that every thing that thinks (and thus imagines) is a material substance seems like a plausible claim. However, if Hobbes’s view of thinking were right there would be little reason to believe that we could conceive of a very large polynomials or disembodied minds. It certainly seems unlikely that we could make two mental images which would allow us to distinguish a thousand sided figure from a one thousand and ten sided figure.14 But, of course, we do conceive of them differently. So, there must be something more to thinking than Hobbes’s picture. Descartes’ offers this exact counterargument, showing that some ideas do not involve imagination: “I did explain the difference between imagination and a purely mental conception in [the wax example], where I listed the features of the wax which we imagine and those which we

13In the third objections Hobbes mentions two kinds of mental activity inferring by reason and imagining and he seems to suggest that reasoning is largely, or perhaps even necessarily, dependent on imagination (AT VII 178, CSM II 125). It is beyond the scope of this paper to assess whether this is a proper impression. However, it is clear from his comments on the third meditation that Hobbes sees imagining as playing a much more important role than Descartes does. (See the specific objections 5-11 (AT VII 179-189. CSM II 126-133). Thus, it seems right to expect Descartes to defend his notion that imagination is not necessary for all other modes of thinking (AT VII 73 CSM II 51).

And yet their disagreement may not be so straightforward. In the third objections Hobbes makes an illuminating point about conceiving: “substance . . . is something that is established solely by reasoning; is it not something that is conceived, or that presents an idea to us” (AT VII 185, CSM 130). So, Hobbes seems to think of conceiving as something like generating an idea via an internal, mental mechanism; an idea that we can then think about. So, it seems that roughly speaking Descartes and Hobbes actually agree about the basic structure of mental events. The mind receives material from either internal reflection or external perception and then acts on those ideas in various ways that can be loosely labeled “reasoning.” If this is right, the main point of contention really comes down to the question of whose reflections on the nature of mind is best supported by the evidence. If this is right the disagreement over conceiving versus imagining minds is merely semantic.

14While Descartes does not make this exact observation, his comments at the beginning of Meditation 6 support it. See AT VII 71-72, CSM II 50.

conceive.” (AT 179, CSM II 126). Since some ideas do not depend on imagination, even if imagining does depend on the brain in an ontological sense, not all thought will share that dependence. Thus, at least some mental activity would be independent of physical substance. Descartes may be forced to admit that immaterial minds cannot imagine, but would not have to concede that they cannot exist.15

How does Hobbes fare then? The initial objection that Descartes’ illegitimately conflates agent and action is debatable. Furthermore, Hobbes’s ambulo and his position on subjects of action do not show that there must be a material substance underlying minds. Descartes also has a strong response to Hobbes’s claim that imagination is necessary for conception.

4.3 Gassendi

Gassendi’s attack on Descartes is in some ways very similar to Hobbes’s. Both argue that Descartes’ discussion of the mind in the second meditation is, at best, problematic. However, while Hobbes seems to argue from a position of a materialist metaphysics, Gassendi’s attack is centered more squarely on what kinds of ideas we can have. Indeed, Gassendi is commonly read as a dualist himself.16

Gassendi complains that Descartes makes three serious blunders in the second mediation.17 First, he accuses Descartes of erring in his attempt to discern whether he is truly nothing more than a thinking thing. Gassendi argues that Descartes fails to fully consider the possibility that he is an extended, thinking thing. The second objection is

15See Chapter 3 Section 5 for more discussion of how a disembodied mind might imagine.

16See Michael & Michael 1988.

17Frankly, Gassendi seems to think that Descartes made a whole host of blunders in Meditation 2, I will focus on just three.

that Descartes fails to give a satisfactory account of what a mind is; as Gassendi sees it, saying that it is a thinking thing falls far short of an explanatory account. Gassendi’s third objection is to Descartes’ claim that thinking is the essential property of minds. As

Antonia Lolordo explains, while Gassendi “holds that we know by faith — and in the latter works by reason too — that the mind is immaterial,” he also argues that our idea of minds has to be an idea of material things (2005, 4). Gassendi, according to Lolordo, simply believes that “there is no inconsistency in holding both that the mind is immaterial and that we must cognize it as material” (ibid). Thus Gassendi’s actual position is not that it makes no sense to believe in the existence of immaterial minds, but rather what Descartes, specifically, says about minds is wrong.

Gassendi’s first complaint is in essence that Descartes is setting himself apart from his body too hastily. This objection has two components. First he argues that

Descartes is just begging the question by simply supposing that he is not corporeal and then deducing that he is not extended, not moving, etc. “why is it not possible that you are a wind, or rather a very thin vapour, . . . May it not be this vapour which sees with the eyes and hears with the ears and thinks with the brain and performs all of the other functions which are commonly ascribed to you” (AT VII 260-261, CSM 181-182)? That is, Gassendi believes that Descartes does not offer a good reason to suppose that the mind is not physical. By Gassendi’s lights we have no need to bother with immaterial and mysterious minds, because we can locate all of a mind’s faculties and actions in more common material substances. Even if Descartes can argue that we should want to conceive of minds as immaterial things—perhaps because doing so provides some significant advantage to Gassendi’s material vapour—he is not thereby entitled to assert

that minds are indeed immaterial; he has to prove that they are. Of course, Gassendi is right that Descartes does not provide an argument for the claim that the mind is exclusively immaterial. However, as we have already seen, Descartes did not intend to make such an argument in the second meditation.18 So, with respect to this objection, it seems that Gassendi has misapplied the goal of the sixth meditation to the content of the second.

Yet, in his reply to Gassendi, Descartes argues that he has no need to do more than he has already done to show that he is only a thinking thing. He argues that “when

I discover that I am a thinking substance, and form a clear and distinct concept of this thinking substance that contains none of the things that belong to the concept of corporeal substance, this is quite sufficient to enable me to assert that I, in so far as I know myself, am nothing other than a thinking thing” (AT VII 355, CSM II 245). This response is a bit strange. To begin with, notice that Descartes only asserts that he is certain that he is “nothing other than a thinker.” This response, however, is perfectly compatible with Gassendi’s position. There is nothing inherent in the notion of a thinker that would rule out the possibility of also being a physical substance. Locke, Hobbes and many other philosophers, feel free to locate thought and extensions in a single substance. It seems that Descartes either does not recognize or does not wish to acknowledge that there is a burden of proof on him. Indeed, he states this position explicitly: “you often demand arguments of me when you have none yourself and the onus of proof is on you” (AT VII 354, CSM II 245).19 So, as Descartes sees it, he has no

18See Chapter 2, Section 4.

19He strikes a similar pose in the Appendix to the Fifth Objections: “Similarly, after the substance which thinks has judged that it is intellectual, because it has noticed in itself all the properties of intellectual

more to do once he has established that he is a thinking thing. Nevertheless, Descartes’ response is insufficient unless he helps himself to his view of principal attributes. If we can take the Principal Attribute Principal as a premise, then it is reasonable to claim that being a thinker precludes having a body because you cannot have both attributes in the a single substance.20 So, it seems that Descartes must venture beyond the explicit material of the second meditation in order to address Gassendi’s concern.

The second objection concerns Gassendi’s puzzlement over Descartes’ claim that observing a piece of wax lead him to a better understanding of the nature of his own mind (ATVII 33, CSM 22). Gassendi argues that it is not enough to say that one is a thinking thing.

When you go on to say that you are a thinking thing, that we know what you are saying; but we knew it already, and it was not what we were asking you to tell us. . . . [you] should tell us not that you are a thinking thing, but what sort of thing this ‘you’ who thinks really is. If we are asking about wine, . . . it would hardly be enough for you to say ‘wine is a liquid thing . . .’ You will have to attempt to investigate and somehow explain its internal substance. AT VII 276, CSM 192-93

Descartes’ response is rather curious. First, he argues that he has indeed demonstrated what his nature is, i.e. what the nature of his mind is, by proving that he exists because “one thing cannot be demonstrated without the other” (AT VII 359, CSM

II 248). At first blush, this seems to be such an odd—and certainly false—thing to say, that it is hard to see how Descartes could think it an adequate response. It seems clear, from Descartes’ own cogito, if nothing else, that something can be known to exist even

substances, and has not been able to detect any properties belonging to a body, the objector still continues to ask how it knows that it is not a body rather than an immaterial substance.” AT VII 207, CSM II 272

20This may count as a small bit of evidence for the interwoven version of Descartes’ argument for Real Distinction that I proposed in Chapter 2.

without knowing it’s essential nature. However, there is an interesting wrinkle introduced by Descartes’ terminology. He does not just say that a thing cannot be known to exist without understanding its nature, but that the existence of a thing cannot be demonstrated without knowledge of its nature. This response certainly does seem to be better; it is indeed difficult to see how one could demonstrate (how one could provide a sound argument for) the existence of a thing without knowing the nature of the thing.21

Additionally, Descartes also observes that he had “never thought that anything more is required to reveal a substance than its various attributes; thus the more attributes of a given substance we know, the more perfectly we understand its nature”

(ATVII 360, CSM 2 249).22 It is by coming to know various mental capacities, such as the capacity to see, imagine, etc., that we come to know the nature of mind. Here,

Descartes and Gassendi seem to be at loggerheads not over whether there are minds, but over what it means to understand the nature of a thing. Gassendi seems to argue that such understand comes not from listing the observable properties of a thing, but by explaining how a thing comes to have those properties, while Descartes takes the opposing view that a thing can be known through its attributes—and not even all of them. It is not clear that this is a resolvable dispute. Certainly, Gassendi’s sense of what counts as the explication of a substance’s nature is closer to the contemporary

21This response raises two concerns. First, it requires us to see the cogito as a logical demonstration rather than a performative utterance. Second, this response, once again, seems to find Descartes making use of the Principle Attribute Thesis without explicit reference to it.

22Although Descartes uses attributa here, which CSM translates as attributes, he is not using it in the sense of a principal attribute. In the subsequent lines he lists being white and being melted as attributes of wax and the power of knowing each as attributes of the mind. Thus, it seems safe to conclude the he meant something more like features or properties.

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expectation of explanations that discuss the efficient causes of phenomena.23 However, in Descartes’ defense, we can observe that his understanding of what an explanation amounts to seems to be what we expect when we inquire after God’s nature. In that inquiry, we are not focused on what explains God’s attributes, but on what His attributes actually are. Thus, Descartes can legitimately be said to offer an explanation—of what it is to be a mind. Perhaps then, their disagreement here is simply a case of talking past each other: Gassendi expected an explication of how a thing comes to think, and

Descartes was instead cataloging metaphysically relevant features for the purposes of establishing an accurate ontology of the world. If this is so, it would seem that Descartes accomplished his task while nevertheless failing to satisfy Gassendi.24

The third objection—also essentially a disagreement about how to conceive of substances—resembles one of the problems that Hobbes raised. Gassendi believes that a substance is to be distinguished from its essence and properties. He does not, in the Objections, state this belief explicitly, but he raises an objection that is dependent on the non-identical conception of the relation between substances and their essences. He suggests that thinking cannot be the essence of a mind because there are times when a mind does not think.

I want to stop here and ask whether, in saying that thought cannot be separated from you, you mean that you continue to think indefinitely, so long as you exist. This would accord with the claims of those noted philosophers who, to prove that we are immortal, assume that we are in perpetual motion or, as I interpret it, that we are perpetually thinking. But it

23It is interesting to note that in the dichotomy between hidden, causal natures and observed properties. Gassendi, as he often does, seems to precede Locke.

24 Perhaps Descartes could argue that observing that thinking is the principal attribute of mind is an explanation of why mind thinks. So, Descartes might be said to offer a metaphysical explanation, while Gassendi expected a physical (or scientific) explanation. If so, Descartes still seems to fall short of Gassendi’s expectations, though of course it is hardly Descartes’ goal to satisfy Gassendi.

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will hardly convince those who do not see how you are able to think during deep sleep or indeed in the womb. (AT VII 264, CSM II 184)

Gassendi presents this observation rather casually in the middle of a larger case against the identification view espoused by Descartes. The point, which we will see again in Locke, is that if a mind is identical with the attribute of thought, then it should never be without thoughts; as a body is never unextended a mind should never be unthinking. However, there seems to be plenty of evidence of times when we are not thinking. Shouldn’t this observation show that there must be something wrong with

Descartes’ identification view? It is odd that Gassendi does not press the point more forcefully. If Descartes cannot answer this objection, his conception of mind and its essence will certainly be weakened if not rendered untenable altogether. Indeed, despite Gassendi’s lack of emphasis, Descartes does provide a response—perhaps indicating that he understood the strength of Gassendi’s passing comment.

You say you want to stop and ask whether I think the soul always thinks. But why should it not always think, since it is a thinking substance? It is no surprise that we do not remember the thoughts that the soul had when in the womb or in a deep sleep, since there are many other thoughts that we equally do not remember, although we know we had them when grown up, healthy and wide-awake. So long as the mind is joined to the body, then in order for it to remember thoughts which it had in the past, it is necessary for some traces of them to be imprinted on the brain; it is by turning to these, or applying itself to them, that the mind remembers. So is it really surprising if the brain of an infant, or a man in a deep sleep, is unsuited to receive these traces? (AT VII 356-357, CSM II 246-247)

Descartes’ response has three components. First, he simply sticks to his theoretical guns, insisting that minds always think simply because they are thinking things. Second, he surmises that our inability to remember ideas from our youth or dreamless sleep is no more troubling than our inability to remember any breakfasts from three years earlier.

We know we had many breakfasts and certainly had many ideas about them as we ate,

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if at no other time. Nevertheless, that we cannot recall even a single notion or image of these breakfasts does not show that we never had them. Similarly, that we do not always remember our dreams is not a sure sign that we do not think during the night.

Finally, he offers a nuanced account of memory in which forgetfulness is the result of certain physical failures rather than a lack of thoughts.

The first response seems to leave us at an impasse. Descartes believes that his theory is sound and therefore that conclusions properly derived from it ought to be trusted, even when they are problematic. Gassendi believes that the counter evidence is sufficient to show that the theory is incorrect. Absent a way to test whether we have ideas while in dreamless slumber, or apart from our bodies, we have no way to definitely resolve the dispute.

With respect to the second response we do seem to have more empirical grounds for concern about Descartes’ stance. Even if he is right that for most forgotten impressions it is true that at some point, perhaps just after the event, we do remember them, it does not seem to be the case that we ever remember the thoughts that

Descartes insists we have in deep sleep.25 Further, Descartes implies that the failure to remember our thoughts just after birth or on dreamless nights is the result of the same processes that cause us to forget the mundane breakfasts of our lives. But this assimilation is unwarranted. The fact that we fail to have various different ideas does not require that the absence of each was caused by the same mechanisms. We might not remember our impressions of our birth because our brains were not fully matured,

25The astute reader will notice another problem in Descartes’ response. It may be that we are never aware of our deep-sleep thoughts at all. Locke will exploit this lack of self-awareness in his argument against innate ideas.

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but we simply might never have had any thoughts on dreamless nights. Qualitatively there seems to be no way to determine whether we fail to remember a perception because we have forgotten it or because we never had it to begin with. How would one investigate the lack of an idea? Certainly it is possible that the loss of a memory is always the result of a single mechanism, but Descartes should argue for this claim rather than simply assuming it for his defense. Descartes’ claim that the forgetfulness in all cases is the result of the same cause is just a bald assertion.

The third element of Descartes’ response—that the fault for memory loss lies with brain, not the mind, offered primarily in support of the second response—is in itself unhelpful. We should recall that, in both the cases of imagination and sensation, there is precedent for including our body in the causal history of a mental event.26 While this response may come across as Descartes helping himself to an ad hoc explanation, it is not, for that reason alone, to be dismissed. If Descartes’ theory is otherwise better supported than any competing theory, if we have good reason to accept the broader theory, the weaker elements will simply have to be accepted as an unusual, perhaps undesirable, result of an otherwise satisfactory theory.

Finally, we should recall that unlike a stereotypical materialist Gassendi does not, in principle, object to the existence of immaterial substances. Indeed Gassendi actually believed in an immaterial soul, while arguing that we could only conceive of the soul in material terms.27 Gassendi’s real objection is not to Descartes’ conclusion: that immaterial substances exist. His real objection is to Descartes’ conception of them. And

26See Chapter 4, Section 5.

27See 3.369a of Gassendi’s Opera Omnia as cited in Lolordo 2005, p. 15.

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perhaps this is why he seems to gloss over the dreamless nights objection, while giving a strong voice to Descartes’ lack of proper analysis. We shall see that Locke uses many of the same objections that Gassendi mentions to very different ends.

How does Gassendi fare? With respect to the first and second objections the exchange is inconclusive. Descartes and Gassendi do not agree on what a satisfactory explanation is, and so they are essentially talking past each other. With respect to the third objection Gassendi, it would seem, hits home. Descartes’ response is highly speculative and its strength rests largely on the plausibility of the rest of his theory.

4.4 Locke

Locke did not participate in the Objections and Replies—the Meditations were published in 1641 when Locke was only 9 years old. Yet, in the Essay Locke also offers a series of critiques aimed at Descartes’ account of minds and substance. For the most part, Locke’s critique strongly echoes the earlier critiques presented by Hobbes and

Gassendi. We know that Locke read at least some of Descartes’ works and so it is not unreasonable to believe that he was familiar with the objections raised by the earlier philosophers.28 It is of course unclear whether Locke saw himself as presenting much the same concerns as the earlier figures, or whether he saw himself as undertaking a different avenue of engagement with Descartes. What is clear, however, is that in the

Essay Locke develops the arguments more explicitly and more pointedly than either

28That Locke reports having read Descartes is testified to by Lady Masham (Rogers 1985, 300-301). And she recounts having Descartes Principles in her “Closet” to him (Goldie 2007, 110). Locke himself discusses Cartesian concerns in letters to Edward Clarke, 1692, (ibid, 162) and Phillipus Van Limborch, 1698, (ibid, 270). That it is reasonable to think he read the earlier objections is my own observation, one that is unfortunately difficult to support with certainty. Nevertheless, it is entirely reasonable to conclude that Locke’s circle of acquaintances were familiar with common responses to Descartes, perhaps without even knowing that the objections were inherited from Gassendi.

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Hobbes or Gassendi. Furthermore, Locke’s strongest objection cuts against not just

Descartes but Hobbes and Gassendi, too.

Locke raises three distinct problems. First, he reiterates Gassendi’s observation that in fact we do not always think. Second, he disagrees with Descartes’ assertion that there is a single principal attribute for each substance and echoes Hobbes in arguing against the identity of substances and their attributes. Third, he argues that we have no clear and distinct concept of substance in itself.

Locke directly addresses Descartes’ notion that the mind is a thinking thing and nothing more via two objections. First, Locke offers the simple observation that the phenomenology of thinking contradicts the theoretical claim that minds are identical with thinking things. Since, it is apparent that we do not always think, we should avoid concluding that the mind is essentially a thinking thing unless there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. “[T]o say that actual thinking is essential to the Soul, and inseparable from it, is to beg what is in Question, and not to prove it by Reason; . . . ‘Tis doubted whether I thought at all last night, or no; the Question being about a matter of fact, ‘tis begging it, to bring, as a proof for it, an Hypothesis, which is the very thing in dispute.” (2.1.10). In other words, we ought to draw our conclusions from the fact that we seem to not think, at least occasionally, and not from arguments which presuppose the conclusion that we always do think. To the response to Gassendi given by

Descartes—that we simply do not remember thinking in a dreamless sleep—Locke counters “That the Soul in a sleeping Man should be this moment busy a thinking, and the next moment in a waking Man not remember nor be able to recollect one jot of all those Thoughts, is very hard to be conceived, and would need some better Proof than

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bare Assertion to make it be believed” (2.1.14). As a second objection Locke notes that

“ ‘tis altogether as intelligible to say, that a body is extended without parts, as that any thing thinks without being conscious of it, or perceiving that it does so”(2.1.19).29 That is,

Locke accuses Descartes of not only having an implausible account of the lapses in memory, but also of making a serious mistake in reasoning. Locke argues that it is as hard to apprehend how a mind can think without being conscious of doing so as it is to imagine how something can be extended without having parts. This objection would seem to preclude the response that being always thinking does not entail being always aware of one’s thoughts.30

It is difficult to see how Descartes can respond to these objections without making significant changes to his metaphysical theory. Certainly, Descartes could simply insist that Locke is wrong about either the impossibility of thinking without being aware of doing so or of implausibility of phenomenally poor memory. Descartes could simply retrench himself in the stance that his theory is the right theory, and thus that his conclusion that the mind is always thinking must be accurate, even though our experience seems to offer strong evidence against it.31 So, even though the phenomenological evidence seems to strongly support Locke’s position, the evidence does not, on its own, force Descartes to abandon his theory. To do that Locke, or

Gassendi, must also provide a better theory of mind.

29See 2.1.10-25 for a fuller treatment. That Locke provides a response to Descartes’ response to Gassendi seems a good indication that he was aware of Descartes line of reasoning in the “Objections and Replies.”

30The forgetfulness defense, as we say in the Gassendi section, is not in and of itself compelling

31That this is perhaps a counter-intuitive, and even dogmatic, explanation does not in itself make it a poor response. Counter-intuitive explanations are, after all, a common element of scientific reasoning.

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Furthermore, the objection might not count as a fully indefeasible attack on

Descartes’ identity view. We could offer a modified notion of minds as things that are essentially able to think (as bodies are essentially able to move). Thus a mind would be essentially a thinking thing while not always thinking in much the same way as a body is an essentially movable thing while not always moving. This modified understanding is not obviously incompatible with Descartes’ other comments on minds; it would allow

Descartes to main the principal attribute theory and save his commitment to immaterial substances while meeting Locke’s objection.32 Unfortunately, it is unclear whether such a response would take us intolerably far from Descartes’ theory.33

The second objection is not explicitly provided by Locke against Descartes but it can be teased out of Locke’s comments on physical substances. On many different occasions Locke gives a list of what he calls the primary physical qualities. The exact relationship to substance and the role that they play in his overall metaphysics will be discussed in greater detail in Chapters 5, 6 and 7. The important point to notice for now is Locke’s belief that none of the primary qualities reduced to any of the others and thus there could be no single principal attribute.

Furthermore, there is some indication that Locke was only thinking of the primary qualities being necessary under a particular description of a substance.

32Because Descartes accepts the existence of modes of modes, the possibility of modes which cannot be modifications, the ability to think would not derail this maneuver; we would have to discover modes of thought that could be neither modes of other modes of thought nor modes of the ability to think.

Furthermore, this is, of course, just one possible response. Even if Locke’s objection makes Descartes’ original conception of immaterial substances untenable, a determined dualist could certainly settle on an understanding of immaterial substance that avoids the problem.

33One reason that it might be incompatible with Descartes’ stated view is that this modified attribute would break the generally accepted symmetry with the attribute of extension; bodies are always extended, not merely extendable.

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The measure and boundary of each Sort, or Species, whereby it is constituted that particular Sort, and distinguished from others, is that we call its Essence, which is nothing but that abstract Idea to which the Name is annexed. . . I call it by a peculiar name, the nominal Essence, to distinguish it from the real Constitution of Substances, . . . But the real Essence is the constitution of the insensible parts of that Body, on which those Qualities . . . depend. (3.6.2)

So, it would seem that extension, bulk, and number are only necessary properties of the nominal essence of physical things.34 If the substance is considered from a different perspective—under a different nominal essence, qua moral agent, for example—the same properties might not be necessary at all. Descartes, of course, denied such a relative concept of substance.35 It would be too far afield of this project to work out the reasons for this difference, but it seems a clear difference nonetheless. If Locke accepted the notion of objectively fixed attributes, he did not accept the notion that there is a single principal attribute from which all other properties are derived for each kind of substance; Descartes clearly did.

34This last claim is a bit controversial. Locke never explicitly describes physical thing or body as a nominal essence. However given his definition of nominal essence it seems reasonable to conclude that physical thing is indeed a nominal essence. His definition is this: “The measure and boundary of each sort, or species, whereby it is constituted that particular sort, and distinguished from others, is that we call its [nominal] essence” (3.6.2). So, a nominal essence is simply a way to delineate sorts of things, and physical thing certainly seems to be a sort (contrasted with immaterial things). Certainly it is possible that Locke would nevertheless argue that, while bodies and disembodied spirits are sorts of things, physical thing and thinking thing are not nominal essences, I don’t see how he would justify the maneuver. Furthermore, I take this claim to support my view of body as nominal essence:

Thus, if the idea of body with some people be bare extension or space, then solidity is not essential to body: if others make the idea to which they give the name body to be solidity and extension, then solidity is essential to body. That therefore, and that alone, is considered as essential, which makes a part of the complex idea the name of a sort stands for: without which no particular thing can be reckoned of that sort, nor be entitled to that name. Should there be found a parcel of matter that had all the other qualities that are in iron, but wanted obedience to the loadstone, and would neither be drawn by it nor receive direction from it, would any one question whether it wanted anything essential?(3.6.5)

Notice that body is given as an example of a name of a complex idea, i.e. a nominal essence.

35AT VIIA 1.51. Of course, Chapters 2 and 3 of this work contain more discussion of substance in Descartes.

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Locke’s third and possibly most significant objection is addressed to Descartes’ belief that the essence of a substance could be known by rational investigation and consideration of clear and distinct ideas. Locke, on the other hand, argued that qualities are said to

rest in, and be as it were adherent to that unknown common Subject, which inheres not in any thing else. . . . [E]very one upon Enquiry into his own thoughts will find, that he has no other Idea of any Substance, v.g. let it be Gold, Horse, Iron, Man, Vitriol, Bread, but what he has barely of those sensible Qualities, which he supposes to inhere, with a supposition of such a Substratum, as gives, as it were, a support to those Qualities or simple Ideas, which he has observed to exist united together. (2.23.6)

Locke argued for two things: first, there is a subject of inherence supporting, but distinct from, properties; second, that we merely suppose that the substance exists as opposed to observing it. Both conclusions are, of course, at odds with Descartes’ views.36

There is an interesting overview of his position in Book 2, Chapter 13 of the

Essay. In that chapter Locke makes it clear that his positions in this debate are all grounded in the difficulty that we have in forming an idea of substance. He begins by showing that we can use the epistemic claims of Descartes’ real distinction argument to establish that extension and body are not identical.37 As he claims:

There are some that would persuade us, that Body and Extension are the same thing; . . . I appeal to every Man’s own thoughts, whether the Idea of Space be not as distinct from the that of Solidity, as it is from the Idea of Scarlet-Colour? ‘Tis true, Solidity cannot exist without Extension neither can Scarlet-Colour exist without Extension; but this hinders not, but that they

36Again, it is interesting to note that Gassendi had a surprisingly similar observation: “we do not thereby penetrate into the inner substance or nature - just as when looking at bubbling spring water, we know that the water comes from a certain source but do not thereby direct a keen look into the interior and discover that subterranean source” (3.312b).

For a more concerted description of the disagreements between Locke and Descartes, see the Conclusion of this work.

37As we saw in Chapter 2, the epistemic claim is basically this: that a clear and distinct idea of a thing, A, involves no notion of some other thing, B, and vice-versa, is an indication that A and B are really distinct.

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are distinct Ideas. Many Ideas require others as necessary to their Existence or Conception, which yet are very distinct Ideas. (2.13.11)38

The main upshot of Locke’s reasoning is that if identifying extension and body is grounded in the inability of either to exist without the other, we would be unhappily led to equating body with a large number of qualities that also cannot exist without a material substance.39

A stronger, more explicit, version of the same argument is given shortly after.

And if it be a Reason to prove, that Spirit is different from Body, because Thinking includes not the the Idea of Extension in it; the same Reason will be as valid, I suppose, to prove, that Space is not Body, because it includes not the idea of Solidity in it. Being as distinct Ideas, as Thinking and Extension, and as wholly separability in the Mind one from another. (2.13.11)

This line of reasoning is buttressed by examples from 2.13.12-14: the idea of extension does not include resistance to the motion of bodies, the idea of body does; extension

(space) is not divisible, body is; the parts of space are immovable, the parts of bodies are not. So, Locke, seems to show that, even by Descartes’ own reasoning, we ought to conclude that body is not identical to extension. But this analysis is just the introduction to a stronger argument. Locke suggests that even attempting to use our notions of substance in explanations of the world is deeply misguided.

He argues that the idea that we have of substance is nothing more than the idea of “under-propping” (2.13.20). More pointedly, he comments that our idea of substance

38 As he sometimes does, Locke must be using Ideas here to mean properties of things (or perhaps just things). When he considers whether idea of space is distinct from the idea of solidity, he really means to consider whether space is distinct from solidity. The elided material discusses what Locke perceives to be the real cause of Descarte’s position, the conflation of our understanding of space and extension.

39In the discussion of body and extension in 2.13 Locke often uses solidity as a synonym for body and Space as a synonym for extension. I will not address concerns that these might be illegitimate assimilations. However, I will show, later on, that they might give Descartes some room to respond to Locke. In any case it seems likely that the positions he strikes, as in the quotation from 2.13.11, could be adopted equally well even without the use of the synonyms.

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and attributes is like a man explaining paper as a thing which holds forth letters and letters as things that inhere in paper (ibid). Which is to say we really have, at best, very poor ideas of substance. Indeed, he argues that “of substance, we have no idea of what it is, but only a confused obscure one of what it does” (2.13.19). Similarly, in 2.13.17 he openly admits that he has no clear idea of substance and challenges anyone to provide one. This stance is obviously incompatible with Descartes’ position that we can, in fact, have a clear and distinct idea of substance.40

Given the tone of these passages we are surely led to think that Locke is strongly contemptuous of any metaphysical system that depends on a robust notion of substantial natures. However, this dismissal of substance is only a partial repudiation of the notion. He doesn’t really mean that metaphysics has no use for substance or that we have no idea whatever of substance (at least, he admits that we know what it does).

His real point is that contrary to Descartes, and Gassendi, we should avoid making the mistake of claiming to know what substance is; we should avoid holding forth on the nature of substance altogether.41 While we can think of substance as an under-propping thing (later we shall see that this is unavoidable) we should mock anyone who argues that we can go beyond this notion to a detailed explanation of what substance is. Locke acknowledges that we naturally, perhaps unavoidably, judge there to be an underlying thing in which qualities are said to inhere, but he also believes that we can know little if

40Furthermore, we should note that the explanation for why or how a thing thinks or is extended is not just uncomprehended but incomprehensible. “For since body is no farther, nor otherwise extended, than by the union and cohesion of its solid parts, we shall very ill comprehend the extension of body, without understanding wherein consists the union and cohesion of its parts: Which seems to me as incomprehensible, as the manner of thinking, and how it is performed” (2.23.24). This is, again, strongly at odds with Descartes claim that we can conduct a fruitful inquiry into the nature of substance.

41 Hobbes seems to have anticipated Locke “For substance, in so far as it is the matter which is the subject of accidental properties and of changes, is something that is established solely by reasoning; it is not something that is conceived, or that presents any idea to us" (CSM 2.130).

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anything about these substances beyond the qualities that we perceive and which inhere in the substance. Thus the dispute between the earlier philosophers about the proper way in which minds should be conceived, is, in Locke’s opinion, a futile dispute over answers that are essentially no better than flights of fancy.

4.5 Summary Notes

In this chapter we have taken a moment to consider some of the more well known and interesting objections to Descartes’ view of mind found in the works of other early modern philosophers. Against Hobbes and Gassendi, Descartes may ultimately be successful in defending his view, although it is possible that he would need to alter his original positions, if only slightly. However, it seems unlikely that Descartes could modify his views enough to overcome Locke’s objections. In the end the two philosophers are simply at an impasse about the conceivability of substance. Interestingly enough, it seems to be the case that both philosophers agree that it is impossible to have a clear and distinct idea of a substance without any attributes. This observation compels

Descartes to identify substance with attribute in order to avoid positing bare substances, while, as we shall shortly see, it compels Locke to adopt both the bare substance view and a more modest view of human reason.

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CHAPTER 5 MYSTERIOUS SUBSTRATA AND COMPLETE INDIVIDUAL SUBSTANCES

5.1 Introductory Remarks

In Chapter 4, I argued that Locke’s view of substance stood against Descartes’.

In the remaining Chapters 5, 6 and 7, I will present an analysis of Locke’s conception of substance.

I will begin by arguing that Locke had, strictly speaking, two related but distinct notions signified by the term substance. First, he argued that a substance is an unperceived entity that serves as the subject of inherence for qualities. This mysterious substratum is thus, in a sense, the foundation of an individual thing’s qualities. Second, he argued that each individual thing is also substance in its own right. Each of these complete individual substances is a combination of a mysterious substratum and certain qualities. Locke also expressed a belief in two notions, complex ideas really, that relate to his view of substance: substance sorts and substance in general.1

I will support this reading by looking first to Locke’s statements in 2.23, his longest and most focused treatment of substance, I will also refer to his correspondence with Bishop Stillingfleet, and to other areas in the Essay. I will then consider several alternatives to my reading.

In considering those alternatives I will first take up some concerns about this view registered by Jonathan Bennett. Then I will consider Edwin McCann’s view that Locke had a “no theory” theory of substance. Finally, I will consider Michael Ayers’s suggestion that Locke understood substrata to be something like a physical micro- structure.

1These views are sometimes mistakenly taken to actually be his views on substance.

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5.2 Substratum and Substance

The first element of Locke’s conception of substance is presented neatly at the beginning of 2.23:

The Mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great number of the simple Ideas, conveyed in by the Senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by Reflection on its own Operations, takes notice also, that a certain number of these simple Ideas go constantly together; . . . not imagining how these simple Ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some Substratum wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result, which therefore we call Substance. (2.23.1 bold emphasis, here and throughout, is mine)

The simplest, and I believe correct, reading of this passage is this: when we observe clusters of ideas—ideas that “go constantly together”—we are unable to avoid drawing the conclusion that the qualities which cause us to have those ideas all inhere in a single thing which is distinct from those qualities. It is important to note that substance is used here to refer to the thing in which the ideas are said to inhere, the substratum, not to the combination of the substratum and qualities. Since we do not observe this supporting substance, let’s call it a mysterious substratum.

Of course, while Locke mentions that it is our ideas which constantly go together, strictly speaking, in 2.23.1, it cannot be our ideas that Locke notes as belonging to a single thing. Rather Locke must mean that the regular concurrence of certain ideas is the result of the regular concurrence of certain qualities, and it is the regular concurrence of these qualities that suggests the existence of something in which they inhere. That is, he meant to say “as I have said, not imagining how these simple

[qualities] can subsist by themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result, which therefore we call substance.”

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Before we look at other examples of Locke’s use of mysterious substratum we should pause to consider some concerns over my interpretation of 2.23.1. First, it can be argued that it is wrong to read idea as meaning quality, as I do. However, even if we deny this analysis, Locke’s point would seem to stand unaffected; Locke can still make his point, even if he is actually considering ideas instead of stereotypically mislabeling qualities. In that case, the comment that they go together and seem to inhere in a single thing seems simply to be an admission that ideas, as qualities themselves, depend on a single thing—perhaps something like our minds. In fact, I take this to be the import of the throwaway clause “or by reflection on its own operations.” Which is to say, he could just as easily conclude that we do not directly observe our own minds and must therefore suppose that our ideas inhere in, and thus are supported by, an unknown substance.2

The second objection to my reading of 2.23.1 is that, contrary to my suggestion,

Locke is not making any particular metaphysical claim in the passage. When Locke observes that we “suppose some Substratum wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result, which therefore we call Substance” he does not mean to posit the existence of an actual substratum, rather, his comment is meant to reflect our epistemic limits. We cannot help but arrive at an idea of a substratum, but doing that does not actually amount to a claim that there is a substratum. Of course, being unable to form any idea but one of a mysterious substratum clearly does not preclude the existence of

2Oddly, Locke seems to contradict this last claim in 4.21.4. There he argues that the mind is present to itself. He does this in the middle of a discussion which suggests that our mind is the only thing which we can have knowledge of without it being represented by ideas. It is difficult to see how Locke can support the idea that we have knowledge of our minds (or of anything) that does not involve the use of ideas. Indeed, he does not elaborate on the claim. I am confident, however, that he could not have meant to claim that the substratum of our mind is directly known to us.

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mysterious substrata. Indeed, given his arguments against clear understanding of substance in 2.13 and stance against real accidents in 2.13.20, it is hard to see what other epistemic position Locke could have adopted. So, if we were to look 2.23.1 in isolation we could conclude that my interpretation goes too far, but his statements elsewhere and commitments—which we shall explore in this and Chapter 6—support a view of Locke as actually positing the existence of mysterious substrata.

Locke again uses the idea of a mysterious substratum in 2.23.3: “as Body is a thing that is extended, figured, and capable of Motion; a Spirit, a thing capable of thinking; and so Hardness, Friability, and Power to draw Iron, we say, are Qualities to be found in a Loadstone. These, and the like fashions of speaking, intimate, that the

Substance is supposed always something besides the Extension, Figure, Solidity,

Motion, Thinking, or other observable ideas, though we know not what it is.”3 One clear claim of this passage is, of course, that we are supposed to take mysterious substrata to be something besides the primary qualities of bodies and something besides thinking. Substance, in this sense, is that unknown thing in which those qualities inhere.

Given this understanding of substance as a mysterious substratum one might naturally ask whether we should hold that mysterious substrata are unknowable or merely unknown? Certainly the latter position is more suited to Locke’s cautious, and modest, tone. However, while Locke himself is not explicit on the issue, many commentators conclude that he took mysterious substrata to be unknowable by us.4

3Recall that in Chapter 4 we saw Locke give what is essentially a preview of this position in 2.13.

4This is true only amongst readers of Locke that subscribe to a Bare Substance reading—Bennett and Leibniz, are clear examples. Of course, if the Bare Substance reading is wrong, as Ayers or McCann,

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Given Locke’s argument against clear perception of substance (2.13), the role ascribed to mysterious substrata in his metaphysics (2.23) and Locke’s well know adherence to ideas as the source of knowledge (2.1.1-2), I side with the stronger reading.

Yet, if Locke thinks of substance as a mysterious substratum in 2.23.1 and

2.23.3, why does he offer what might initially seem to be a different account of substance in 2.23.2?

If any one will examine himself concerning his Notion of pure Substance in general, he will find he has no other Idea of it at all, but only a Supposition of he knows not what support of such Qualities, which are capable of producing simple Ideas in us; which Qualities are commonly called Accidents. . . . Which in truth signifies no more, when so used, either by Children or Men, but that they know not what; and that the thing they pretend to know, and talk of, is what they have no distinct Idea of at all, and so are perfectly ignorant of it, and in the dark. (2.23.2)

When Locke introduces the term pure substance in general there would seem to be two ways to interpret his intent. First, we might think that he is introducing something like

Aristotelian or Scholastic prime matter. Alternatively, we might think that he is merely furthering his inquiry into individual mysterious substrata. I believe that the latter option is the more likely of the two.

When considering “pure substance in general” Locke concludes that it is nothing more than a belief we arrive at by following the general principle that for all sets of concurrent accidents there must be some entity uniting and supporting them (in Locke’s sense each set of accidents is supported by a distinct entity). The idea of pure substance in general is thus just a complex idea stemming from our belief that accidents need support. Locke is not introducing a new ontological element, but rather a general argue, then there is less reason—or perhaps no reason—to think that substrata are unknowable. Regardless of which view one subscribes to, Locke allows that superior spirits could have any number of perceptive faculties that we do not and thus, one supposes, could know substratum even if we never can (2.23.13).

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idea of the already proposed mysterious substrata. Furthermore, we should note

Locke’s clear admission that talk of the idea of pure substance in general is merely speculative; we deduce the existence of a sort of substance by concluding that qualities need support, not by observing the supportive element. So, there is nothing in this passage which contradicts the earlier claim that individual substances are unobservable supporters of qualities. Rather, this passage reinforces our lack of understanding and seems to be an attempt at a generalized understanding of the kind of substance introduced in 2.23.1—an attempt to consider its natural kind, if you will. What this is not, is a statement that we ought to accept anything like Aristotelian prime matter. In fact in his discourse with Stillingfleet Locke states his position quite explicitly:

By general substance here, I suppose, your lordship means the general idea of substance: and that which induces me to take the liberty to suppose so is, that I think your lordship is here discoursing of the idea of substance, and how we come by it. And if your lordship should mean otherwise, I must take the liberty to deny there is any such thing in rerum natura as a general substance that exists itself, or makes any thing. . . . strip this supposed general idea of a man or gold of all its modes and properties, and then tell me whether your lordship has as clear and distinct an idea of what remains, as you have of the figure of the one, or the yellow colour of the other. I must confess the remaining something to me affords so vague, confused, and obscure an idea, that I cannot say I have any distinct conception of it; for barely by being something, it is not in my mind clearly distinguished from the figure or voice of a man, or the colour or taste of a cherry, for they are something too. (Letter, 26)

So, while we do have an idea of substance in general, it is nothing more than an idea.

There is no direct evidence for a general substance that is everywhere the same and underlying all things.

Here we have reason to pause and ask exactly how Locke can argue against general substance in the rerum natura sense, but in favor of mysterious substrata. The answer to this concern is admittedly less clear than we should like. It may be that Locke

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unwittingly argued against himself in advocating for mysterious substrata while arguing against prime matter. However, there is an interesting argument that can be glimpsed in

3.10.15. Here Locke argues that matter, in its use by philosophers, is nothing but the idea of solidity abstracted away from extension and figure; “But since Solidity cannot exist without Extension, and Figure, the taking Matter to be the name of something really existing under that Precision, has no doubt produced those obscure and unintelligible Discourses and Disputes, which have filled the Heads and Books of

Philosophers concerning Materia Prima.” The argument here seems to be that we can dismiss prime matter as nothing more than a misunderstanding of our idea of body.

Since, Locke does not suggest that his notion of mysterious substrata is mistakenly conflated with other notions of substance he would seem to thus have a reason for dismissing prime matter that does not impugn a belief in mysterious substrata. 5

What we have are ideas of mysterious substrata—that are partially grounded in our inability to accept unsupported qualities—and besides that we have an idea, of substrata in general, derived from our ideas of individual substrata. We are in a situation analogous to a person that has ideas about individual jackets and besides that a complex idea, of jackets in general, derived from his ideas of individual jackets.6

5In an interesting essay Martha Brandt Bolton suggests that substrata are the subject of inherence of qualities, but not other properties (1976). This may also be the foundation for a distinction between mysterious substrata and prime matter. Similarly, it may be the case that, as Ayers would have it, substrata are not devoid of all qualities—see 4.5 below. In either case the terms of art would no longer be synonymous, so Locke could argue against one while affirming the other without contradiction.

6There is, of course, an important disanalogy in this example: our ideas of jackets are based on experience while our ideas of substrata are based on the supposition that they exist. However, this does not in itself invalidate the analogy. We could also simply compare our ideas of substrata and pure substance in general to something like our ideas of Higgs boson particles and bosons in general. Thus removing the disanalogy all-together.

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Locke continues in this vein as he moves on to a discussion of our ideas of particular sorts of substances.

An obscure and relative Idea of Substance in general being thus made we come to have the Ideas of particular sorts of Substances, by collecting such Combinations of simple Ideas, as are by Experience and Observation of Men’s Senses taken notice of to exist together, and are therefore supposed to flow from the particular internal Constitution, or unknown Essence of that Substance. Thus we come to have the Ideas of a Man, Horse, Gold, Water, etc. (2.23.3)

Part of the story here seems to be familiar: ideas appear together and are customarily taken to originate in a mysterious substance. However, note that Locke claims that the combinations of simple ideas are supposed to flow from an internal constitution or essence. This poses a problem. It is not clear that a mysterious substratum can be or even have an essence. Indeed, our notion of a bare substratum at least suggests that it should have no properties at all. How could it be a bare substance, if it did? How could it have an essence if it didn’t? Does Locke contradict himself?

He does not. Notice that what he describes as having an internal constitution is particular sorts of substances and these are nothing more than the cataloging of collections of simple ideas. The sorts, in effect, delineate what we take to be different kinds of things. Not surprisingly, there is more to the content of our ideas of substance sorts than in the content of our idea of mysterious substratum, principally the belief that substance sorts have an essence: a “particular internal Constitution, or unknown

Essence of that Substance.”

We can see another example of Locke using substance to mean substance sort in 2.23.22: Locke writes “Let us compare then our complex Idea of an immaterial Spirit with our complex Idea of Body, . . . Our idea of Body, as I think, is an extended solid

Substance, capable of communicating Motion by impulse: And our Idea of Soul, as an

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immaterial Spirit, is of a substance that thinks, and has a power of exciting Motion in

Body, by Will, or Thought” (2.23.22). If we read this as a statement about individual things it makes little sense, if for no other reason than that our idea of some specific spirit and some specific body is surely more informed than he describes here. So, the more natural way to read this passage is to think that he is discussing substance sorts.

There is further support for this analysis of Locke’s varying use of substance in discussing mysterious substrata, substance in general, and substance sorts. In 2.24,

Locke, by way of introducing so-called “Collective Ideas of Substances,” makes this brief assertion:

Besides these complex Ideas of several single Substances, as of Man, Horse, Gold, Violet, Apple, etc. the Mind hath also complex collective Ideas of Substances; which I so call, because such Ideas are made up of many particular Substances considered together, as united into one Idea, and which so joined, are looked on as one; v.g. the Idea of such a collection of Men as make an Army, though consisting of a great number of distinct Substances, is as much one Idea, as the Idea of a Man (2.24.1)

Locke’s use of man, horse, gold, violet, and apple as examples of “single substances” clearly lends itself to being read as a list of substance sorts, while the later reference to

“particular substances” should be read as individual, particular things, as the example that Locke uses to illustrate his meaning of the conglomeration of many individual men into the idea of an army. Certainly, while we can group our ideas of different substance sorts like steel, gold, lead, and tin into the collective idea of metals, or even bodies,

Locke clearly thinks that we can also make groups out of distinct ideas of individuals.

He does this, again, while discussing how the idea of an army is formed from the idea of a single man (2.24.2). This last bit is noteworthy, it seems almost certain that his use of the term “particular substance” here hints at an understanding of individual substances that is distinct from the mysterious substrata notion that I have so far championed. We

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will return to this alternate understanding shortly. In any case, the main takeaway from this passage in the context of the current discussion is that Locke, once again, uses substance, somewhat loosely.

Before we move on, however, let us take stock of the situation thus far. From our everyday experiences of clusters of ideas we gather evidence for mysterious, individual substrata. From our observations of individual things we form notions of different substance sorts. Body, spirit, man, horse, gold, etc. are all substance sorts. Finally, we have noticed Locke discussing the complex idea of pure substance in general. Thus, on my reading, pure substance in general would seem to be something like the substance sort of mysterious substrata.7 While we have three uses of substance, two are used to designate nothing more than complex ideas—pure substance in general and substance sorts, while one is used to designate actual things—mysterious substrata. This is all, so far, fairly straightforward, but Locke decides to complicate the issue.

In the quotation from 2.24, we saw Locke use the term particular substances in a way that would seem to be different from the three senses of substance that were just listed. In the quoted passage, particular substance would seem to refer to individual men, not an imperceptible part of individual men. Significantly, in “Book 3” of the Essay

Locke makes a similar claim that has some problematic consequences.

The common Names of Substances, as well as other general Terms, stand for Sorts; which is nothing else but the being made signs of such complex Ideas, wherein several particular Substances do, or might agree, by virtue of which they are capable of being comprehended in one common Conception, and signified by one Name. I say, do or might agree: for though there be but one Sun existing in the World, yet the Idea of it being abstracted, so that more Substances (if there were

7The relationship between a mysterious substratum and pure substance in general is similar to the relationship between Bucephalus and substance sort horse.

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several) might each agree in it; it is as much a Sort, as if there were as many Suns as there are Stars. (3.6.1)

The complication stems from claim that the Sun is a particular substance, this clearly is not equivalent to the use of substance, in 2.23, in which it is mysterious substratum that are substances; the Sun is clearly not an unperceived mysterious thing serving as the foundation of its properties. Locke makes a similar claim later in Book 3:

Essences being taken for Ideas, established in the Mind, with Names annexed to them, they are supposed to remain steadily the same, whatever mutations the particular Substances are liable to. For whatever becomes of Alexander and Bucephalus, the Ideas to which Man and Horse are annexed, are supposed nevertheless to remain the same; and so the Essences of those Species are preserved whole and undestroy’d, whatever Changes happen to any, or all of the Individuals of those Species. (3.3.19)

In this quotation we see Alexander and Bucephalus described as particular substances, and, again, the emperor and his favorite horse could not plausibly be mysterious substrata. So, in both passages from Book 3 the individuals described as substances seem to be complete—we might say thickly conceived—things that would appear to be the combination of a mysterious, individual substratum and its various qualities and powers. This sense of substance is not limited to the Essay. In his correspondence with

Stillingfleet, Locke makes this claim, “And having every-where affirmed and built upon it, that a man is a substance. I cannot be supposed to question or doubt of the being of substance, till I can question or doubt my own being” (Letter, 18). If he had not used the individual particular this could very well be a comment on man as a substance sort, but by reference to a single man Locke precludes that reading. Furthermore, in his discussion of identity, Locke makes a series of claims involving individual, particular substances: “I say, in all these cases, our consciousness being interrupted, and we losing the sight of our past selves, doubts are raised whether we are the same thinking

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thing, i.e. the same substance or no” (2.27.10); “But though the same immaterial

Substance, or Soul does not alone, where-ever it be, and in whatsoever State, make the same Man” (2.27.16); “It must be either the same individual, immaterial, thinking

Substance; In short, the same numerical Soul, and nothing else” (2.27.21); and finally,

“For, granting that the thinking Substance in Man must be necessarily suppos’d immaterial, ‘tis evident that immaterial thinking thing may sometimes part with its past consciousness, and be restored to it again” (2.27.23). None of these uses of substance can be convincingly glossed as either referring to mysterious substrata or as a discussion of features of substance sorts.8 So, it seems that we must accept that when

Locke writes about substances, qua individual things, not complex ideas, he sometimes refers to mysterious substrata and sometimes refers to what could be described as complete individuals.

This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing, metaphysically speaking, nor do the latter examples necessarily contradict the early passages in 2.23. Locke, either intentionally or not, attaches multiple meanings to the same term. Sometimes he uses “substance” while discussing individual things like Bucephalus or soldiers in an army; sometimes he uses it while discussing mysterious substrata; and sometimes he uses it while discussing substance sorts. Fortunately, I believe that careful attention to the context of potentially ambiguous uses can usually clarify his meaning.9 Keeping this ambiguity in mind is necessary for getting the best picture of Locke’s metaphysics.

8For more instances of the complete individual sense of substance see Letter 83 and 3.6.8.

9When discussing pure substance in general he does not normally simply write “substance” and so this case is less confusing.

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This reading of Locke has some distinct advantages. First, it gives us an easy way to make sense of the later material in 2.23—on God and immaterial substances. It also gives us some insight into the identity material. For example, in 2.27 atoms are referred to, by Locke, as substances. On my reading we can accommodate this by grouping atoms with the other complete, individual substances, along with finite spirits and bodies. Thus, the points in 2.23 are, at least terminologically, in line with 2.27. This significantly reduces the compulsion to read 2.27 as somehow divorced from the rest of

Locke’s metaphysics.10

By contrast Bennett is, at first, forced to conclude that, strictly speaking, Locke only meant substance to refer to substratum, while uses of substance that refer to individuals are merely loose talk (1987, 207). Ayers concludes that substance just means something like a particular sort of thing, e.g. gold or horse, and thus any other use, as a reference to individual things, for example, is, again, merely loose talk (1975,

8). Indeed, any scholar that wishes to paint Locke as having a single interpretation of substance will be forced to make similar concessions. That my interpretation renders a substantive distinction between substance qua substratum and substance qua individuals and does not force us to accuse Locke of lazy thinking (I accuse him of, at worst, confusing word choice) is, I take it, an advantage of my reading that leads us to a better understanding of Locke’s views. We shall investigate all of these benefits.

10While brief, these introductory remarks on 2.27 are meant to show that when Locke uses substance in differing ways the usage reflects distinct philosophical content and not just confusion or laziness. Locke’s view of substance and its relationship to identity will be revisited in Chapter 6.

This reading also meshes well with the real and nominal essences material. Nominal essences are nothing more than lists of the properties that comprise substance sorts. And while we do have to deny that real essences are analogous to mysterious substrata the positing of mysterious substrata together with real essences is a sensible way to think about certain features of individual substances. Nevertheless, I will not pursue the relationship between Locke’s views on essences and his views on substance in this work.

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Given what we have seen about Locke’s position on mysterious substrata it is not surprising that, unlike Descartes, Locke cannot look to the nature of substance, i.e. mysterious substrata, to explain why a thing has certainly qualities or to argue that something is essentially either a thinking thing or an extended thing. The very nature of a mysterious substratum is such that all of its qualities must inhere in it accidentally.11

This does not require us to commit to the stronger claim that Locke could offer no explanation for why a particular thing has certain properties. Indeed his notion of real essence would seem to be designed to do exactly that. Locke simply cannot look at substratum as both the subject of inherence of a thing’s qualities and the source of explanation for the thing’s having certain qualities.

This observation is supported, if only indirectly, by Locke’s somewhat unusual claim that at least some individual substances seem to be able to acquire primary

11 There is an alternative to this possibility. Robert Pasnau and Daniel Z. Korman argue for an account of substratum in which Locke’s view is not that a substratum is a bare particular but the thing itself. As Pasnau notes: “a distinction between the properties of a substance and the substance itself, where the substance is just the individual thing (the gold, the wax) apart from its properties” (2011, 159) and “In short, Locke means to identify the substratum with the substance, and thereby to situate it within a perfectly familiar metaphysics of substance and properties” (2011, 161). If this is right, then, because Locke thinks that individual things have natures, it may be the case that qualities inhere in substances as a matter of necessity and not accidentally.

In discussing 2.23.3 Korman observes one such possibility: “that the substance is something distinct from (or ‘besides’) the qualities that it supports plainly does not entail that the substratum has no qualities. A stone is not identical to its shape, but that does not mean that it has no shape” (2011, 78). Korman’s suggestion seems to be that while a substratum may not have any determinate shape it is might still have a determinable extension in some non-accidental way (this echoes Skirry’s discussion of Descartes, see page 74), and thus its having a shape is the result its nature and not accidental.

There are a number of things to say about this account (labeled a deflationary interpretation by Korman). First, if we grant the idea that there is some structure associated with substrata (real essences spring to mind), it could merely be a structure associated with a substratum and not something like the nature of the substratum. Second, even if we opt for the closer relationship, this would still leave individual, specific qualities—such as a determinate shape—as accidents. Third, it is not entirely clear to me that a substratum which is an individual thing that is distinct from, independent of, the subject of inherence for, and the cause of its qualities is significantly different from my gloss of bare individual substrata. This is especially so, if we consider Locke’s notions—considered more closely in Chapter 7— about what qualities God can and cannot superadd to substances.

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qualities in an ad hoc fashion. In 2.23.13 Locke notes that “we have some Reason . . . to imagine, that Spirits can assume to themselves Bodies of different Bulk, Figure, and

Conformation of Parts; . . . The Supposition at least, that Angels do sometimes assume

Bodies, needs not startle us; since some of the most ancient and most learned Fathers of the Church seemed to believe, that they had bodies: And this is certain, that their state and way of Existence is unknown to us.” If we take the use of “spirit” and “angel” in these lines to refer to complete individual substances, Locke’s point seems to be the case that some individuals, e.g. angels , and a fortiori the mysterious substrata associated with individual angels, can gain or lose primary physical qualities. Though obviously not conclusive, this passage also suggests that, generally speaking, things can gain and lose individual primary qualities. That is to say, a thing might lose the primary quality of being extended—as opposed to no longer being square—while retaining other qualities. It is, of course, also evidence that a single substance can have both material and mental properties.12

There are two alternatives to my reading of the angel passage. First, we might think that Locke does not intend to suggest that individual substances can gain or lose primary qualities wholesale, but rather that they can gain or lose modes of their primary qualities. They cannot gain extension or bulk, but the height, density, etc. of the body that they have can be altered. With respect to this interpretation, I think the former, stronger reading is preferable, if for no other reason than it seems to be a more natural fit for Locke’s claim that angels do sometimes assume bodies. If the latter, more mundane, reading were meant here, he should have said that they sometimes assume

12 In fact, I think both of these claims are true and we will see arguments for them later on.

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different bodies, or more accurately that they sometimes assume different shapes and features. Furthermore, while it seems reasonable to think that assuming “different bodies” can be read as an observation about gaining or losing modes, the claim at the end of the quotation that angels “do sometimes assume bodies,” has a different character; that later claim leans strongly toward an all-or-nothing reading. Angels either have bodies, and the associated qualities, or they do not.

The second alternative reading that is available is that the complete individual substance, which is the angel can gain or lose another complete individual substance, i.e. a body. Which is to say, that angels, qua complete individuals, might sometimes be composed of just one substance, an immaterial one, and sometime they might be composed of two substances, one immaterial the other material. Thus the example could support a vaguely Cartesian substance-dualism analysis. Indeed, in this passage alone there seems to be no good reason to prefer my version of Locke’s putative substance dualism. So they would appear to be on equal footing.13 For our current purposes, however, this impasse does not amount to very much. We can note that either reading, mine or the pseudo-Cartesian view, is fully compatible with the ontology laid out in the preceding paragraphs. That an angel, or other individual, might be composed of two independent sets of substrata and associated qualities does not preclude a metaphysical system that includes an individual bare substance view.

Thus, it would seem that we are able to draw the perhaps unusual conclusion that a substance—regardless of whether we mean a mysterious substratum or a complete individual—is neither physical nor mental except as it has, or lacks, the

13In Ch. 6 I will offer an argument against reading Locke as a substance dualist.

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appropriate, accidental primary-qualities.14 Of course, this only deepens any existing concerns over the nature of the link between things and their qualities.

In summation, Locke has four distinct concepts at work in his thinking about substances: mysterious individual substrata; complete individual things; substance sorts; and pure substance in general.15 Mysterious, individual substrata are the real, ontological independent subjects of inherence of qualities. Complete individual substances are a combination of said substrata, qualities and perhaps other properties.

Substance sorts, including pure substance in general, are just complex ideas that are created by our thinking about individual substances. Finally, while Locke can mean any of the three senses when he uses “substance” in the Essay, he actually only has two notions that apply to substances as entities in the world: mysterious substrata and complete individual substances.

5.3 Bennett: The Embarrassment of Mysterious Substrata

This way of thinking about Locke’s view of substance is sometimes referred to as the Leibnizian reading, “If you distinguish two things in a substance—the attributes or predicates and their common subject—it’s no wonder that you can’t conceive anything special in this subject. That is inevitable, because you have already set aside all the attributes through which details could be conceived” (Leibniz 1996, 2.23). Locke believed that substances are individual bare substances: things that are completely

14His stance in 3.6 that nothing is essential to any individual qua the individual itself would seem to support this observation. See, 3.6.4-6.

15As I have already mentioned, the last is nothing more than a complex idea created by thinking about substrata, really just a kind of substance sort. When Locke discusses it he usually employs the phrase “pure substance in general” or something similar leaving the unadorned “substance” to stand for one of the three other meanings.

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independent of all properties, and thus at least potentially devoid of them. This is, broadly speaking, part of the proper view of Locke’s metaphysics.

Traditionally, there would appear to be two main problems with this view. First,

Locke seems to ask us—as Bennett puts it—to “direct our thought onto a particular without help from any properties that we believe it to have; and that seems to be impossible . . . the substratum theorist is accused of requiring content in something that has been deprived of all content” (1987, 199).16 A second problem is that Locke seems to mock this very position in the Essay: most notably in the passage on the earth, the elephant, and the tortoise (2.13.19). Indeed, Bennett goes so far as to argue that

Locke’s reliance on such a problematic entity was only reluctantly accepted by him as a kind of unavoidable embarrassment (1987, 201). Nevertheless, I believe that we can respond to the concerns highlighted by the Leibnizian reading and also address the worry that Locke only accepted it grudgingly.

As we just noted, the first problem stems from the fact that Bennett, following

Leibniz, takes Locke as observing that a substance is a thing that is, at bottom, completely devoid of properties.17 The problem can be broken down into two separate challenges. First, we might wonder how a thing which has no properties of its own is even possible; second, we might ask how a thing with no properties can generate an idea of it with any content (Bennett 1987, 198-199).

As to the suggestion that we ought to be troubled by the existence of such a thing, we can offer this reply: while we cannot establish the existence of substrata via

16More accurately Bennett presents this comment as a summary of a claim made by Alston. However, Bennett believes that his own view agrees with Alston’s.

17As it is used here “substance” is equivalent to what I have termed the mysterious, individual substratum.

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direct observation, this is not in itself a good enough reason to deny their necessity or their existence. It is entirely possible to make deductions about—and believe in the existence of—things which we do not, or even cannot, observe directly. Indeed, Locke does just this in his discussion of God (2.23.34), real essences (3.6.19) and tertiary qualities (2.8.23).18 With respect to mysterious substrata, as we saw in the previous section, there is good reason to conclude that they play an important role in the world.

Thus, while we do not observe them directly, we are at least able to argue for their existence.19

As to the suggestion that we ought to be worried about how we can think about mysterious substrata we can observe that it is unclear what Locke thinks we are doing when he asks us to “direct our thoughts” to a basic particular. Does Locke mean that we

18Each of these is obviously treated differently by Locke. In the case of tertiary qualities we have clear indirect evidence of their existence. In the case of real essences it may be that we simply have not yet observed them, but they are observable in principle. Nevertheless, in all three cases, we do not, or at least we did not in Locke’s day, directly observe the phenomena, and in all three cases we are nonetheless convinced, by rational considerations, that these things do indeed exist. Thus, we cannot dismiss the existence of mysterious substrata merely because said existence must be deduced.

19We might here pause to ask why Locke could not have discarded the need for substrata and opted instead for a view that incorporated bundles of qualities. To this possibility, the response must necessarily be somewhat speculative. Certainly Locke could have opted for such a view, gaining a philosophy with a simpler ontology. However, this view is perhaps too close to a belief in real accidents. Locke does not take pains to argue against the existence of real accidents preferring rather to dismiss them out of hand (2.13.20). Here I take accidents to be, rather simply, just properties that are not essential to a thing, and real accidents are properties—in a loose sense—that can exist without inhering in a substance. They are real in the sense that they can exist whether or not any other substance—or real accident—exists in much the same way that a substance—in the sense of a particular individual thing—can exist without depending on the existence of other substances. Locke’s antipathy toward those could very well explain why he might reject bundled qualities.

Furthermore, while the simpler ontology would have Locke thinking that every individual consists of a bundle of non-essential properties and nothing else, such a view, would seem to be incompatible with Locke’s views on the real essence of individuals—see, for example, Letter, p. 82 & 85, and 4.6.4 in the Essay—and would clash violently with his many reference to natural essences—see, for example, Letter, p. 25 & 77, and 2.23.37 & 3.6.22. These passages show that Locke was indeed very comfortable with the idea that individuals have essential natures from which the individual’s properties are thought to flow. Furthermore when confronted with the idea that he eliminates substance from the world by Stillingfleet, Locke’s response is to insist that he does no such thing. Since eliminating substances would seem to be a necessary part of opting for the simpler, bundles only, ontology we should conclude that Locke would have, at the very least, hesitated to opt for this kind of theory.

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should form a perception of the substratum or merely form a complex idea of a substratum? Perceiving the substratum is indeed impossible, but the construction of a complex idea of a substratum would seem to be less problematic. There is no reason to suppose that constructing a complex idea of a mysterious substratum is in any way beyond our power.20 While Locke does not give us an explicit analysis of how we form the complex idea of a mysterious substratum, we might suppose, on his behalf, that it would involve a combination of an abstraction from observable qualities and the notion of being the support necessitated by qualities.

And yet, if his view of mysterious substrata is really so unproblematic, why does

Locke seem to disparage the view in 2.13? Bennett’s answer seems to be that while

Locke dislikes the idea of something so like prima materia, he finds himself unable to dispense with it because we have the idea inescapably (1987, 200). Essentially, he argues that Locke simply could not come to grips with the divergence in our ability to conceive of substrata in any kind of informed way with our seemingly unavoidable inclusion of them in our view of the world. While Locke saw the use of substrata as a dubious device he could not see any way to get rid of them. For what it’s worth, were this observation to be accurate it would certainly be a troubling conundrum for Locke.

However, I do not believe that Locke was really forced into a corner.21 His claim denouncing under-propping substances on the one hand and the upholding of substrata on the other are not really contradictory.

20Indeed, if we are interested in being charitable to Locke, we could note that large tracts of the Essay would be nonsense were our complex idea of substrata devoid of content.

21As Peter Alexender notes, while discussing Locke’s presentation of mysterious substrata in 2.23.1 ““It should be noted that Locke does not say here that we are wrong when we accustom ourselves to suppose a substratum” (1985 p. 208).

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As we noted in Chapter 4, Locke’s jabs are aimed at those philosophers who think of our ideas of substances, including ideas of bare substances, as informative and clear. He is primarily interested in arguing against philosophers who, like Descartes, believe that we have a clear and informed idea of substances. Locke avoids both errors; his notion that our ideas of substrata are confused and the result of habit and compulsion is, if not clearly right, certainly less ambitious and perhaps less controversial, too.22 Locke goes so far as to accept the comparison between our idea of substance and an Indian philosopher’s claim that elephants and tortoises support the world. Each theory answers the need to posit an entity as an explanation of a phenomenon—the clustering and support of qualities on the one hand the support of the world on the other—even though we have no clear idea of the entity posited. So, while he noted that there is a legitimate notion of the role of substance, “we have no Idea of what it is, but only a confused obscure one of what it does” (2.13.19), he also argued against the having a clear conception of substance itself “If it be demanded (as it usually is) whether this Space void of Body, be Substance or Accident, I shall readily answer, I know not: nor shall be ashamed of my Ignorance, till they that ask, shew me a clear distinct Idea of Substance” (2.13.17).23 Notice the parallel to his discussion of substrata in 2.23.2: if a man considers what he knows of substance he will find that he “has no

Idea of it at all, but only a Supposition of he knows not what support of such Qualities, which are capable of producing simple Ideas in us”.

22See Newman 2000 for a nice account of this position.

23 Locke’s complex idea of substrata, which is constructed from what might be described as indirect evidence, is about substance in the sense that it is concerned with substance, but not in the sense that it is the result of either our direct observation of substance or a clear and unmitigated understanding of substance.

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So, while I agree with Bennett that Locke believed in the existence and utility of individual bare substances, I do not agree that he felt embarrassed to use them. A strong reason for this, beyond the lack of textual evidence for the claimed embarrassment, is Locke’s use of mysterious, bare substrata to support his views on the gaining and losing of properties—as we saw in the observation about angels and bodies. In Chapter 6 and 7 I will show that without recourse to mysterious substrata

Locke’s positions on identity, dualism and superaddition are difficult to understand, while including mysterious substrata helps us interpret his work as a cohesive whole.

5.4 McCann: The “No theory” Theory

Another reading of Locke’s views concludes that Locke had no theory of substance. Edwin McCann notes that there are six purposes which a theory of substance might serve: predication, subsistence and inherence, the regular concurrence of properties, the source of identity, the origin of per se unity, and to give a description of the number and nature of basic kinds of things there are (McCann 2001,

88-90). I will not argue whether these are indeed the only the roles for substance to play in metaphysics—they might not even be the most important. I will instead grant that a theory of substance, loosely speaking, certainly ought to have something to say about each of the highlighted roles.

Of course, the upshot of providing this list is that it sets the stage for McCann’s argument: Locke does not suggest a view of substance that can play any of these roles.

“Substance, according to Locke, can explain nothing, or to be more precise, our idea of substance in general, such as it is, cannot afford us any understanding of any of these phenomena” (McCann 2001, 90). The lacuna in his understanding of substrata keeps

Locke from being able to rely on them in his metaphysics. McCann further argues that

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Locke’s account of substrata is “hopelessly and irremediably confused and obscure”

(2001, 94). Certainly such a poorly understood object of conjecture would indeed be a poor grounding for any substantive work. But is Locke’s view really that impoverished? I will argue that it is not.24

It seems clear that substance does play many of the roles highlighted by

McCann. Recall Locke’s comments in 2.12.6:

[T]he Ideas of substances are such combinations of simple ideas, as are taken to represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves; in which the supposed or confused idea of Substance, such as it is, is always the first and chief. Thus if to [the idea of] Substance be joined the simple Idea of a certain dull, whitish colour, with certain degrees of Weight, Hardness, Ductility, and Fusibility, we have the Idea of Lead; and a combination of the Ideas of a certain sort of Figure, with the powers of Motion, Thought, and Reasoning, joined to Substance, make the ordinary Idea of a Man. Now of Substances there are two sorts of Ideas; one of single Substances as they exist separately, as of a Man or a Sheep; the other of several of those put together, as an Army of men, or Flock of sheep;

In this passage we see what I think are several of McCann’s standard purposes: predication, subsistence, and inherence, the regular concurrence of properties, the origin of per se unity, and the source of individuation of kinds.

As I read the passage, when Locke makes the initial claim “the Ideas of substances are such combinations of simple ideas, as are taken to represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves; in which the supposed or confused idea of

Substance, such as it is, is always the first and chief,” he cannot be using substance

24One possible reason for McCann’s pessimism is that he might make the mistake of conflating mysterious substrata with substance in general (2001, 94). As I have argued, Locke did not think of the two as equivalent. While Locke’s position on substance in general does seem to be as impoverished as McCann suggests, his position on substrata is not. Thus his metaphysical views are significantly healthier than McCann takes them to be. Nevertheless, whether McCann does make that mistake or not is perhaps ultimately unimportant as, it would still be profitable to consider a McCann-style attack on the notion of individual substrata.

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univocally before and after the semi-colon. If he were, his claim would amount to something like this “in our ideas of X’s the idea of X is foremost.” This is clearly uninformative and unsatisfactory. However, if we read the initial use as meaning individual particular things and the latter use as meaning mysterious substrata, the passage makes sense: “the Ideas of [complete individual things] are such combinations of simple ideas, as are taken to represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves; in which the supposed or confused idea of [a mysterious substratum], such as it is, is always the first and chief.” Substance, as it is used in the lines discussing lead and men means substrata, while substance, as it is used in the lines discussing single and composite substances, means individual complete things. Locke’s claim that the idea of substance, really mysterious substratum, is always “first and chief” in the idea of things, lends itself to what McCann labels as the role of substance in both ‘predication,’ and ‘subsistence and inherence.’ Furthermore, Locke’s claim that we need to add the ideas of certain properties to the idea of substance, again mysterious substratum, to account for our idea of lead or men seems to suggest both the role of substance in

‘regular concurrence’ and ‘the origin of per se unity.’ Finally, the sketch of the distinction between single and collective substances—the former being none other than complete, individual things—certainly suggests that substance has a role to play in describing the number of things there are. It seems that of McCann’s six roles for substance only the use of substance as a means of determining identity goes unmentioned in this passage.25

25Given Locke’s well known position on the problems of relating identity to substance, this is not particularly surprising. However, as I noted at the end of 4.2, mysterious substrata do indeed play a role in the grounding of diachronic identity of individuals. So, even in that case we have reason to disagree with McCann.

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We can also address McCann’s concern that the idea is confused and unclear and therefore uninformative. Locke claims that having a clear and distinct idea or even a simple idea of a thing is not a requirement for having certain knowledge of that thing. In his correspondence with Stillingfleet he writes “we may know the truth of propositions which include complex ideas, and those complex ideas may not always be perfectly clear ideas.”(Letter, 47) Similarly, in his Second Reply to Stillingfleet, Locke argues that a upon viewing some indistinct shapes one could still be “certain of this proposition concerning either of them, that it was something, or did exist; and that by perceiving the agreement of that idea (as obscure and confused as it was) with that of existence, as expressed in that proposition” (Second Reply, 222). Of course, we do not perceive even the indistinct shape of mysterious substrata. Nevertheless, Locke’s general stance seems to be that when we have good reason to suppose the existence of thing, we are entitled to draw at least some conclusions about it. Thus, the confused idea of substance that Locke writes about in 2.12.6, 2.23.1, and elsewhere could certainly be support enough for us to conclude that in fact mysterious substrata are real and thus something we can come to have knowledge of.

To argue that his inclusion of substrata in his ontology is nonetheless uninformative is, I think, to miss the point. While Locke’s conception of mysterious substrata is not as informative as Descartes’, this is not, according to Locke, a flaw.

From Locke’s perspective it is only uninformative if you have unreasonable expectations of our ability to understand the world. Indeed, since his view of substance says everything that can be said about the subject, it is rather the opposite of uninformative: it

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is as rich a theory as one can responsibly manage to have.26 To argue that a substance is nothing more than a bare substance, a mysterious substratum, upon which qualities depend, but which is unperceived in itself and lacking in intrinsic, unalienable qualities, is not to lack a theory of substance.

Furthermore, it seems that Locke did not merely believe that mysterious substrata are a convenient concept to be argued for solely on the grounds that belief in them is less problematic than belief in other forms of substances. In a very interesting, if brief, bit of exposition Locke observes that the idea of substance is not merely a supposition, but a belief “grounded on plain and evident reason” and “ultimately grounded on, and derived from, ideas which come in by sensation or reflection.” (Letter,

21). He then supports these conclusions:

[A]ll the ideas of all the sensible qualities of a cherry come into my mind by sensation; . . . . the ideas of these qualities and actions, or powers, are perceived by the mind to be by themselves inconsistent with existence; or, as your lordship well expresses it, “we find that we can have no true conception of any modes or accidents, but we must conceive a substratum or subject, wherein they are;” i. e. that they cannot exist or subsist of themselves. Hence the mind perceives their necessary connexion with inherence or being supported; which being a relative idea superadded to the red colour in a cherry, or to thinking in a man, the mind frames the correlative idea of a support. . . . But because a relation cannot be founded in nothing, or be the relation of nothing, and the thing here related as a supporter or support is not represented to the mind by any clear and distinct idea; therefore the obscure, indistinct, vague idea of thing or something, is all that is left to be the positive idea, which has the relation of a support or substratum to modes or accidents; (Letter, 21)

26I am tempted to argue, somewhat speculatively, that what we see here is a disagreement about thin and thick conceptions of substance. We might think of thick conceptions of substance as being fully informed. This concept appears in the views of philosophers like Descartes who believe that substance is fully intelligible. Alternatively, thin conceptions of substance are those in which substances are beyond our epistemic limits, perhaps necessarily so, and thus the concepts do not attribute many properties to the substances. This concept would also seem to appear in Kant’s views on noumena and Aristotle’s views on prime matter. On my reading Locke’s concept of mysterious substrata is thin, while his concept of individual complete substance might be thick. McCann’s dissatisfaction with Locke’s view rests thus not on a defect in Locke’s thin conception of substance but on desire for a thick conception.

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Notice that Locke characterized his notion of a substratum as a positive idea. He may have been wrong, of course, but this would appear to be at least evidence for the claim that the concept of substratum is neither empty nor uninformative. A briefer, but similar, comment appears just a bit later in the Letter: “in some cases we may have certainty about obscure ideas; v. g. by the clear idea of thinking in me, I find the agreement of the clear idea of existence, and the obscure idea of thinking, and the relative idea of a support; which support, without having any clear and distinct idea of what it is, beyond this relative one of support, I call substance” (Letter, 42). The most interesting point here is that Locke claims to be certain that there is a supportive substance in which his own thoughts inhere. Both of these passages really offer the same claim: we can establish the existence of a substance, a mysterious substratum, from our ideas of the relation between substrata and their qualities.27 Locke’s basic position here is that since relations cannot hold between non-real things and we think of inherence as a kind of relation, both relata must be real: the accidents and the substratum.

Locke clearly believed that mysterious substrata were to be deployed in many of the traditional ways highlighted by McCann, and that the lack of a clear idea of these supporting substances is not a hindrance to that purpose. Thus, it seems safe to say that McCann’s suggestion that Locke really had no theory of substance in the Essay, while insightful, overstates the problems inherent in employing mysterious substrata as an integral part of one’s ontology.

27It seems clear that by “idea of support” Locke really means “idea of a supporting thing.”

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Nevertheless, I wish to be clear that while Locke argues for the existence of mysterious substrata and his views depend on them in various ways, I do not wish to imply that Locke’s metaphysics was anywhere as well described or as thorough as the projects of many of his peers. As Locke points out in 2.13—and as we discussed in ch.

3—he feels that there are no good grounds upon which to argue for a thorough and clear understanding of substance as anything more than a supportive bare substance.28

5.5 Ayers: A Material Substance

There are several key elements to Ayers’s reading of Locke that provide an informative contrast to my reading. A quick overview of his positions reveals some obvious differences. The central claim of Ayers’s analysis is that substance is that which is opposed to accidents and which is responsible for the observable properties of a thing (Ayers 1991, 2:15). Thus, it is not opposed to all properties and indeed may be linked to certain properties as a matter of necessity. A part of this general view is

Ayers’s reading of, substance, in Locke, as referring to things such as lead, horse and man (Ayers 1975, 8). Finally, on this view substratum is nothing but the underlying, structured stuff which is the source of a substance’s properties (Ayers 1991, 2:39-41).

On closer inspection, Ayers’s reading of Locke’s metaphysics is relatively straightforward. Locke is not a dualist but rather a cautious materialist—in comparison with Boyle or Hobbes (Ayers 1991, 2:47). One who acknowledged that all observable

28In this section I focused on whether Locke’s views of mysterious substrata could qualify as a theory of substance. But this ignores the other substance that Locke accepted, complete individual things. It seems reasonable to think that, for example, complete individual substances can play the role of supporting both predication and the regular concurrence of properties and do so in a more straightforward explanatory fashion. Thus, it may be that a fuller answer to McCann’s challenge would conscript complete individual substances to do some of the work.

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phenomena, including thought, while not yet explained, are nevertheless explainable in mechanistic terms. To be more precise, individual substances—such as a chunk of lead—are composed of a material substratum which is arranged in a micro-structure and it is the “determinate modifications” of the material substratum that make lead poisonous, dull, etc. The material substratum of a thing is nothing more than undifferentiated stuff, presumably atoms. This matter is arranged in particular ways and it is these “contingent modifications of the matter composing the thing which gives rise to the observable properties entitling it to be counted as of this or that humanly defined species” (Ayers 1991, 2:41-42). The real essence of a thing is just this “internal frame” or modification of the matter of a thing. Thus, when Locke argues that a substance’s properties depend on its substratum, what he really means is that the observable properties, such as tensile strength and color, depend on how the matter of the substance is arranged. Furthermore, Ayers’s claims that when Locke asserts that we have no distinct idea of this substratum, it is not a logical necessity born out of a theory involving bare substances but simply the result of our, as yet, limited experience of the underlying matter of things (Ayers 1991, 2:48).29

Ayers’s analysis is nuanced, dense and well sourced. Indeed he is careful enough in building support for his arguments that I am willing to grant that it may be impossible to definitively show that he is wrong in his reading of key texts. Locke’s

29 In the preceding I present Ayers as reading Locke as, more or less, a straightforward materialist. Ayers view is, perhaps, a bit more nuanced. He explicitly notes Locke’s skepticism against dogmatic materialism and unwillingness to take an absolutist stance against dualism (1991, 42-43). However, Ayers seems to think that Locke’s hesitation in adopting materialism full-bore was due to the problems with then current materialist theories and not with the notion that, ultimately, the right account of the world will be a materialistic one. Ayers notes that “even in the heat of a skeptical argument Locke was apparently happy to assume that observable phenomena depend in the first instance on the mechanical interactions of minute particles. Mind-body dualism, on the other hand, was for him dispensable in toto” (1991, 47).

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writing is ambiguous enough—with respect to the matters at hand—that there is textual support for both mine and for Ayers’s readings. So, rather than concentrate on which reading of ambiguous lines is best, I will first take a moment to argue that the most explicit evidence that Ayers can martial does not make a conclusive case for his reading, and then I will offer several arguments to show that Ayers’s reading is untenable and ultimately unable to accommodate several of Locke’s unambiguous views.

One important element of Ayers’s reading is his claim that the unobserved inner constitution, i.e. the underlying material structure of a substance, is responsible for both the observable primary qualities and all secondary qualities.30 Ayers finds support for his reading in the following passage:

The Ideas that make our complex ones of corporeal Substances, are of these three sorts. First, the Ideas of the primary Qualities of things, which are discovered by our Senses, and are in them even when we perceive them not; such are the Bulk, Figure, Number, Situation, and Motion of the parts of Bodies, which are really in them, whether we take notice of them or no. Secondly, the sensible secondary Qualities, which, depending on these, are nothing but the Powers those Substances have to produce several Ideas in us by our Senses; which Ideas are not in the things themselves, otherwise than as anything is in its Cause. (2.23.9)

Locke’s primary claim is, of course, that our ideas of particular corporeal substances consist of nothing but our ideas of the various qualities. However, the really useful bit for

Ayers is the claim that primary qualities such as bulk and figure are in things whether we perceive them or not. Additionally, since Locke has just finished reminding us that our ideas of substances are a collection of these observed qualities supported by an unknown “Cause of their Union” (2.23.6), it is not unreasonable to equate the unknown

30And, one, would assume, all tertiary qualities, too.

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cause with the hidden primary qualities. So, when combined, these two passages seem to indicate that primary qualities are the hidden foundations that support the observable qualities of substances. That is to say, unobserved primary qualities or, better, arrangements of them are responsible for the observable primary and secondary qualities—and the only indirectly observable so-called tertiary qualities. Thus, this hidden structure plays a role similar to the role that I have argued is reserved for mysterious substrata. This is, of course, not a strong argument for Ayers’s view, but it is, at least, compatible with the view, if not suggestive of it.

Furthermore, in 3.6.21 Locke notes that

The Essence of anything in respect of us, is the whole complex Idea comprehended and marked by that Name; and in Substances, besides the several distinct simple Ideas that make them up, the confused one of Substance, or of an unknown Support and Cause of their Union, is always a part: And therefore the Essence of Body is not bare Extension, but an extended solid thing; and so to say, an extended solid thing moves, or impels another, is all one, and as intelligible, as to say, Body moves or impels.

The utility of this passage for Ayers lies in the claim that the essence of body is extension, solidity, etc. This suggests that the “confused [idea] of substance” referenced in the passage is really nothing more than solidity, et al. This is important because if the notion that substances are nothing more than microscopic substructures is correct reading of this passage, then we would have reason to be confident that Locke maintained the view consistently.

These passages are especially relevant in that they seem to be Ayers’s best chance at clear textual evidence for his reading of Locke.31 However, these two

31There is another, interesting, passage that Bennett cites in an attempt to refute Ayers’s position. Bennett quotes Locke’s 2.31.13:

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passages by themselves are certainly not enough to establish his analysis. While they can be interpreted in a way that supports Ayers’s reading, his reading is obviously not the only one available. So, the textual support of Ayers’s reading is neither plentiful nor explicit.

Another important element of Ayers’s argument is that his reading avoids the

“metaphysically bizarre . . . form of voluntarism” of the Leibnizian reading (1991, 2:41).

As Ayers’s sees it, on the Leibnizian, account Locke is putatively committed to the notion that all properties are assigned to substrata arbitrarily (at the level of divine decree if not below). Ayers argues that, as Locke did not believe in an Aristotelian prime-matter, he would not have entertained a notion of individual bare substances. And the further claim that qualities might be assigned to individual substrata on a whim, as it were, would be even less appealing.

However, at least part of Ayers’s argument against Locke’s voluntarism, seems to rest on an interpretive error. In analyzing 2.23.2 Ayers offers this comment “The crucial problem of interpretation . . . whether the notion of subject or substratum or ‘pure

“if we . . . had, in our complex idea, an exact collection of all the secondary qualities or powers of any substance, we should not yet thereby have an idea of the essence of that thing. For since the powers or qualities that are observable by us, are not the real essence of that substance, but depend on it, and flow from it, any collection whatsoever of these qualities cannot be the real essence of that thing. Whereby it is plain, that our ideas of substances are not adequate; are not what the mind intends them to be. Besides, a man has no idea of substance in general, nor knows what substance is in itself”

He presents this passage as one of Ayers’s prime pieces of evidence and then argues that the passage should really count as evidence against Ayers, since, on its face, Locke here suggests that real essence and mysterious substrata are distinct things. Ayers claims that the line starting with “Besides” compliments the earlier material by stressing that our lack of knowledge of real essences is an example of our more general ignorance of substances. Bennett takes the “Besides” comment to imply that substances and real essences are distinct things and complains that Ayers’s reading is “not proper English” (Chappelle 142). In fact, while I generally agree with Bennet’s reading of Locke, I do not agree that the evidence here is conclusive. Indeed, I think that Ayers may indeed get it right. The underlying logic of the sentence could be analogous to the logic of this sentence: “He does not know the score of that game. Besides he never even watches sports.” So, either Bennet or Ayers could have the proper reading. Regardless it strikes me as odd that we should dismiss Ayers’s point because Locke’s 17th c. construction sounds odd to our contemporary ears.

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substance in general’ which Locke postulated as an ingredient of or complex ideas of substances was intended to be something unknowable in principle” (1991, 32). Ayers then uses the identification of subject, substratum and pure substance in general as part of the argument that Locke’s attacks on Aristotelian prime matter count as attacks on mysterious substrata qua bare substances. However, while the grammar of Ayers’s sentence clearly indicates that Ayers takes subject, substratum, and pure substance in general to be the same thing, this seems like a clear misreading of Locke in general and of that passage in particular. There, Locke is specifically concerned with discussing the content of our idea of pure substance in general, but he does not, in fact, equate pure substance in general with substrata.32 The upshot of this is that Ayers cannot, mutatis mutandis, apply his analysis of Locke’s attacks on prime matter (1991, 2:35-37), to

Locke’s view of substratum. In order to argue that substrata are equivalent to prime matter, and thus anathema to Locke, Ayers will have to examine Locke’s position on substrata, not pure substance in general. Of course, whether Locke believed in mysterious substrata is a distinct issue from whether he believed in pure substance in general as anything other than a complex idea. I agree with Ayers that he did not support the latter, but disagree about the former.33

Could Ayers tailor his argument to substrata explicitly and not by proxy?

Perhaps. However, at best we would be at an impasse. Having found textual evidence for and against linking mysterious substrata with prime matter, we might very well be at

32And as I argued in section 5.3 there is good reason to suppose that substratum, in Locke’s mind, is indeed different from prime matter.

33Curiously, as I noted at the beginning of this section, Ayers is committed to reading substratum as nothing more than the material stuff of substances. So, in at least some instances, Ayers’s own reading of substratum would preclude its identity with an Aristotelian pure substance in general.

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a loss for which reading was better. Perhaps then it is better to move from textual analysis to a consideration of whether Ayers’s reading can be reconciled with other aspects of Locke’s system.

Recall that Ayers’s view involves the claim that observable qualities are supported by a structured, physical substratum “a general corporeal substance or stuff common to all sensible things” (1991, 2:39). To see how this view is problematic we should also recall that, on Locke’s account, minds are individual substances just as much as bodies, and therefore they are also supported by mysterious substrata. So, whatever story we have for mysterious substrata ought to either make sense for both minds and bodies—my reading does this—or, alternatively, we should expect to see the differences made explicit. The latter option is nowhere supported by Locke. I have found no evidence to suggest that there is more than one kind of mysterious substrata.

Indeed, given his view of our epistemic limits no such claim could be made. So, the first option would seem the more likely of the two.

To support his reading of Locke, Ayers must conclude that minds also have a substructure composed of primary physical qualities as their substratum, thus, maintaining Locke’s apparent desire to maintain a symmetry between the macro-micro relationship of corporeal and mental individual substances.34 Indeed in the case of embodied persons the possibility is straightforward: when Locke argues that thoughts can be superadded to bodies, he could be arguing for the very notion that their minds are the product of physical substructures. So, if we think of nothing but embodied minds, persons and such, Ayers’s view might indeed be plausible.

34In fact, Ayers does this by implying that Locke was a materialist (1991, 2:47)

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But what are we to make of disembodied minds? We cannot very well say that they have a physical micro-structure, neither can we deny that Locke held them to be possible. We have seen Locke comment that Angels can gain and lose bodies

(2.23.13), that our minds are most probably immaterial (Letter, 32), and that there are finite intelligences which are contradistinguished from bodies (2.27.2). Corporeal micro- structures, as they are material, would be seemingly unable to accommodate all of these passages.35 So, a straightforward grafting of minds onto the microstructure of bodies seems unlikely.

Interestingly, Locke does seem to countenance immaterial atomism; in 2.27.12 he observes that those “who place thinking in an immaterial Substance only, . . . must shew why personal Identity cannot be preserved in the change of immaterial

Substances, or variety of particular immaterial Substances, as well as animal

Identity is preserved in the change of material Substances, or variety of particular bodies.”36 So perhaps we could generalize the insight about physical micro-structures to something like this: unknown substrata are nothing more than the structural scaffolding

35Of course, these are not the only passages in which Locke advocates for immaterial substances.

36 When Locke’s notes that animal Identity is “preserved in the change of material Substances, or variety of particularly material bodies,” I take his meaning to be something like ‘animal identity is preserved across changes in parts of bodies.’ Thus, the analogy to immaterial substance suggests that preservation of personal identity “in the change of immaterial Substances, or variety of particular immaterial Substances” means something like ‘personal identity is preserved across changes in parts of immaterial substances.’ Thus immaterial atomism would be the belief that immaterial substance, e.g. minds, can be constructed from immaterial atoms, (metaphorically) just in the way that bodies are made from atoms. My reading relies on either taking “particular material bodies” to mean atoms (or corpuscles, that is to say, I take “particular” in a ‘like a particle’ sense) or taking “particular material bodies” to mean distinct, gross, bodies that are generated via the gradual discarding and in-take of atoms (or corpuscles, etc.). The former option in the preceding disjunction is admittedly not completely obvious. However, it is supported by Locke’s reference to compound, spiritual substances in 2.27.17: “Self is that conscious thinking thing, (whatever Substance, made up if whether Spiritual, or Material, Simple, or Compounded, it matters not). . . .” In any case, since this reading, is mentioned in the service of supporting Ayers’s reading of Locke, if it is unconvincing, the Ayer’s reading surely suffer for it, and, either way, my larger point, that Ayers misreads Locke is unaffected.

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of the gross, observed, properties of individual substances. Since there is no reason to think that such scaffolding cannot be immaterial, this view would at least allow minds and bodies to share a common organizational scheme. It would let us assert that disembodied minds have immaterial scaffolding and thus preserve metaphysical symmetry between the corporeal and mental individual substances. There is, at best, scant textual evidence for this general claim—as far as I can see the only place that

Locke mentions mental atoms is in the identity passage quoted just earlier—but it is, at least, not incompatible with much of Locke’s general view. Of course, this would leave

Locke with the problem of explaining what an immaterial atom is, a project he nowhere undertakes, as far as I can see.

Another problem for Ayers’s reading can be put in terms of one of the explicit roles of substrata: being the subject of inherence. Locke does not offer a good explanation of inherence, but as we have seen, it is clear that one of the main roles of mysterious substrata is to be a subject of inherence. While Ayers does claim that macro-properties depend on micro-structures in some way—and Locke places some emphasis on the notion of substance as the support of qualities— it is not at all clear that this kind of support is equivalent to inherence. To put it another way, it seems reasonable to conclude that all instances of inherence can be properly described as instances of support, but not all instance of support can be properly described as instances of inherence.37

37Nice examples of this are provided by mixed modes and relations. Mixed modes depend on both simple ideas, as constituents, and the power of thought, to create them, but it seems clearly wrong to say that the mixed mode of drunkenness inheres in either the simple ideas generated by observing a drunk person or in the power to fashion those simple ideas into the idea of drunkenness. Furthermore, since mixed modes are explicitly precluded from being “characteristical Marks of any real Beings that have a steady existence,” they cannot be properties of, and a fortiori cannot inhere in, the drunk person that causes the mixed mode in the observers mind. Ideas of relations are also dependent on simple ideas, as

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However, there is some reason to think that physical micro-structures cannot be the subject of ineherence. To see why, we can take a closer look at Locke’s treatment of atoms. Locke is clear that atoms are individual substances (2.27.3). So, they too should have qualities, size, bulk, etc., that need to inhere in a substratum. Of course, on

Ayers’s reading this would require atoms—which are the elements of the micro- structures of many other substances—to have a micro-structure. Similarly, we should note that in 2.23.12 Locke describes the micro-structure as a “Texture and Motion of the minute Parts.” But texture, and especially motion, are primary qualities (2.8.10, 4.3.25, etc.) which we know must inhere in something. So, again, it would seem that micro- structures need something to inhere in. Indeed, it is hard to see how on a Lockean reading any structure or micro-structure, physical or non-physical, could avoid this problem. If qualities, as Locke argues, must inhere in something, there must be something for them to inhere in, and a bare substratum is the only thing for them to inhere in that does obviously not fall victim to an infinite regress.38

This point in my analysis of Ayers does put a lot of weight on the idea that Locke believed that qualities inhere in some sort of substance. However, the importance of inherence is not just an affectation of my analysis; Locke himself places a significant amount of emphasis on this:

To explain myself, and clear my meaning in this matter: all the ideas of all the sensible qualities of a cherry come into my mind by sensation; the ideas of perceiving, thinking, reasoning, knowing, &c. come into my mind by reflection: the ideas of these qualities and actions, or powers, are perceived the things being compared, but would it make any sense to say that the idea of a relation inheres in the simple ideas that are being compared (2.25.9)?

38Importantly, Ayers’s claim that Locke took micro-structures not as an alternative to substrata but as substrata themselves—which is to say that the micro-structures are the things that Locke referred to when he spoke of substrata—is unsupported by the text.

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by the mind to be by themselves inconsistent with existence; or, as your lordship well expresses it, “we find that we can have no true conception of any modes or accidents, but we must conceive a substratum or subject, wherein they are;” i. e. that they cannot exist or subsist of themselves. Hence the mind perceives their necessary connexion with inherence or being supported[.] (Letter, 21)

Certainly, we could take the lesson of our thinking about minds and conclude that a sub- atomic structure, perhaps one that is not physical, is responsible for atomic qualities; a micro-micro-structure that is the subject of inherence of the qualities of the top-level micro-structure. Ayers may be taken to suggest something like this when he argues that it would have to be unobserved primary qualities which support the observable primary and secondary qualities.

In fact, if Ayers cannot avoid relying on ever finer micro-structures, his view would be directly refuted by Locke himself.

Man, Horse, Sun, Water, Iron, upon hearing which Words, every one who understands the Language, frames in his Mind a Combination of those several simple Ideas which he has usually observed, or fancied to exist together under that denomination; all which he supposes to rest in and be, as it were, adherent to that unknown common Subject, which inheres not in anything else. Though, in the meantime, it be manifest, and every one upon Enquiry into his own thoughts, will find that he has no other Idea of any Substance, v.g. let it be Gold, Horse, Iron, Man, Vitriol, Bread, but what he has barely of those sensible Qualities, which he supposes to inhere, with a supposition of such a Substratum as gives, as it were, a support to those Qualities or simple Ideas, which he has observed to exist united together. (2.23.6)

This is a clear indication that a substratum cannot inhere in anything else. Yet, physical qualities must inhere in something. So, even if it were possible to argue that an unobserved micro-structure is the subject of inherence of the observable macro- structure, this cannot be the final word. If the micro-structure is composed of primary qualities, they too must inhere in something. If they do not, how are they different from

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real accidents? Thus, it seems impossible to conclude that physical micro-structures are substrata.39

Nevertheless, the preceding discussion about the importance of inherence in

Locke’s system might still be compatible with Ayers’s comments. If we gloss inherence as nothing more than a dependence relationship, then it might make sense to say that qualities inhere in micro-structures; certainly, on Ayers’s account, we should say that observable qualities depend on micro-structures. If inherence just is dependence, then a straightforward substitution would seem to be available. In other words, we could think it justifiable to say that observable qualities inhere in micro-structures, if, in using the term inherence, Locke meant only that observable qualities depend on micro-structures.

However, as I understand the terms, it is implausible to think of inherence as synonymous with dependence; inherence is, at most, simply a type of dependence.

Barring the unearthing of an explicit statement by Locke that he uses inherence in the unusual, synonymous-with-dependence, sense, I believe it would be rather wrong to insist that he conflated the two.40 For now, however, let us assume that this is unproblematic.

39One might think that perhaps structured things could be substrata even though qualities could not be. But this possibility would not obviate the need for substrata. The components—not modes—that comprise a structured thing would have to inhere in something other then the thing itself. Furthermore, if one were to postulate a non-physical, non-mental structure that has no known qualities and thus does not, itself, need to inhere in anything and is unobservable, it is hard to see how this might be meaningfully different from a mysterious substratum. The assertion that it has there is a structure-of-a-type-that-we-know-not certainly seems equivalent to arguing for an I-know-not what.

40 The OED defines inherence as “To exist, abide, or have its being, as an attribute, quality, etc., in a subject or thing; to form an element of, or belong to the intrinsic nature of, something” (3rd definition) and uses Locke’s essay, 1690, as one of its citations for the meaning. So, it seems unlikely that Locke employed a novel meaning. I am unaware of any use of inherence, by Locke, that would suggest an alternate meaning.

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As this last point suggests, I admit that this is not a conclusive argument. There is nothing barring Ayers, or anyone else, from simply maintaining that for Locke, if not generally, inherence really is synonymous with dependence. One might, for example, argue that when Locke claims that “those sensible qualities, which he supposes to inhere, with a supposition of such a Substratum, as gives as it were a support to those

Qualities, or simple Ideas, which he has observed to exist united together,” we are free to understand the statement in the following way: “those sensible qualities, which he supposes to [be dependent]; with a supposition of such a substratum as gives, as it were, a support to those qualities or simple ideas, which he has observed to exist united together,” and, in doing so, we do no injustice to notion that Locke was trying to convey.

There is little that can be said against this other than we simply disagree on the whether or not Locke intended a distinction between inheres and depends. Fortunately, the argument against physical micro-structures does not rest entirely on this point.41

Before we go further we should take a moment to notice that we have been forced to make two somewhat tenuous assumptions: that Locke would accept the existence of non-physical substructures to explain the possibility of disembodied minds and avoid the regress problem; and that Locke thinks that inherence is nothing more than a synonym for dependence. When conducting an exegetical analysis a certain amount of speculation is unavoidable. Certainly it is unrealistic to expect that every explanation offered will be clearly and uncontroversially derived from the original text.

41I have come to suspect that equivocating between dependence and inherence, would not save Ayers’s view. Given that primary qualities must depend on something and that micro-structures are composed of primary qualities, it would seem that the micro-structures themselves must still depend on something. Thus, the regress problem affects his view whether or not inherence is equivalent to dependence.

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Nevertheless, we should be cautious about offering analyses that speculate too often or too wildly.

Even if we put aside our concerns over inherence and dependence, we might still ask whether it makes sense to label something a ‘mysterious substratum’ if it is merely a physical structure. Certainly, a physical scaffold for observable properties would serve

Locke’s sense of substance as an under-propping thing, and it would still be mysterious in the sense that it would be difficult to perceive. Still, we should be surprised to find out that micro-structures composed of necessarily-observable primary qualities are the essence of a thing, since such substrata are supposed to be no more than mere suppositions. When considering mysterious substrata Locke is repeatedly cautious and circumspect: “So that of Substance, we have no Idea of what it is, but only a confused, obscure one of what it does” (2.13.19). Furthermore, Locke, as in this line, consistently maintains that we do not know the nature of substance. Indeed, his rebuttal of

Descartes and other philosophers in 2.13 depends on his claim that they are wrong when they claim to understand the nature of substance. But in 2.8.9 he is absolutely confident in his discussion of the nature body “[primary physical qualities] are utterly inseparable from the Body, in what estate soever it be . . . the Mind finds [them] inseparable from every particle of Matter.” It is hard to reconcile how he could be discussing the same thing in both of those passages.

And yet why does Locke make this claim in 2.23.11: “Had we senses acute enough to discern the minute particles of Bodies, and the real Constitution on which their sensible Qualities depend, I doubt not but they would produce quite different Ideas in us”? Why does he seem to turn to minute particles in a context in which we might

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expect him to refer to mysterious substrata? In the section just before the quotation

Locke discusses the origins of secondary qualities. Furthermore, Locke continues the sentence above in this way: “and that which is now the yellow Colour of Gold, would then disappear, and instead of it we should see an admirable Texture of parts of a certain Size and Figure.” This line gives us a clearer view of Locke’s intent. He merely wishes to support his reasoning in the earlier sections in which he argues that secondary qualities are caused by primary qualities—or perhaps arrangements of primary qualities. At most, the quotation, in its entirety, merely gives an account of the way in which the easily observed qualities of bodies, regardless of whether they are designated as secondary or primary qualities, are dependent on other obscured, but necessary, qualities. What he is not doing is giving an account of the essence of substantive things or even of substance sorts. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that

Locke takes special care to use nothing but quality terms he refrains from the less precise phrases such as characteristic or feature.42

So—in 2.23.7 through 2.23.12—Locke just argues that secondary qualities are dependent on primary qualities. We should not conflate the ‘configuration of minute particles’ that explain the emergence of secondary qualities with a ‘supposed inner essence’ that is unavailable to us. This very point, that they are distinct arguments, is made by Locke when, in passage 2.23.14, he returns to the discussion of substances by saying “But to return to the matter in hand, the ideas we have of Substances . . .”

Finally, some more evidence can be drawn from the way in which Locke disagrees with Descartes and Stillingfleet. If Locke meant that mysterious substrata are

42See, 2.8.10, 2.8.14, 2.8.19 for similar discussions about the dependence of secondary qualities on the arrangements of primary qualities.

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nothing more than micro-structures, we might wonder at Locke’s ability to maintain this view while also insisting, contra Descartes, that a substance must be distinct from its properties. Recall that Descartes believed that a substance must be identical with one fundamental property—the principal attribute—, while Locke believed that substance is a thing which has properties but is not identical with them. Given Locke’s general position, we ought to find it difficult to argue that, according to him, the micro-structure of a thing just is the substratum, the substance.43 Furthermore, Locke does not agree with Stillingfleet’s view that “general substance,” “nature,” and “essence” signify the same thing.44 This is noteworthy because in every instance in which he takes himself to agree with Stillingfleet, Locke does not fail to immediately and clearly signal their agreement. Locke is simply and explicitly committed to the claims that substance, whatever it is, is not identical to any of its attributes or qualities and that we cannot have a clear idea of underlying substances.

In any case, we might still profitably ask “What would Ayers’s theory amount to after the various modifications that we have been forced to make?” The answer is that a substratum is a micro-structure of non-material, non-immaterial elements that supports, via inherence, the observable qualities of substance sorts, while it is itself not identical with any of those qualities, and of which we have no simple ideas. This seems remarkably like the bare substance reading. In fact, the only noteworthy difference is

43We might conclude that Locke meant to say something like this “essence, by which I mean a micro- structure, is distinct from substance, by which I mean a complete individual thing.” However the context of the discussion seems to preclude this reading. Locke’s comment on substance and essence was meant to refute Descartes’ identification of body and extension. So this reading, while potentially resolving one problem, would merely introduce another by making Locke look as if he were talking past Descartes.

44To establish a link to the Essay we might observe that Locke argues that “the ideas we have of particular distinct substances are nothing but several combinations of simple ideas, co-existing in such, though unknown, cause of their union, as makes the whole subsist of itself” (Letter 17-18). This is, of course, very nearly the same point that he makes in 2.23.1 and elsewhere.

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that Ayers’s insists that Locke considered it to be a micro-structure. This last assertion is, I suppose, compatible with the view I put forward earlier in this chapter, but it is hard to see how Locke could have ridiculed other philosophers for making assumptions about the nature of substance and simultaneously argued that substratum is a micro- structure given the paucity of our ideas about the nature of that substance.

In summation, I have argued that a physical micro-structure cannot perform all of the roles assigned to mysterious substratum; it cannot support the properties of disembodied minds for example. So, Ayers’s suggestion that mysterious substratum is simply a microstructure of physical corpuscles (or something similar) cannot go through.

Furthermore, Locke’s position and tone in 2.13, his views of atoms as complete substances, and his pessimism toward knowledge of substrata are strongly at odds with a micro-structure view, especially with a physical-microstructure view. Finally, while it might be argued that Locke, in using the inherence, really meant nothing more than the idea of support, this objection would not touch on the difficulties of either equating a physical micro-structure with a bare-substance substratum or of abandoning the substratum view for the micro-structure view.45

In the end, I do not think that Ayers’s reading can be accepted. It is certainly not without merit. However, it either contradicts too many of Locke’s well established claims or it must be modified so much that it is effectively nothing more than the bare substance view.

45Indeed, if inherence means nothing more than dependence, it would seem that Locke is making a mistake that he derides in 2.13: he uses a fancy bit of jargon in order to obscure a rather prosaic, and unsophisticated, idea.

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5.6 Summary Notes

It seems clear that we can draw out several claims about substances. First,

Locke’s ontology contains two kinds of substance: mysterious, individual substratum and complete, independent thing.46 Substance in the mysterious, individual substratum sense is an unknown, “I-know-not-what,” that is the support and origin of qualities.

Substance in the complete individual sense is the knowable composite of a mysterious substratum and qualities that forms the ground for dividing things into substance sorts.

Given this reading an immediate question that comes to mind is this: how do these two proper substances relate to each other?

It would seem that there are some ready responses. First, we might simply deny that one of the two is substantial; we might say that either of the types is not really a substance. The obvious candidate for demotion seems to be complete, individual substances, since it is clear that complete individual substances are really composites of mysterious, individual substrata and qualities. It could even be argued that what I call complete individual substances are really just mixed modes.47 However, I am unhappy with this analysis as it forces us to read too much of Locke as sloppy shorthand. Do we really want to argue that all of his references to Socrates, Alexander or the Sun, as substances, for example, are nothing more than a careless, or lazy, lack of precision?

Another choice is to argue that Locke has no consistent view of ontology, and the inconsistent terminology is due to the fact that he lacked a consistent view. This is a plausible option, but, if nothing else, charity ought to push as away from this reading.

46As I have argued, substances sorts and substance in general are nothing but complex ideas.

47Lowe 73

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I prefer to think that Locke had a kind of dual-layer ontology. Each individual being, each substance, is truly a distinct being, and all of its properties, or qualities, are its own and supply our ideas of it.48 On the other hand, each of these individuals has, in a sense, at its core, a mysterious component which is, in some sense, the foundation of the individual’s identity and properties and is metaphysically independent. Of course the latter is a substance in a different sense, or of a different kind, than the former.

An important argument for this view is that it preserves Locke’s various claims about identity, substance, and essences while honoring his reticence to enter into significant speculation about things of which we have no direct experience.

48It this complete individual substance that would have an essence if anything individual does.

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CHAPTER 6 THE LINK BETWEEN IDENTITY AND SUBSTANCE

6.1 Introductory Remarks

In Chapter 5 I argued that Locke believed in both mysterious substrata and complete individual substances. If this is right, then it seems natural to ask whether we can apply that insight to explain other problems in the Essay. In this chapter I will attempt to do just that by showing that my reading of Locke can help us make sense of the identity material in 2.27. At a minimum, I will show that the work of 2.27 is not substantially disconnected from the remainder of the Essay. I will then look at two elements of an important competing theory put forward by William P. Alston & Jonathan

Bennett.

Locke’s position in 2.27 can be linked to his position in 2.23 by showing that the chapters use a common conceptual framework. Specifically, I will make the case that

Locke’s famously thorny position on identity in the former fits within the context of his thinking on substance in the latter. I will also argue that, contrary to expectations, in the context of identity Locke takes person as a term for a mixed-mode and not as a term for a substance. Finally, I will point out how his thinking on identity is motivated by his understanding of mysterious substrata.

Having given my interpretation, I will shift to an important view of Locke’s position on substance in 2.27 put forward by Alston & Bennett. They argue that, in 2.27, Locke relies on an understanding of substance that does not appear elsewhere in the Essay.

According to Alston & Bennett, Locke employed a notion of substance that strictly speaking means “basic thing-like entity,” while in the rest of the essay his notion of substance is something rather more like “individual thing.” They also argue that person

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is used as a substance sort. The conclusions are clearly problematic for my view and I shall offer counter-arguments to their analysis.

6.2 A Link Between 2.23 and 2.27

If it seems strange to begin the discussion of the ontology of identity by trying to establish the connection between 2.27 and 2.23, it is likely due to a natural inclination to think of chapters in a single work as connected instead of disjointed. This predisposes us to conclude that, when considering elements of a single work, what needs to be shown, if anything, is that the passages are not related. Thus, following common expectation, I have gotten it the wrong way around; the presumption is that they are related and a break, if any, is what needs to be explained. However, Locke himself seems to confound the standard expectations relatively early in 2.27.

There, as Alston & Bennett note, Locke denies that “the identity of a person is determined by ‘unity of substance,’” and in so doing “Locke denies that a person is a substance” (1988, 25). This, on its own, seems to establish a break in continuity between 2.27 and the rest of the Essay—in which, individual persons are clearly treated as complete individual substances. More troubling still, they note that Locke seems to contradict himself by also claiming that person is a substance sort (and thus persons are substances).1

This break leaves us with a mystery: if personal identity is not the same as, or dependent on, substantial identity—if Locke, draws a strong distinction between the identity conditions for substances and those for persons—then, how does he explain

1“Locke’s handling of ‘substance’ and of ‘person’ seems clearly to imply that a person is a substance of a certain kind, and he often says as much, outright; this implies that to continue to be the same person is to continue to be the same substance; yet Locke flatly denies this. What is going on? . . . How can this be? Is Locke flatly contradicting himself, or can he be understood in such a way as to make all this consistent?” (1988, 26)

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personal identity over time? More than one analysis is available. Ben Mijuskovic, for example, concludes that Locke places personal identity in self-consciousness and

“organic identity,” not identity of substance (1975, 208–209). And more famously,

Thomas Reid concluded that, for Locke, “personal identity consists in clear remembering” rather than in being the same thing. Indeed, so many philosophers have taken Locke to ground personal identity in something other than substantial identity that explaining Locke’s take on personal identity is often seen as the greater puzzle of 2.27, even though its resolution would seem to be dependent on first answering the question of whether Locke was consistent in his treatment of substance.

And there is a second element that points to a break in Locke’s reasoning as we noticed in Chapter 5.2, in 2.27, Locke uses atoms as his example of distinct, individual, physical substances instead of gross individual things, e.g. men, clocks, and horses.

This at least suggests the possibility that, perhaps, men are an example of the complex collective ideas Locke describes in 2.24—ideas generated by our consideration of groups of substances—and not complete individual substances in their own right.

So, before, we can discuss Locke’s understanding of personal identity we must resolve this and the earlier putative inconsistency in his discussion of substances.

Indeed, in order to show that Locke’s view of personal identity is in fact grounded in his view of substance, as I wish to, we need to begin by establishing that, contra to the received opinion, Locke’s discussion of substance 2.27 does not break significantly from his position in the rest of the Essay and that the claims of the former are derived from

Locke’s established positions in the latter.

The first evidence for this is available early in 2.27:

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We have the Ideas but of three sorts of Substances; 1. God. 2. Finite Intelligences. 3. Bodies. First, God is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and every where; and therefore concerning his Identity, there can be no doubt. Secondly, Finite Spirits having had each its determinate time and place of beginning to exist, the relation to that time and place will always determine to each of them its Identity, as long as it exists. Thirdly, The same will hold of every Particle of Matter, to which no Addition or Subtraction of Matter being made, it is the same. 2.27.2)

This passage is interesting for two reasons. First, Locke is clearly talking of substance sorts in very much the same sense as he uses term in the 2.23.2 This connection gives us the first hint that the identity chapter is not necessarily meant to be significantly isolated from the rest of the Essay. Indeed, his use of substance sorts is proof that at least in some ways the discussion of substance in 2.27 is very much of a kind with the rest of the Essay.

The quotation is also interesting because, although he mentions bodies in this section, the first example of a body that he brings to our attention in the subsequent text is an atom. He describes an atom as “a continued body under one immutable

Superficies, existing in a determined time and place” (2.27.3). I have already noted his willingness to refer to atoms as bodies count as evidence that Locke thought of atoms as complete individual substances. So, it seems that, in Locke’s scheme, individual atoms are substances in the same way as a horse or a finite mind; although they are not all members of the same substance sort they are complete individual substances.3

2While the substance sorts that he describes here are in two cases more general—the discussion of bodies and finite minds— than is typical of the discussion of substance sorts and in one case very specific—the case of God—the list in 2.27 is not populated by things that cannot be thought of in terms of substance sorts. With respect to the more general sorts, Locke explicitly refers to both body and spirit as substance sorts: see 3.6.5 and 3.6.11. With respect to very specific substance sorts, there is no reason, that I can see, that a sort must apply to more than a single complete individual substance. He makes this exact point in considering the substance sort of the sun (3.6.1)

3This is not to say that there is no difference between atoms and other bodies. For example, trees are made from atoms. So, in some sense, it seems that trees are complex substances and atoms are simple.

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Indeed, in subsequent discussions of identity conditions, Locke continues to think of the problem in terms of more typical complete individual substances—e.g. individual men and individual finite minds. Again, this indicates a shared framework in 2.27 and 2.23.

From the brief list of substance sorts Locke moves on to consider how we can establish the identity of individual members of a given sort over time. For God, Locke seems confident that the problem of identity over time never really gets off the ground.

For finite spirits, identity is resolved by each spirit’s relationship to its moment of creation. For an atom, identity over time is also apparently relatively unproblematic.

Given their non-composite nature, their identity is also determined by their relationship to its moment of creation and is assured so long as they exist (2.27.3). For individual masses of atoms, such as a block of gold, Locke bases identity on two conditions: (1) a mass of atoms is the same mass of atoms only as long as all of the atoms originally in the mass remain part of the mass and no new atoms are gained, and (2) the mass is physically contiguous over the entire period of time in which the mass exists (2.27.3)..

The mass can change shape and location, but not its constituent parts. However, the identity of individual living things over time goes beyond the aggregation of matter. He argues that a living thing maintains its identity in virtue of participating in a single continuous life described by Locke as having “such an Organization of Parts in one coherent Body, partaking of one Common Life” (2.27.4). So, at least at first, the picture is generally straightforward. As individual things become more complex—as we move from atoms to lumps of matter to living things—we get different, more complex, necessary conditions for identity over time—from continued existence to coherence and continuance and finally to participation in a single life. Thus, it would seem that

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complete individual substances can be sorted into classes that have different identity conditions.4

Having already shifted away from basing the diachronic identity of individual animals exclusively on continuity of matter, Locke moves toward a still more complex understanding of diachronic identity of persons. He argues that because our notions of substance, man, and person are distinct that we ought to think that the identity conditions for each are also distinct (2.27.7). If we want to know whether an animal is the same animal at time t2 as at t1 we do not ask whether it has the same stuff at t2 that it had at t1. Similarly, if we wish to know whether a particular person is the same person today that he was yesterday, we ought to ask neither whether his body has the same collection of atoms nor whether his life has proceeded uninterrupted. An important thing to notice is that Locke, in 2.27.7, seems to be focused on the identity conditions of individual things, i.e. complete individual substances. So, we see a second link to the conceptual apparatus developed in 2.23 and deployed throughout the Essay and elsewhere.

However, there is a minor problem in this reading of 2.27: persons are not just grouped alongside spirits and bodies, but pointedly designated as something altogether different. A person is something for whom diachronic identity is apparently neither the result of nor dependent on the identity of substances.5 This suggests that 2.27 cannot

4Alternatively, we might conclude that the step from thinking about lumps of matter to individual animals involves a more fundamental difference than merely shifting from one sort of complete individual substance to another. It is this more fundamental difference that may be the cause of the shift in identity conditions.

5The natural inference is that persons are not substances. There is, however, another explanation: person could be a substance of a sort distinct from spirits and bodies. Yet, while interesting, Locke, does not seem to entertain that as a live option. Unlike the case of Skirry’s reading of Descartes, there is no

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be explained as nothing more than outgrowth of 2.23, since in the latter Locke does not parallel the novel treatment of persons as something distinct from both finite minds and individual bodies. Furthermore, if I am right, as I will argue shortly, that person is a term for a mode, then we might wonder what the discussion of identity of persons is doing here at all. It seems as if Locke has illegitimately added it to his consideration of the identity of substances. We could reconcile this simply by claiming that Locke must have lapsed into using person in a loose sense. Or we could conclude that this counts as legitimate evidence that my reading suffers at least a bit because of it. However, I think there is a third way to resolve the appearance of the term. Notice that Locke titles this section “Identity suited to the Idea” and that he opens the comments with the line “ ‘Tis not therefore Unity of Substance that comprehends all sorts of Identity, or will determine it in every Case” (2.27.7, bold emphasis mine). Locke is concerned with various different kinds of identity, and, of course, there is no reason to suppose that identity is only to be thought of in terms of substances. That is, I believe that Locke is concerned with the identity of the substance Man, for example, on the one hand and with the identity of the mode Person on the other. This, of course, suggests that the foundation of 2.27 lies only partly in 2.23, but the consideration of modes is certainly part of Locke’s larger work. So, that 2.27 rests on material beyond 2.23 does not itself suggest a greater discontinuity between 2.27 and the Essay.

I believe that Locke’s use of substance sorts and complete individual substances in 2.27, in the same way that he uses them in 2.23, is enough to show a link between those chapters. Indeed, the appearance of the familiar ways of thinking about significant textual basis for thinking of this interpretation as anything more than a hypothetical possibility. So, while it is a possible interpretation of Locke’s position, I will not pursue it further.

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substances shows that Locke was thinking about substance in the same general way in both chapters. That atoms, oaks and bodies are clearly treated as complete individual substances; that atom, oak and body are treated as sorts of substances and that persons are treated as modes all count as evidence of both a link to 2.23, specifically, and for continuity and consistency, within the Essay in general. This sympathy between

2.27 and the rest of the essay suggests that there is a stronger link than is at first apparent and undermines the view that Locke had a disjointed thesis in 2.27.

6.3 Persons Are Modes

Of course, if it is the case that Locke’s discussion of the ontology of identity in

2.27 is not significantly isolated from the rest of the text, then it seems obvious that we should expect the discussion of identity of persons to be explicable in terms of his metaphysics elsewhere.6

It ought to be clear that a straightforward reading of Locke outside of 2.27 suggests that, prima facia, person should be a term for a substance sort just like man or spirit, and thus each person ought to be a substance of the complete individual kind.

This would parallel the structure of his thinking in 2.23, exemplified in 2.24.1.7 Of course, it seems reasonable to conclude that each person, as a complete individual substance, would seemingly fall under one of the three broad sorts of substances mentioned in 2.27.2 and would allow us to use the relevant identity conditions for its category. That is to say, that the substance sort person would be an example of one of

6If Locke’s discussion of the ontology of identity in 2.27 is isolated from the rest of the text, then it seems equally obvious that we should expect Locke to explicitly delineate between 2.27 and the rest of the Essay. The claim that the identity conditions for a person are not the same as they are for an animal is not sufficient for establishing the break. The only alternative would be to conclude that the metaphysical foundation of identity is handled in an essentially arbitrary manner by Locke. This seems unwarranted.

7See pages 109-111 in Chapter 5 for the detailed analysis.

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the more general sorts: God, finite minds or bodies. However, as we have already noticed, Locke observes early on in 2.27 the identity conditions of persons are not the same as those of substances; so, of course, persons cannot be substances.8 The point is again made in 2.27.10–16 when he considers how many substances a single person can be linked to and how many persons a single substance can support. So, at least early on in 2.27, Locke is committed to the idea that persons are not substances.

If Locke indeed abandons the idea that persons are substances, he is immediately faced with the need to satisfy an obvious concern over personal identity: if a person is not a substance, then what determines the identity of persons over time?9

His response is to link personal identity to self-identifying consciousness:

since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and ‘tis that, that makes every one to be, what he calls self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational Being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person; it is the same self now it was then; and ‘tis by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that Action was done (2.27.9)

Locke’s position is thus that personal identity is nothing but the “sameness of rational being” which is marked by the ability to extend consciousness “backward to any past

Action or Thought.” Having given a distinct sufficient condition for personal identity

8Strictly speaking, this only shows that persons are not substances of one of the types discussed in 2.27.2. However, Locke, seems to think that said list is exhaustive. Nevertheless, the conclusion that a person could be a substance—of some sort other than god, finite spirits or bodies—would require argument. We will look more closely at what persons are in the following. As a brief aside, however, we should perhaps pause to note that while this suggests that persons are not substances, the identity of a person might still depend on, or be explained by, the identity of its substance(s). This could be worked out in a number of different ways. For example, the identity of a person might supervene on the identity of its substance(s), the identity of substance(s) might be a necessary condition for identity of a person, or the identity of a person might be a function of the identity of a substance, etc.

9That he seems to recognize this obligation by moving almost immediately to the consideration of the identity of a person would appear to count as evidence that he is not thinking of persons in substantial terms.

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Locke considers whether substance can yet be linked to consciousness—perhaps as a necessary condition: “the question is, ‘whether if the same Substance, which thinks, be changed, it can be the same Person; or, remaining the same, it can be different

Persons’ “ (2.27.12).

Must being the same person depend on being the same substance; does maintaining the same substance preclude a change in person?10 To this, he posits, there are two possible answers. We might conclude that consciousness inheres in either the same material substance or the same immaterial substance, but Locke ultimately rejects both possibilities.

If a person considers consciousness to necessarily inhere in nothing but the same material stuff over time, they must be wrong. It should be clear that, like animal life, personal identity is preserved in something besides sameness of material stuff. If a person posits an immaterial thing as the foundation of persons the consequence is not much different (2.27.16–17).

Locke, via a series of thought experiments, also concludes that it is indeed possible that the same consciousness, and thus the same person, could be transmitted between distinct immaterial things, thus allowing single persons to somehow inhabit multiple immaterial things and individual immaterial things to host multiple persons

(2.27.13-16). In fact, he even suggests that the single persons could be comprised of multiple components that are both atomic and immaterial in much the same way that a single animal is composed of an aggregate of material atoms (2.27.12). So, Locke

10We also need to consider what sense of substance is being employed here by Locke. We will address that question shortly.

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concludes that there is no clear necessary component; no way to show that personal identity is definitively grounded in substantial identity.

To sum up, briefly, what establishes that a person is the same person at t2 as at t1 appears to be wholly unrelated to what makes a substance—be it God, finite spirit, or body—the same at t2 as at t1. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that persons are not substances, at least in the context of 2.27.

However, this is not the only reason to conclude that persons are not substances. Antonia LoLordo (2010) lists six separate contrasting features of substances and modes: substances subsist on their own, modes do not; ideas of substances must conform to the real substances in the world, ideas of modes do not; the real essence of mode is identical with its nominal essence, the real essence of a substance is not; ideas of modes are adequate, the ideas of substances are not; ideas of substance include a the notion of a substratum, ideas of modes do not; finally, individual substances have mind-independent unity, modes do not. If we look at persons through the prism of these observations we arrive at the conclusion that persons must be modes (LoLordo 2010, 651-653).

The strongest example of her reasoning appears in the application of the first criterion to Locke’s views of persons.

Locke gives numerous examples of a consciousness—and hence a person—shifting from one substance to another. However, he never suggests that it is possible or conceivable for a consciousness to ﬂoat free without subsisting in some living human organism or immaterial thinking substance. If persons were thought of as substances rather than modes, there would be no need for Locke to restrict himself to examples where organism or soul is changed: he could also use examples where there was a consciousness without any organism or soul. The idea of a person, then, represents persons as depending for their existence on a substance, although the idea does not specify what sort of substance it is (any more

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than the idea of a triangle, say, speciﬁes whether the ﬁgure is drawn on paper or on a blackboard). In this respect persons are more like modes than substances. (LoLordo 2010, 651-652)

So, there are multiple, good reasons to conclude that persons, at least in 2.27, are not substances. It is interesting to note, however, that, as modes, persons are still dependent on substances.11 So a question immediately suggests itself “if persons are modes, what are they modes of?” In the next section we shall look at two answers.

Finally, we should note that if persons are mixed modes this is yet another link to the

Essay outside of 2.27—referencing notions explained in 2.22.

6.4 How Are Persons Related to Substance?

Not surprisingly, Locke gives us a clue, but not a plain explanation, as to the nature of the relationship between persons and substance. In 2.27.13 he notes that

Whether if the same thinking Substance (supposing immaterial Substances only to think) be changed, it can be the same Person? I answer, that cannot be resolv’d, but by those, who know what kind of Substances they are that do think; and whether the consciousness of past Actions can be transferr’d from one thinking Substance to another.

Notice that what Locke posits here is that only a being that can perceive “what kind of substances they are that do think” can correctly answer the question of how the identity of a person is related to the identity of a substance. This is clearly not the claim that there is no link. So, Locke’s actual position is not that there is no link, but that we cannot definitively resolve what the link is. This is interesting, if less informative than we would like.

One reason that it is of limited value is that the use of substance in this passage is too ambiguous to be of significant further help; the sentence would seem to make

11As Martha Brandt Bolton also argues (Bolton 1976).

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sense whether we take Locke to take substance in a complete individual sense or in the mysterious substrata sense. The term immaterial substance—which he asks us to suppose, perhaps merely for the sake of argument, is the only sort of thing that can think—can refer to either traditional, Cartesian-style, disembodied minds or to a mysterious substrata with mental qualities but not physical qualities. Which is to say

“immaterial substance” could refer to either a substance that thinks necessarily or one in which the property of thinking inheres without necessity.12 There is no obvious way to resolve which of these was his intended meaning.

On the one hand, that the problem is grounded in an epistemic limit suggests that he is thinking about mysterious substrata. It would be odd for Locke to argue that only

“those who know what kind of Substances they are that do think” could provide an answer, if he were talking about something like a Cartesian mind, i.e. a thinking thing. In other words, if the thinking thing in question were a complete individual substance, then

Locke’s worry would never get off the ground; we have no trouble considering complete individual substances. Furthermore, if the substance that thinks is an individual, disembodied mind, then why do we need to be circumspect about the nature of the substance that thinks? Why not simply help ourselves to a Cartesian explanation of the nature of immaterial substances? That Locke refutes the Cartesian view of the nature of substances in 2.13, would, of course, also point to a reading of this passage as referring to mysterious substrata. Finally, if the mystery is, again following 2.13, that we do not know what the substance of a thinking, immaterial mind is, then why isn’t that just a

12 This could cover one more option than the two listed: some kind of disembodied thing that is distinct from Descartes’ notion of the same, whether or not it is a thinking thing, but which has some essential properties and so is not a bare substratum.

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consequence of the fact that we do not, or rather, cannot know much at all about mysterious substrata? In short, there are several problems standing in the way of reading Locke as referring to pseudo-Cartesian minds, prompting us, instead, to read the passage as employing mysterious substrata.

On the other hand, for proponents of the position that Locke is thinking of mysterious substrata as the substance that thinks, the case is not much stronger. It is very odd indeed that he should be wondering about what kind of substance a mysterious substratum is; Locke simply cannot argue that bare, mysterious substrata come in types.13 Furthermore, there is something of a problem with Locke’s tone. If he does indeed have mysterious substrata in mind as the unknown immaterial substance, then we should expect a stronger statement about the impossibility of directly coming to know the thinking thing in us instead of the weaker claim that we merely do not know anything about said thing. This is not a small point. If Locke was thinking about mysterious substrata, it is odd that he should choose to weaken his stance unnecessarily. We can, of course, accept that the weaker statement is compatible with the stronger position, but then the solution seems to be nothing more than fitting the text to match the reading.14 Still, even if this were enough to ameliorate the concern over the unnecessarily weak stance, Locke’s treatment of mysterious substrata as if they came in types would still pose a problem.

13Since the properties that we do know of relate to bare substrata accidentally there are two possibilities: either bare substrata have no properties at all, in which case there is no criterion for sorting them, or they have properties that we are not aware of, in which case we cannot access the criterion necessary for sorting them.

14Similarly, a blind man can comment that he is not sure of the color of his car without making a false statement, even though the cause of his hesitation is not some temporary, Gettier-style mix-up, but the much more severe limitation of having no concept of colors.

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It seems that attempting to read Locke as alluding to either independent, immaterial minds or mysterious substrata in 2.27.13 produces unappetizing results in either case.

Perhaps then, Locke meant something like this:

‘Whether if the same thinking [complete, individual] substance (supposing immaterial substances only to think) be changed, it can be the same person?’ I answer, that cannot be resolved, but by those who know what kind of substances they are that do think, and whether the consciousness of past actions can be transferred from one thinking [mysterious substratum] substance to another.

In other words, perhaps Locke was alluding to both types of substance: independent, immaterial minds and mysterious substrata. This reading has the benefit of framing

Locke as initially referring to a substance that admits of types, while referring to a substance that is indeed unknown in the second part of the phrase. Thus, it solves the main concerns of each interpretation. However this seems suspiciously like an ad-hoc solution. Furthermore, the ambiguity generated by Locke’s switch between different senses for substance in the same passage at best makes things needlessly obscure while also suggesting that Locke himself was confused and that his thoughts on identity were underdeveloped.15

Significantly, we see him make a similarly ambiguous claim in 2.27.27:

I have, in treating of this Subject, made some Suppositions that will look strange to some Readers, and possibly they are so in themselves. But yet, I think, they are such as are pardonable in this ignorance we are in of the Nature of that thinking thing that is in us, and which we look on as our selves. . . . But taking, as we ordinarily now do, (in the dark concerning these Matters) the Soul of a Man, for an immaterial Substance, independent from Matter, and indifferent alike to it all, there can from the Nature of things be no Absurdity at all to suppose, that the same Soul may, at different

15There is certainly the possibility that the confused references are indeed the result of a confused mind, but we ought not jump to that conclusion too quickly.

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times, be united to different Bodies, and with them make up, for that time, one Man

Here, Locke again admits that it is our ignorance of our own thinking substance or “that thinking thing that is in us” that may have led him astray in his work on identity.

And again, the reference to a thinking thing that is in us can be read in two ways. First, it can interpreted as a reference to a finite mind as a complete individual substance, i.e. a spirit or a soul. On this reading, Locke, again, like Descartes, might be defaulting to a dualistic way of thinking, but, unlike Descartes, denying that we have a clear understanding of the operation and metaphysical status of our minds. His point, then, would be that being in the dark, as we are, about how our minds really work, we cannot offer a better analysis of personal identity. But, there is, again, a second possibility: perhaps he has in mind the impenetrability of bare substances. Which is to say, when

Locke suggests that we are ignorant of the “nature of that thinking thing that is in us” the thinking thing that he has in mind could very well be a mysterious substratum, assuming for the moment that the mysterious substratum is a thinking thing by virtue of its having mental primary qualities and an immaterial thing by virtue of its not needing physical qualities. This reading requires that we accept, as I mention in discussing 2.27.13, that

Locke has forgone the stronger claim that the substance in question has no nature, for the weaker claim that we are ignorant of the nature of the substance without a clear reason for his adoption of the weaker stance.16

16 These two possibilities trade on Locke’s use of nature as a synonym of essence, i.e. nature is shorthand for essential nature. If he meant nature to stand for something more informal, perhaps something like ‘the way a thing happens to be,’ then a third interpretation suggests itself: Locke may be thinking of a thinking thing as a substratum (or complete substance) that we know to be thinking but of which we are unsure as to its other features. If this is the case in this passage, the problematic ambiguity of the “nature of that thinking” line would only be worsened. Of course, the central point that this passage is compatible with my reading, but not a clear argument for it, is untouched.

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And, as in our reading of 2.27.13, we seem to be at an impasse. All three readings—as mysterious substrata, as pseudo Cartesian minds, or as a combination of the two that is perhaps, evidence of Locke’s confusion— are attractive and unattractive, more or less equally. However, in 2.27.27 things become clearer.

In discussing substances he describes them as that “which we look on as ourselves.” It is difficult to see how this could fit with a mysterious substratum reading.

Locke also notes that “the same soul may, at different times, be united to different bodies” and, again, it is hard to see how a mysterious substratum could be thought of as a soul. It may very well be that mysterious substrata, which we cannot fully understand, play a role in making it difficult to understand the nature of thinking complete, individual substances, but it is the latter that Locke is interested in. Furthermore, his point that the

“Soul of a Man” is taken to be “an immaterial Substance, independent from Matter, and indifferent alike to it all,” suggests that he is focused on finite, immaterial substances, not bodies.

So, of the available options, the best answer to our question “What is the relationship between substance and persons?” seems to be that persons are modes of—and therefore dependent on—complete individual substances of the finite intelligence sort.

Reading Locke as thinking of persons as modes of minds, raises an interesting concern. If persons are modes and not substances, should we also conclude that living animals are not substances? If, given the arguments just presented, we accept that persons are modes, it is hard to see how the same analysis would fail to result in an understanding of continued life as being nothing but a mode. Indeed, this conclusion

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would seem to be almost unavoidable, and yet it does not appear to concern Locke in the slightest bit. He passes over this entirely in his treatment of the identity of trees and animals. Why would he be so unperturbed by that problem, but so agitated by the problem of personal identity? They seem to be the same problem.

This lapse is perhaps addressed by Locke when he comments on the unusual way in which he is using person. “It is a Forensick Term appropriating Actions and their

Merit; and so belongs only to intelligent Agents capable of a Law, and Happiness and

Misery” (2.27.26). This line broadcasts two important points. First, Locke is clear that the reason that personal identity is not the same as substantial identity is not that he is employing an unusual or exotic notion of substance, rather the reason for the disparity is the unexpected use of person. He is using person, as we have already noted, to denote a mode. This much simply reinforces what we have concluded above. The second point, however, speaks to the difference in his treatment of lives and persons: the reason that he is interested in the discussion of persons is to ensure that guilt is assigned correctly. Since the assignation of guilt is clearly less important in the case of animals and trees, it would make sense for Locke to merely gloss over identity conditions for lives while directing his focus to persons.17

Interestingly this same reading is supported by Edmund Law.

Now, the word person, as is well observed by Mr. Locke . . . is properly a forensic term, and here to be used in the strict forensic sense, denoting some such quality or modification in man as denominates him a moral

17I take this to be the best response to the conundrum posed by Locke’s failure to treat continuity of animal life as problematic as continuity of personal identity. There is, however, another response. The composition, and lives, of animals and trees depends on non-mysterious elements—corpuscles, electricity, chemicals, etc., so, we can observe and consider these elements much more easily than our own minds (or any other element of identity). Thus we have much less uncertainty with respect to the identity of a continuing life than we do with respect to the identity of a continuing person. The focus on personal identity in 2.27 is therefore the result of Locke’s focus on the more difficult problem.

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agent, or an accountable creature; renders him the proper subject of laws, and a true object of rewards or punishments (Locke 1824, Vol 3, 179)

So, Law agrees that person refers only to a modification applicable to some individuals rather than a term for entire individuals in themselves.18 More specifically, he contends that it denotes nothing more than the feature,i.e. “quality or modification,” that enables a man to be considered a moral agent. Interestingly, when Law argues that the modification is “in man,” it would seem that he is thinking of the substance sort, man, but since substance sorts are merely complex ideas—which make them modes themselves—it is reasonable to conclude that he takes Locke to intend man to refer to complete individual substances. So, again, a person is just a mode that can be applied to a complete individual substance.19

6.5 Are Persons Also Substance Sorts?

In opposition to this view, Alston & Bennett adopt an interesting and complex reading.

More specifically, they conclude that:

In the widest understanding of substance-that which has properties and stands in relations, in contrast to the properties that are had and the relations that bind-Locke does take people to be substances. But where ‘substance’ is restricted to the most basic thing-like entities out of which all others are in some sense composed or constructed, neither people nor oaks are substances, but are rather composed of, or derived from, substances, in such a way that one and the same oak (person) may be composed of, or otherwise derived from, many different substances. (1988, 40)

18From A Defence of Mr. Locke’s Opinion concerning Personal Identity

19Earlier I argued that Locke viewed persons are modes of finite minds and here we see the claim that persons are modes of men. Is this a problem? The answer is no, for two reasons. First, it may simply be the case that Law’s claim involves a modest misunderstanding of Locke’s position. Second, and more importantly, Locke had an interesting account of what a thinking thing really is, in which both disembodied minds and emobdied minds would count as spirits, or finite intelligences, see section 7. in the following for the argument. So, if we read man in the quotation as a “complete individual substance that is able to think,” the difference in the accounts falls away.

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So, according to Alston & Bennett, persons are substances in a loose sense, but, strictly speaking, in 2.27 only metaphysically-simple objects, from which gross things are composed of, count as true substances.20

Then, in discussing Locke’s claim that person is a forensic term, Alston &

Bennett conclude that Locke grounds his thinking about persons in an important insight.

Locke, they note, “sees all our classificatory activities as reflections of how we choose to select from the superabundant array of possible classifications for which nature provides” (1988, 43). So, in the case of persons this insight leads them to argue that

“[w]hen Locke says that ‘person’ is a “forensic term,” he means that we have the idea of person that we do because it answers best to our moral and legal interests. . . . our concept of person gathers together sets of items that are interrelated by a “same consciousness” relation” (1988, 45–46).Thus, Alston & Bennett cast persons as nothing more than substance sorts, defined by a nominal essence, which is based on what we find useful in moral and legal concerns. Interestingly, this is not problematic for my reading.

To begin with, it seems that Alston & Bennett have made an error. In noting that

Locke’s use of person answers to “our moral and legal interests,” they find evidence for the idea that person is a substance-sort term. This suggests two possibilities: our usage of person in a forensic sense is a substance-sort term that we have coined for pragmatic interests; our usage of person in a forensic sense is a complex-mode term that we derive from ideas of other complex-modes.

20In a move that I believe should have alarmed them more than it seems to—Alston & Bennett grant that “[s]o far as [they] know, it is only in this one chapter that the term ‘substance’ carries this special emphasis on basicness, noncompositeness, or the like” (1988, 39). We will return to this observation in the next section.

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In the latter case, the reasoning is as follows: Because, moral and legal interests are complex modes in Locke’s scheme (3.5.12, 4.4.7 and 4.4.12), it would seem, any term analyzing, or derived from, moral interests is thus also a complex idea of a mixed mode (3.5.4). So, Alston & Bennett are mistaken in their conclusion. They ought to have concluded that person is a modal tem, not a substance-sort term.

In the former case—that is, if we should think of person as a substance sort— personhood is still something that is fabricated in the mind; of course the same is true for complex modes. Thus, in so far as both complex modes and substance sorts are the result of our combining ideas in our minds, we agree about the origin of our notions of personhood within Locke’s system.21

And yet, while I have argued that the evidence found in 2.27 argues, very clearly, for a reading of it as a name for a mixed-mode, it is possible, indeed it seems likely, that person stands for a substance sort in other parts of the Essay. So, I would suggest that

Alston & Bennett’s real error is in importing a reasonable reading of person from, say

2.23, into 2.27, even though Locke clearly signals a break on this issue.

Nevertheless, I agree entirely that Locke’s goal is a pragmatic one, having to do with both mundane judicial matters and also with the desire to make sense of divine punishment. In other words, while they have misread the text in thinking that person, in

21 One break between ideas of modes and substance sorts is Locke’s observation concerning how the truth of complex ideas is established. In the case of our complex ideas of substances we model nominal essences on the world; they are not merely whimsical creations fabricated whole-cloth from our imaginations (4.4.11-12). By contrast, our complex ideas of modes, such as ideas about morality, are not beholden to any external referent (4.4.5). However, both modes are true only in so far as they successfully reflect their archetype. In the case of ideas of mixed modes this requirement is trivially satisfied since the archetype is also a product of thought, but in ideas of substance sorts the archetypes are in external world and so the ideas may not be an exact reflection of their subject. So, while we are responsible for naming and generating all of our complex ideas, what makes different sorts of complex idea amount to “real Knowledge” varies according to the sort of complex idea (4.4.5-12).

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2.27.26, et al., denotes a substance sort and not a class of modes, but reached a reasonable conclusion nonetheless: that person denotes something created by us and applied as we see fit.

To sum up, in 2.27, being Socrates, the person, just means being a complete individual substance to which we can apply a particular complex mode—the mixed- mode that encompasses the traits that make Socrates himself and not someone else, qua person. And because of our inability to understand the metaphysics involved, when we want to think about Socrates at t2 and at t1 we must resort to a discussion of the sameness of consciousness.

6.6 Thing-like Entities

In the preceding sections I focused on Locke’s treatment of persons, but there is also an interesting notion of substance in Alston & Bennett’s essay that I have, so far, largely ignored. It would be fruitful to take a moment to consider it further.

In thinking through Locke’s claims in 2.27 they conclude that substance refers to

“the most basic thing-like entities out of which all other are in some sense composed or constructed” (1988, 40). It is a bit difficult to understand exactly what they mean by a basic thing-like entity. However, the concept is not entirely opaque.

At the beginning of the discussion of the section on substance in their essay

Alston & Bennett are focused on atoms and material substances, concluding that while material substance, in 2.27, does not have to mean atom, it is likely that it does and they have “little hesitation in speaking of his equation of atoms with material substances” (1988, 38); and immaterial substance just means “thing-like non-material item that is quantified over at the basic level in one’s ontology of the mental world”

(1988, 39)—this, they suggest, covers thinking things.

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Given that these thing-like entities are basic, Alston & Bennett conclude that they cannot have parts and that they are self-sufficient, they do not depend on anything for their existence. They give us no other content to their reading of Locke’s position on substance beyond these claims. While Alston & Bennett stress the importance of basicness in their reading of Locke, they sometimes fail to explicitly distinguishing between the two preferring, instead, to use the neutral construction we saw at the beginning of this section: “basic thing-like entities” out of which all other things “are in some sense composed or constructed” (1988, 40). However, it is unlikely that they would accept a more general category of basic thing-like entities, if for no other reason than that, if the material and immaterial thing-like entities were composed of more- general thing-like entities, the former would no longer be basic. So, it is unlikely that, in using the neutral construction, they were arguing for, or even conceding the possibility of, a yet more fundamental metaphysical category. This is unfortunate for my reading. A substance that is ontologically prior to both thing-like material things and thing-like immaterial things could be something very much like my notion of mysterious substrata—if the senses of ontological priority in Alston & Bennett’s use and mine where sufficiently similar. Of course, this possibility is precluded by Alston & Bennett’s assertion of the basicness of their thing-like entities and their rejection of mysterious substrata.

Earlier in the text Alston & Bennett reject the possibility that Locke grounds identity in mysterious substrata:

The best evidence that the “substratum” notion is not at work in this discussion of Locke’s comes from how he supports his denial that sameness of person goes with sameness of substance. He does not support it through any thoughts about the emptiness of the concept of

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substratum, . . . On the contrary, what he actually does would hardly be to the point if substratum were at issue: he breaks the question into two, according to whether the person who asks “Same person, same substance?” is thinking of material or immaterial substances. His next move makes no sense at all if the question is: “Same person, same substratum?”; he says that if the question is about material substances then the answer is “No,” for the same reason that the answer to “Same animal, same substance?” is “No.” (1988, 31)

So, Alston & Bennett contend that there is a unique notion of substance being employed in 2.27 and that substratum does not play a role in it. Of course, either of these observations would be troublesome for my reading. Can I respond to this objection? I think that I can.

First, we can grant that Alston & Bennett are entirely right to note that by choosing to consider the relationship between persons and material substances and persons and immaterial substances instead of focusing on the role of mysterious substrata, Locke seems to be tacitly implying that the consideration of substrata is not relevant to his thoughts on identity. So, Alston & Bennett are right to point out that lack of explicit connection between identity conditions and mysterious substrata. This is not, however, sufficient to generate the conclusion that indeed there is no link between mysterious substrata and identity. Locke, while failing to explicitly discuss the role of mysterious substrata plays in identity, might have still arrived at his ultimate conclusions about it because of his beliefs about mysterious substrata.22 As we have seen, persons are modes and thus dependent on mysterious substrata as any property would be.

Locke may have chosen not to emphasize the link for pragmatic purposes, but this does not show that there is no link.

22It is perhaps relevant that there is no analog to 2.27 in either Draft A or Draft B of the Essay while Locke does include elements of 2.23 in both early drafts. This indicates that the identity section was added to the essay after Locke’s thoughts on substance were already in place.

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This is, admittedly, a rather weak rejoinder. That their view does not conclusively rule out my view is neither an argument for my view nor an argument against their view.

Still, it is a necessary condition for my reading.

The second possible response is to argue that Alston & Bennett’s thing-like entities are really nothing more than mysterious substrata. Recall that Alston & Bennett do not provide examples of their basic thing-like entities, offering only that they have no parts and that they might be “self-sufficient, independent in their existence” (1988, 39).23

These features are also attributable to mysterious substrata, as I read them. So, if there is nothing else to say about basic thing-like entities, then, at the very least, we can note that Locke is consistent in his description of fundamental substances throughout the

Essay, and from there it is a short step to thinking that there really is no more than one notion of fundamental substance employed throughout the same.

However, recall that Alston & Bennett also characterize basic thing-like entities as the material from which individuals are ‘composed or constructed.’ If, as I have just implied, their basic thing-like entities are really nothing more than mysterious substrata, it would seem to follow that individuals must be constructed out of mysterious substrata.

Unfortunately for my contention, it is difficult to imagine how this could be. So, to better establish my identity claim I will need to address Alston & Bennett’s claim that individuals are constructed out of basic thing-like entities.

In the case of material thing-like entities, there seems to be little trouble for the construction claim. In essence, Alston & Bennett are merely suggesting a fairly straightforward atomist reading of Locke. It is interesting that Alston & Bennett admit

23To be fair, given the definition of what a basic thing-like entity is it is hard to see how they could provide examples.

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that “nothing in the argument rules out the possibility that each atom relates to a sequence of material substances” (1988, 38), which suggests that, on their reading, atoms should be glossed as something like individual physical corpuscles which may or may not be composed of smaller corpuscles. This, of course, is in sharp contrast to what seems to be Locke’s more standard understanding of atoms as something like the smallest created, non-composite, physical things. However, this is likely just a terminological confusion. If Alston & Bennett’s basic thing-like entities are the fundamental material elements from which the physical world is constructed, they are surely nothing but atoms by some other name—and this seems to be reasonably in line with Locke’s comments early in 2.27. However, Alston & Bennett also suggest the existence of basic, immaterial thing-like entities. For these entities, the construction problem is less easily resolved. It is not at all clear to me that we can construct minds out of immaterial atomic substances. Thus, Alston & Bennett’s view is also at risk of falling prey to the construction problem.24

Unfortunately, this observation about immaterial thing-like entities does not make it any more likely that thing-like entities are really just substrata. If anything, my reading is now more at risk. If the composition of individual things can only be made up of more basic physical substances, then, at best, both Alston & Bennett’s position on immaterial thing-like entities and my position on mysterious substrata are in peril.

24It is possible that Alson & Bennett could deny the need to have Locke’s ontology of mind parallel his ontology of body; they might, for example, argue that the most basic thing-like entities for material things are like atoms, while basic thing-like entities for mental things are like Cartesian minds. However, they themselves seem to argue for a parallel construction (1988, 38-40). Alternatively, if Alston & Bennett, can make sense of how an individual mind can be composed of multiple, immaterial, basic thing-like entities, I do not see what I could not help myself to that explanation in order to make sense of how things can be composed of mysterious substrata.

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Fortunately, there is an interesting solution to this problem that also gives us a way to reconcile my reading with Alston & Bennett’s. Locke never explicitly endorses a compositional role for anything that is easily construed as merely a basic thing-like entity. When speaking of the relationship between individuals and substrata in 2.23 and

2.27 the relationship most cited is one of support, i.e. inherence. He does on a small number of occasions mention individual substances as being constructed from or composed of smaller bodies, textures, and other things, but never as being constructed from substrata.25 Thus, the compositional claim, while used to discuss material thing-like entities, is not in discussion involving mysterious substrata. While Locke does think that gross physical substances are constructed out of other physical substances, these more basic physical substances do not preclude the existence of either mysterious substrata or basic immaterial thing-like entities. So, while we cannot argue that mysterious substrata just are basic thing-like entities—or, more accurately, we cannot argue the mysterious substrata are material thing-like entities, it is still possible that they are the same as immaterial thing-like entities—we can see that the existence of either does not preclude the existence of the other.

Nevertheless, Alston & Bennett’s view still casts Locke as what might be called an atomic dualist: as believing that that there are two fundamental atomic substances in the world. In this case, a fundamental material substance and a fundamental immaterial substance. And yet the text in 2.27, certainly does not explicitly adopt that position.

In response, we could adopt the solution that I will consider in-depth in Chapter

7: Locke thought of mysterious substrata (i.e. basic thing-like entities) as being able to

25Reply p. 485; Essays on the Law of Nature p. 151, 153; Elements of Natural Philosophy p. 330; 2.23.12

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have either physical or mental properties; thus marking Locke as a kind of property dualist. This allows us to have both thing-like entities, in material or immaterial flavors, and mysterious substrata.

The solution to the disparity between our views is thus readily available. Alston &

Bennett are right to argue that there are basic thing-like entities from which things like horses and persons are, in some way, constructed, but their assessment of these as both the most fundamental elements of Locke’s metaphysics and as sui generis to 2.27 are both wrong.

The thing-like entities are nothing more than the most basic complete individual substances. Of course, complete individual substances are comprised of qualities inhering in mysterious substrata. Thus, it is possible to argue that Locke was a substance dualist if we stick to the level of complete individual substances. This enables us to make room for Locke’s implicit use of two fundamental substance types without having to think that the metaphysics of 2.27 is entirely disjointed from the structure of the remainder of the Essay.

Let me be clear: I agree with Alston & Bennett that Locke employs basic thing- like entities. Where I disagree with them is in the claim that basic thing-like enitites are unique to 2.27. They are actually just the most basic complete individual substances.

This view is entirely in-line with my reading.

6.7 Summary Notes

My reading of Alston & Bennett’s position on basic substances allows us two important benefits. First, it keeps us from being committed to multiplying Locke’s ontology. We have already shown that Locke clearly believed in the existence of mysterious substrata. There is no good reason to think that a theory with multiple such

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opaque entities is an improvement.26 Second, explaining Alston & Bennett’s view in the terms of my view allows us to sidestep any concerns that we might raise by claiming that substance is used in a way that renders the chapter largely incompatible with

Locke’s discussion of substance elsewhere in the Essay; this benefit ought not to be dismissed too quickly. While I agree with the inference that there are simple entities at work in 2.27, I see no reason to add the rather more exotic notion that these are not explainable by the apparatus set out in 2.23 and elsewhere. There simply is no good reason to argue that the material in 2.27 is alien to the remainder of the Locke’s corpus.

Furthermore, if thinking of persons as modes of complete individuals is right, then we can clearly see connections between to 2.27 and 2.23. In 2.23, Locke lays out the fundamentals of his view and, in 2.27, he extrapolates, from those fundamentals, a view of identity. So, his metaphysical commitments are really no different in 2.27 than in 2.23 and elsewhere.

Locke’s reliance on consciousness for personal identity is—as he notes in

2.27.13 and 2.27.27—due to the fact that persons, in 2.27, are not substances, but modes.27 We can determine the identity of complete individual substances, such as atoms, bodies and finite minds, over time, but because persons are none of these we cannot link identity of persons to identity of substance in that sense. Thus, we are forced to rely on continuity of consciousness, not as the basis of identity but as a sign of identity.

26Of course, it might be said that a theory involving even just one such opaque entity is undesirable. We are not here to appraise Locke’s theory.

27For more evidence of Locke’s skepticism toward our ability to perceive the substantial foundation of identity see 2.27.25-26.

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That “person” is being used in an unusual way in 2.27 is, I think, clear. It is equally clear that Alston & Bennett’s attempt to recast Locke’s metaphysics by casting

2.27 as making use of a novel ontology is unnecessary. Finally, I have shown that 2.27, far from being incompatible with the material in 2.23 and the rest, actually rests on it quite well.

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CHAPTER 7 PROPERTY DUALISM, SPIRITS AND SUPERADDED THOUGHT

7.1 Introductory Remarks

In Chapter 5 I argued that we should accept that Locke believed in bare mysterious substrata and complete individual substances. In Chapter 6 I presented the view that this reading supports and compliments Locke’s position on personal identity.

In this chapter I will argue that my reading of Locke’s position on substance also fits his position on the metaphysical status of minds. I will first take a closer look at the relationship between the early parts of 2.23, that we have already looked at, and what

Locke says in the latter part of the same. I will then build on this evidence to argue that

Locke should be thought of as a property dualist.1 Finally, I will argue that Locke’s apparently incompatible thoughts on superaddition are explicable as the result of the combination of his beliefs about qualities, mysterious substrata and complete individual substances.

7.2 Consistency Throughout 2.23

So far, when I have looked at 2.23, I have concentrated on Locke’s comments in the early sections of the chapter wherein Locke might be characterized as discussing his fundamental ontology, but, what of the rest of the chapter? In it Locke seems to be making a concerted effort to explore some of the consequences of his view. Locke puts forward three arguments in the latter parts of the chapter: he explains how we come to have our idea of God; he offers an apology for his view that our senses are so limited;

1When discussing Locke specifically, it would be more accurate to say that he was a quality dualist rather than a property dualist, given that it is only primary qualities that are the sort of property that is relevant to the discussion at hand—i.e. the consideration of the ontological status of things that have mental and physical qualities. I use property dualist throughout as a matter of convenience, trusting that it is clear whether I mean the more general philosophical notion of property dualism or the more exact meaning.

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and he argues that our ideas of spirits are on par with our ideas of matter. It is the latter position which is most relevant to this discussion, and which we shall consider in this section. I believe that Locke’s position in the earlier sections of the chapter—that there are mysterious substrata and that they function as the foundation for complete individual substances—offers a compelling explanation of his comments when comparing mind and body.

Locke begins the discussion by noting that a common way of dismissing the existence of immaterial minds—arguing that they cannot exist because we have no direct experience of them—falls short of its goal: “it being as rational to affirm there is no body, because we have no clear and distinct idea of the substance of matter, as to say there is no spirit, because we have no clear and distinct idea of the substance of a spirit” (2.23.5) The main point is, of course, that if we deny the existence of immaterial spirits because we have no clear idea of their foundational substance, then we must also abandon our belief in bodies, because we have no clear idea of their foundational substance either. So, we should acknowledge that, based on our understanding of substance, our belief in minds is no more suspect than our belief in bodies. This, I believe ought to be interpreted as a direct result of the earlier claim that mysterious substrata are imperceptible. In other words, our ideas about mind and body are on equal footing because we are equally in the dark about all mysterious substrata. This same line of reasoning is clear in the following quotation, from 2.23.15:

putting together the ideas of thinking and willing, or the power of moving or quieting corporeal motion, joined to substance, of which we have no distinct idea, we have the idea of an immaterial spirit; and by putting together the ideas of coherent solid parts, and a power of being moved, joined with substance, of which likewise we have no positive idea, we have the idea of matter. The one is as clear and distinct an idea as the

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other: the idea of thinking, and moving a body, being as clear and distinct ideas as the ideas of extension, solidity, and being moved.2

As we can see, Locke very clearly wants us to think of our ideas of matter and spirit— material and immaterial things—to be absolutely equivalent in origin and composition.

Both are formed from the evidence of our experiences and without direct observation of the substances in which their qualities inhere—without direct evidence of their mysterious substrata.

Indeed, it seems that a significant portion of 2.23—see, especially, 2.23.22 through 2.23.32—is in fact nothing more than an extended proof that our ideas about bodies, though perhaps more forceful, are in no way more reputable than our ideas about spirits.3 As he notes in 2.23.30:

So that, in short, the idea we have of spirit, compared with the idea we have of body, stands thus: The substance of spirits is unknown to us; and so is the substance of body equally unknown to us. Two primary qualities or properties of body, viz. solid coherent parts and impulse, we have distinct clear ideas of: So likewise we know, and have distinct clear ideas of two primary qualities or properties of spirit, viz. thinking and a power of action;

There is more to be said about the relationship between a substratum and its qualities, especially on its implications on the possibility of thinking matter; we will return to that question later in this chapter. For now, it will suffice to note that this position is absolutely compatible with my reading of the early passages of 2.23. Certainly, the remarks in 2.23.15 that our ideas are formed from the combination of observed qualities that are “joined to substance, of which we have no distinct idea” and that “our idea of

2In an earlier section of the quoted paragraph Locke explains how we form an idea of immaterial spirit and comments that “we have as clear a perception and notion of immaterial substances as we have of material.”

3Locke makes claims about the parallels between out understanding of spirit and body in sections 16, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31 and 32 of 2.23.

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substance is equally obscure, or none at all, in both; it is but a supposed I know not what, to support those ideas we call accidents” would seem to be a clear references to mysterious substrata. What’s more, the way in which our ideas of matter are described—as a combination of unknown substance and qualities—seems to be nothing more than an account of the components of complete individual substances.

Thus, strictly speaking, all of our ideas of things, when considered in the context of their metaphysical foundations, are infected by the mysterious nature of substrata. In effect, there is something we fail to grasp about each and every individual substance, no matter how well acquainted with it we are. This is, perhaps, an odd result, but, in practice, not overly bothersome. That the metaphysical foundation of an individual is mysterious will hardly ever come up in our daily affairs.4 After all, Locke’s point is not that our idea of some complete, individual thing is obscured entirely, but rather that some small part of our idea of the thing is necessarily obscured.

I have just claimed that the mysteries which occupy Locke in the latter sections of

2.23 seem to be grounded in his use of mysterious substrata as the foundations of all individual things. But this is not the whole story. There are two mysteries at play in the latter portion of 2.23.

First, there is the mystery that we have been discussing, specifically the consequence of our inability to clearly conceive of mysterious substrata—see the opening lines of 2.23.23: “If any one says, he knows not what ‘tis thinks in him; he means he knows not what the substance is of that thinking thing: No more, say I, knows

4 Moreover, as Duncan pointed out in comments on this work, if the mystery cannot be resolved, even in principle, is it in any sense a problem?

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he what the substance is of that solid thing.”5 Second, is the mystery of how individual substances can have the powers and qualities that we attribute to them: “So that, perhaps, how clear an Idea soever we think we have of the Extension of Body. Which is nothing but the cohesion of solid parts, he that shall well consider it in his Mind, may have reason to conclude, That ‘tis as easie for him to have a clear Idea, how the Soul thinks, as how Body is extended.” This second mystery concerns the nature of the relationship between a substance and its properties—or how it is that a substance is the source of a property. Whether this mystery is the result of the first mystery is unclear.

Would we understand the relationship between properties and mysterious substance, if we could only clearly conceive of mysterious substances or is the relationship mysterious in its own right? However we answer that question, we seem to support

Locke’s conclusion that spiritual substances are no more difficult to conceive of and believe in than physical substances. How a substance supports physical qualities is no less problematic than its support of mental qualities.6

I believe that both mysteries are at play in 2.23.29:

If we would enquire farther into their Nature, Causes, and Manner, we perceive not the Nature of Extension clearer than we do of Thinking. If we would explain them any farther, one is as easy as the other; and there is no more difficulty to conceive how a Substance we know not should by thought set body into motion, than how a substance we know not should by impulse set Body into motion. So that we are no more able to discover wherein the Ideas belonging to Body consist, than those belonging

5His use of substratum in 2.23.37 also reflects this mystery.

6Since, Locke fails to provide an explanation for how qualities inhere in mysterious substrata, there is no reason to suppose that the relationship between mysterious substrata and mental primary qualities is any more troubling than the relationship between mysterious substrata and physical primary qualities. Indeed, it is hard to see how any such argument could even get off the ground. And, as we saw in Chapter 6, section 2, there is little reason to think that it would make sense to make distinctions amongst the substrata let alone carve out distinctions grounded in the kind of qualities they accidentally support. All substrata are of the same kind seems to be a straightforward deduction from Locke’s views on bare substances.

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to Spirit. From whence it seems probable to me, that the simple Ideas we receive from Sensation and Reflection are the Boundaries of our Thoughts; beyond which the Mind, whatever efforts it would make, is not able to advance one jot; nor can it make any discoveries, when it would prie into the Nature and hidden Causes of those Ideas.

On the other hand, Locke’s metaphysics is not simply a series of confrontations with unknown pseudo-noumena. Indeed, Locke’s view is that the mysteries do not extend to complete individual substance. Again from earlier in 2.23.29:

To conclude; Sensation convinces us, that there are solid extended Substances; and Reflection, that there are thinking ones: Experience assures us of the Existence of such Beings; and that the one hath a power to move Body by impulse, the other by thought; this we cannot doubt of. Experience, I say, every moment furnishes us with the clear Ideas, both of the one, and the other. But beyond these Ideas, as received from their proper Sources, our Faculties will not reach.

So, while we cannot understand how things work at the level of mysterious substrata, at the level of complete individual substances—at the level of individual things—we have no worries, because they are accurately, reflected in experience and thus amenable to analysis.7

This reading, besides being amply supported by the text, also shows a weakness in Ayers’s rival interpretation. First, recall that Ayers sees Locke as a materialist according to whom substratum is nothing more than the underlying, structured, material stuff which is the source of an individual thing’s properties (Ayers 1991, 2:39-41)8, then consider Locke’s point that our ideas of matter and spirit are equivalent in origin and composition. How could Ayers’s theory square with this claim? Why would a

7The problem of cohesion poses an interesting problem. It is not clear whether or not cohesion is a mysterious problem. Which is to say, is cohesion a property of mysterious substrata and thus not amenable to our understanding or is it a relation between complete, individual substances and thus, apparently, open to consideration? Locke’s comments on cohesion (and motion of mental substances) throughout the latter half of 2.23 do not suggest a definitive answer.

8For a more in-depth discussion of Ayers’s view of Locke as a materialist see Chapter 6 Section 5.

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materialist—as Ayers would have us take Locke to be—argue that our ideas about body are as confused as our ideas of mind? They might both be confused in various ways, certainly. However shouldn’t our ideas about body, given that they are about a substance kind that actually exists, be less confused than our ideas of an imagined substance? Why would Locke argue that our ideas of the substance of matter and spirit are equally confused rather than assert that although we are sorely tempted to conclude that spirit is ontologically on par with material substance the parity is only an illusion.

Keep in mind that Locke is certainly willing to adopt divergent explanations for similar phenomenon elsewhere. Ayers’s Locke could have adopted a tiered ontological system similar to his treatment of primary and secondary qualities and the ideas generated by them. Locke could, for example, argue that while matter and spirit produce equivalent ideas in us, which lead us to naively assume that they are ontologically equivalent, spiritual qualities are actually entirely dependent on matter.9 That no such distinction is on offer—rather the explicit position is that they are on absolutely equal footing—speaks against the conclusion that Locke did not truly believe in the existence of disembodied minds.

That Ayers’s view implies anything but ontological equivalence for minds and bodies while my reading reconciles the content of the sections, suggests that my reading is the better option. At the very least it seems clear that the material in this portion of 2.23 is fairly easy to parse when paired with my reading of the earlier sections

9Of course, this is just an example of a possible way to think about matter and spirit; the actual relationship could take any number of forms. In an interesting twist, Ayers suggests this exact kind of dependence in his treatment of superaddition. So, at least, it is the case that Ayers’s interpretation of Locke is self-consistent.

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of the chapter.10 More importantly, if we are committed to the existence of independent minds and bodies—as Locke seems to be—, then the notion that (1) a mind can be, metaphorically speaking, constructed independently of body and the notion that (2) our ideas of each appear to be on exactly equal footing can surely be taken as the result of being committed to the existence of bare individual substances which combine with qualities to form complete individual things.

7.3 Was Locke a Dualist?

If we accept the notion, presented in Chapter 5, that individual mysterious substrata have no inherent qualities and that the substrata of all individuals are of the same kind, then what should we say about the number of general kinds of substances in Locke’s view? In this section I will argue that, while often considering the validity of the position, Locke is not actually a substance dualist. In terms of complete individual substances, he was actually an indefinite-pluralist and, not surprisingly, he could not be anything but a monist about mysterious substrata. Furthermore, an important result of

Locke’s view is that what explains the classification of a something as a thinking—or embodied— thing is not its substance kind, but the kinds of properties that it has.

Before we look at Locke’s work, however, I should note that in the following discussion I opt for a straightforward understanding of monism, dualism, et al., as nothing more than positions about the number of different fundamental kinds of things that exist in the world, and, as I have noted, things can apply to substances and properties. Thus, a monist argues that there is no more than one kind of thing in the

10In the sections of 2.23 not explicitly discussed in the following, Locke discusses the kinds of qualities that inhere in substance and the role of powers in our ideas of things, 2.23.7-10; explores the ramifications of being able to see the underlying structures of gross bodies, 2.23-11-13; and discusses how we form our ideas of God, 2.23.33-36. I see nothing in that material that would stand against my reading of substance in Locke.

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world, a dualist argues that there are no more and no less than two kinds of things, a trialist no more and no less than three, etc.

A substance dualist is then someone who believes that every thing—i.e. every complete individual substance—that exists is to be classified as a member of one of two kinds of substances and there are no other possibilities. If the dualist thinks of substances in terms of essential attributes, as Descartes does, for example, then it is likely that not only do all substantial things fit into one of the two categories, but so do all attributes, properties, modes, etc., and so, for Descartes everything in the world was ether material or mental. If the philosopher thinks that the number of substance kinds might differ from the number of property kinds, as Cottingham suggested of Descartes

(1985), then the world might consist of any number of different kinds of substantial things and different kinds of properties—and, presumably, of different combinations of each. So, on Cottingham’s account there are still just two kinds of substances in

Descartes, but there are three kinds of mode: material, mental and mixed; which is to say, Cottingham takes Descartes to have been a substance dualist, but a property trialist.

Accordingly, a basic understanding of property dualism suggests that a property dualist is someone who thinks that every property is to be classified as being of one, and only one of two, and only two types of property, and this classification is independent of the number of types of substance.11 From this definition—and examples like Cottingham’s understanding of Descartes—we can see that property dualism is not

11It is, however, commonly the case that the label of property dualist is given to philosophers who argue for the existence of two kinds of properties but only one kind of substance, contemporary epiphenomenalists serve as a ready example.

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predicated upon substance dualism nor on any other count of the number of substances in a given ontology. In a sense, the claim that there are some number of kinds of properties is agnostic about the number of kinds of substance.It follows from the foregoing that a philosopher who maintains that the world consists of a single substance type that can support both thought and extension—and thinks that thought and extension are distinct property types—is a property dualist and a substance monist.12

I believe that, for Locke, what matters in determining the classification of a thing as either embodied or sentient is not the substantial nature of the thing, but rather which qualities it has. So, as we shall see, when Locke argues that something is a thinking thing he does not ground the assertion in the substantial nature of the thing—as

Descartes would—he grounds the assertion in the fact that the thing has mental qualities. When considering this point of emphasis I shall describe Locke as a property theorist.

We can now see that my earlier description of Locke as property dualist is not entirely accurate. It speaks neither to his explanation for a thing’s having certain properties nor does it accurately portray his position on the number of substance kinds.

Let’s turn to the latter concern now.

As I noted earlier, if we attempt to count the number of kinds of substances in

Locke’s ontology we get a few possible responses. Given a Leibnizian reading, the prima facia answer would seem to be that he was, at least in the context of mysterious

12 Strictly speaking, the hypothetical property dualist also has to believe that thought and extension are the only two fundamental determinants of what counts as a property type. Of course, thought and extension are not the only possible categories for properties, nor are they the only possible categories for a property dualist. Equally obvious is the observation that someone who believes in a single substance type but multiple property types, that include but are not limited to thought and extension, is a substance monist but property pluralist. Spinoza comes to mind as an example, though not all such philosophers need believe in an infinite, or even indeterminate number of properties (I, P10).

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substrata, a monist. However, when he discusses individual substances Locke often mentions both corporeal and incorporeal entities.13 This bifurcation of examples, would seem to suggest that Locke was committed to some kind of substance dualism. Finally, there is reason to think that Locke, in the context of substance sorts, would have accepted a view in which the world is populated by an indefinite, and perhaps infinite, number of substances: such as gold, iron, horse, human, etc.

This last possibility is intriguing; it suggests that Locke may have had little reason to privilege the traditional mind/matter dichotomy.14 So, it would seem that, for Locke, the two possibilities are really either monism, in the context of mysterious substratum, or uncounted pluralism, in the context of substance sorts. And yet Locke himself seems to write most often in terms of a rather traditional mind/body.15

In fact, 2.23.15 Locke seems to take a strong stance in favor of substance dualism, making an interesting, and it would seem often overlooked, claim. In comparing our ideas of mind and body Locke concludes that:

It is for want of reflection that we are apt to think, that our senses shew us nothing but material things. Every act of sensation, when duly considered, gives us an equal view of both parts of nature, the Corporeal and Spiritual. For whilst I know, by seeing or hearing, etc. that there is some corporeal being without me, the object of that sensation; I do more certainly know, that there is some spiritual being within me, that sees and hears. This, I must be convinced, cannot be the action of bare insensible matter; nor ever could be, without an immaterial thinking being.

13See many of the passages of 2.23 discussed in the next section of this chapter.

14Recall that body and mind are just two examples of substance sorts, further underwriting the idea that traditional dualism should be taken off the table.

15One plausible reason for his apparent fixing on dualism is that Locke’s intuition about the number of types substances was influenced by his view of the number of types of qualities. He only gives us material and mental qualities and this might have colored his thinking on the subject of the number of types of substances. Indeed, I believe that, ultimately, for Locke, it is not the question of how many ontologically distinct substances there are but rather the question of how many ontologically distinct qualities there are that matters.

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Certainly, this passage—especially the line about both parts of nature—strongly suggests that Locke was a substance dualist. Indeed, the point of this passage is that immaterial thinking beings are more than just conceivable and, furthermore, that we have just as much evidence for the existence of thinking beings as we do for extended material bodies: “whilst I know, by seeing or hearing, &c. that there is some corporeal being without me, the object of that sensation; I do more certainly know, that there is some spiritual being within me, that sees and hears.” Consider that Descartes makes a very similar claim in the second meditation, and there it is uncontroversially taken as support for the existence of his mind and thus indirectly as support for dualism “For if I judge that the wax exists from the fact that I see it, clearly this same fact entails much more evidently that I myself also exist” (CSM 22, AT VII 33). Furthermore, the last line of the block quote suggests that Locke thinks that perception is actually impossible without an immaterial thinking being. “This, I must be convinced, cannot be the action of bare insensible matter; nor ever could be, without an immaterial thinking being.”16

In 2.23.32, we also see Locke once again entertaining the viability of a dualistic ontology “I know not why we may not as well allow a thinking thing without Solidity, i.e. immaterial, to exist, as a solid thing without Thinking, i.e. matter, to exist; especially since it is not harder to conceive how Thinking should exist without Matter, than how

Matter should think.” However, in this line there is an interesting new twist which shows that Locke does not simply parrot Descartes. As before, Locke entertains the possibility of not just incorporeal mind and unthinking matter, but, this time, he also considers the

16Admittedly, in this line, it is not entirely clear whether Locke intends it to be a specific reference to God or a reference to immaterial, finite minds. Of course, even if it is a reference to God and He is the only immaterial spirit, Locke would still be a substance dualist. Furthermore, the sense of that line does not impugn the meaning of the lines earlier in the quotation.

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possibility of a thinking, material substance. That is to say, he entertains the conceivability of both substance dualism and substance monism.17 Interestingly, in this passage the two possibilities are presented without clear preference for one over the other. However, I believe that the remainder of the evidence offers convincing support for the latter, monist interpretation, at least within a proscribed context.

Notice that, unlike Descartes, Locke avoids the conclusion that the types of substances and types of qualities must mirror each other.18 It is true that in the quotation from 2.23.15 Locke groups them in a way which suggests their correspondence—as

Descartes does—, but in the 2.23.32 his de-linking of qualities and substances by granting the possibility of a substance with two qualities is evidence that the enumeration of types of qualities did not depend on the enumeration of the types of substances.1920 Furthermore, Locke makes the explicit claim that all three conceivable scenarios—immaterial thinking things, material non-thinking things, and material thinking things—are equally possible. Given that the former two are typical constituents of substance dualism and that the latter could be an unexceptional constituent of a

17Substance monism, in the sense that two kinds of property are being attributed to a single kind of substance, seems to be what Locke has in mind when he mentions a material thing that can think. However, that line could be taken as support for a third kind of substance altogether. Thus, suggesting that Locke was a substance trialist. I take this possibility to be rather fanciful, as it is wholly unsupported by corroborating text.

18This goes well with Locke’s rejection of the identity of substance and attribute, as discussed in Ch. 3.

19For Descartes stance on the one-to-one correspondence of the number of types of substance and types of attributes, see Principles 1.53 and Chapter 4 of this work. Strictly speaking, this quotation also allows for a very unusual ontology in which we have a small number of property types, let’s say two, and a larger number of substance types. This would be a rather exotic way to see the world, and happily there is no reason to suggest that this is Locke’s view. Instead, Locke can be read as maintaining the rather more standard view in which two (or more) kinds of properties that inhere in a single kind of substance.

20This foreshadows the comments on angels and the disassociation between substrata and particular qualities that we will see shortly.

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substance monist’s view, this should be considered evidence that Locke clearly does not see substance dualism as the only viable option.

And again, this is not the only place in which Locke gives the views equal footing.

Earlier in the 2.23, Locke makes this interesting claim:

Whereas the Mind, every day, affords us Ideas of an active power of moving of Bodies; and therefore it is worth our consideration, whether active power be not the proper attribute of Spirits, and passive power of Matter. Hence may be conjectured, that created Spirits are not totally separate from Matter, because they are both active and passive. Pure Spirit, viz. God, is only active; pure Matter is only passive; those Beings that are both active and passive, we may judge to partake of both. 2.23.28

There are two parts of this quotation that we should focus on. First, there is Locke’s assertion that “created spirits are not totally separate from matter.” Given the context this is certainly a comment to the effect that humans are both thinking and extended things, or, at least, if not humans, there are some things that are both thinking and extended. Thus, Locke seems to commit himself to some kind of dualism; unfortunately, it is not clear what kind. A created spirit could be a Cartesian combination of disparate substances or a single substance with physical and mental qualities. It is not clear which of these is intended by Locke. Furthermore, Locke seems to offer the conclusion in a qualified statement noting only that it “may be conjectured,” and he might intend, by that phrase, to mean that the conclusion is nothing more than mere speculation. That is, the phrase ought to be taken to mean something like “it is possible to accept that.” Thus, it is even possible that we might not be entitled to take this as significant evidence for any kind of dualism.21 We should note, however, that “it may be conjectured” could be intended to introduce the actual conclusion to an argument rather than a possible

21We could still, however, count it as evidence for the reasonability of dualism

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conclusion. If that is the case, then Locke is surely arguing for some kind of dualism, and property dualism would fit the language of the passage very well.22 Of course, given the more explicit position in 2.23.32, it seems appropriate to give Locke the benefit of the doubt. While the meaning is vague, if we take him to be a consistent thinker we should accept that he is considering the possibility of a single substance with two qualities and not a single thing composed of two substances. In any case, whichever way we are meant to take the qualified claim, it is clear that, for Locke, any being that is neither pure spirit nor pure matter is going to have both mental qualities and physical qualities, motivity and motion.

If we turn away from the Essay for a moment, it should not be surprising to note some evidence on his position can be gleaned from his correspondence with Bishop

Stillingfleet. In that material he is keen to refute Stillingfleet’s claim that Locke attempts to do away with substance (Letter 5). So in his reply Locke is certainly motivated to give an unambiguous defense of his position on substance. To that end, he quickly suggests that it is in all probability the case that souls are immaterial and thus distinct from bodies and by that answer paints himself a substance dualist (Letter 32). However, when pressed, Locke admits that his principles cannot settle the question of whether a thinking this is immaterial or not (Letter 36).23

22If Locke is merely suggesting one of many possible solutions, then it would seem that there are not two distinct senses to the phrase; “is it possible that” is thus equivalent to “this is a possible conclusion.” Nevertheless, it still seems difficult to avoid the impression that Locke is thinking about a single thing with two kinds of qualities. So, this should count as, at least, circumstantial evidence for my reading.

23In the ensuing discussion, the astute reader will notice that references to the correspondence tend to jump around in the source material. This is, first of all, an unsurprising consequence of Locke’s addressing the same objections over the course of different letters. This is also an unavoidable consequence of his habit of returning to the same topic in different parts of a single letter instead of exhausting his views on a topic in a single section.

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An especially crucial bit of evidence as to his stance on dualism appears where

Locke argues that “the modification of thinking, or the power of thinking joined to it, makes it a spirit, without considering what other modifications it has, as whether it has the modification of solidity or no. As on the other side, substance, that has the modification or solidity, is matter, whether it has the modification of thinking or no”

(Letter 32). An interesting point in this passage is Locke’s assertion that it is a single spirit, i.e. a single created substance, that has both physical and mental qualities. If

Locke had in mind some kind of substance dualism he surely would not make the point in that way. But the more important point—a point crucial to understanding Locke’s views—is that, in this excerpt, he offers an understanding of substance sorts in which differences between distinct sorts are grounded in the qualities possessed by the members.24 That is to say, what makes something a thinking thing is nothing but whether it has mental qualities, and what makes something a physical thing is nothing but whether it has physical qualities. The lack of dependence on a substantial nature, contra to our expectations of a substance dualist like Descartes, is obviously important.

This is what makes Locke a property theorist. Locke, true to his position in 2.13, is primarily interested in the observable qualities of a things. Similarly when he notes, in the Essay, that “Pure spirit, viz. God, is only active; pure matter is only passive; those beings that are both active and passive, we may judge to partake of both,”

24This claim is compatible with how I read Locke’s view of nominal essences—as complex ideas created by men—and real essences—only properties of individuals. Parsing the point in the text using this language amounts to saying that members of one substance sort are different from members of some other sort not in virtue of the nominal essence that we attribute to each substance sort, but rather the differences in the things are ground in nothing more than in what qualities each thing has. It is an open question whether the qualitative differences are grounded in the real essences of the individual things; though presumably they would be.

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(2.23.28) he certainly seems to be endorsing the notion that which qualities a thing has is more important than its substantial nature.

Yet, it could still be argued that when he refers to “beings” he does not mean to attribute mental and physical properties to a single substance; as we noted earlier he could be alluding to a more Cartesian sense of the word, and thus referring to a closely linked, but metaphysically independent, pair of substances.25 Certainly, this is a at least a possibility. However, Locke generally uses “thing” as a synonym for independent individuals.26 So, again, it would make sense to read the line as a sign that he is a property theorist.27 Which is to say that, according to Locke, a thing is a thinking thing as a result of having certain qualities not a certain essence. In fact, Locke seems to have in mind a sense for the word “spirit” that works well with my reading of this passage.

Just a bit later in the Letter Locke sheds more light on his notion of spirit. On page 33 Locke makes this claim “the general idea of substance being the same every where, the modification of thinking, or the power of thinking joined to it, makes it a spirit, without considering what other modifications it has, as whether it has the

25Again a “Cartesian sense” of beings is that there are gross individuals that are composed of distinct and independent substances. For example, a man in Descartes’ sense is the combination of a mental substance and a physical substance (with the caveat—unrelated to our purpose here— that they work together in a special way).

26See Ayers for a succinct explanation of Locke’s use of “thing” (1975, 7).

27There is one other possibility, when Locke notes that a single thing has both mental and physical properties he means something like this: a single complete individual substance is comprised of both a mysterious substratum that supports only mental qualities and also a mysterious substratum that supports only physical properties. This reading is troubling for two reasons. First, it would be odd for Locke to suddenly and clandestinely insert a claim about mysterious substrata into a a discussion of complete individual substances. Second, it’s not clear why Locke would be motivated to make this claim; given the nature of the relationship between qualities and substrata there is no good reason to assert that different kinds of qualities require different kinds of substrata. Indeed, the notion that there are different kinds of substrata seems impossible to accept.

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modification of solidity or no.” We are already acquainted with Locke’s view of what a general idea about substance really is: it is an abstract idea derived from our thoughts about mysterious substrata. So, Locke’s point is that when the power of thinking—which would seem to involve nothing more than having the primary quality of thought and its modes—is annexed to a mysterious substratum the result is a substance, in the complete individual sense, that counts as a spirit, even if it has a body. Fortuitously, this passage does not feature the ambiguous use of “thing” that we saw in 2.23.28. Indeed, it now seems that when Locke, in 2.23.28, claims that “Hence may be conjectured, that created spirits are not totally separate from matter, because they are both active and passive,” he really ought to be read as concluding that when a created spirit is both active and passive it is so in virtue of having mental and physical qualities that inhere in its substratum. This would seem to land strongly on the side of property theory, not substance dualism.28, 29

There are, of course, passages in which Locke stresses the immaterial status of spirits—we have seen many in the preceding discussion—however those passages are

28In Draft B of the Essay Locke notes that “So likewise, we know and have distinct, clear ideas of two primary qualities or properties of spirit, viz., knowledge, and a power of moving, i.e., beginning of determinate motion” (p. 199-200). It strikes me that the exclusion of immateriality in discussing the hallmarks of spirits is suggestive of property dualism even in the early draft.

29 Is there an opportunity here to introduce a sort of substance dualism in which there are substrata in which physical qualities inhere but not mental qualities and there are substrata in which mental qualities inhere but not physical ones, thus establishing two kinds of substance with no overlap?

We can indeed say that with respect to complete individual substances this would count as substance dualism, if we agree that physical and mental qualities are the only two kinds of qualities that determine substance types. But, Locke explicitly makes room for thinking things that have bodies, thus we would need to accept substrata that had both mental and physical qualities, and, taking his comments on angels seriously, substrata that can gain and lose qualities (or at least gain and lose physical qualities). Finally, we should note that what makes the substances physical or mental in these cases is having particular kinds of qualities. In this view, being a physical substance is derived from having physical qualities and so it seems appropriate to emphasize the importance of qualities by classifying the view as property-centric metaphysics.

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not at all incompatible with this position. Locke’s point in the lines from p. 33 of the letter to Stillingfleet is that what makes a thing a thinking spirit is that it has mental qualities, not that it lacks physical qualities. Instead of a negative definition of spirit based on what a spirit does not have, Locke has offered a positive account based on the features that a spirit does have. Of course, an immaterial thinking thing, has mental qualities and is therefore a spirit by this definition.

Significantly, however the quotations from his letters in which Locke seems to explicitly defend the reasonableness of a property-theorist’s view actually occur in the midst of a bit of exposition in which he seems to suggest a rather different conclusion.

Locke argues that “[t]hough I presume, from what I have said about the supposition of a system of matter thinking (which there demonstrates that God is immaterial) will prove it in the highest degree probable, that the thinking substance in us is immaterial” (Letter

32). In this line, Locke begins by asserting the view that a single substance can easily be thought to gain and lose properties, even such disparate properties as extension and thinking. However, rather than concluding that this is the position that we ought to settle upon, he grants that it is still “in the highest degree probable, that the thinking substance in us is immaterial.” That Locke concludes by advocating for the existence of immaterial thinking substances, and not merely thinking substances, makes the argument for my reading less likely to succeed. However, all is not as it seems, notice that he doesn’t actually argue on behalf of substance dualism. Furthermore, he uses the odd phrase

“thinking substance in us.” What could he mean by that? The answer lies in the following extract.

Your lordship in this paragraph proves, that from what I say, “we can have no certainty whether we have any spiritual substance in us or not” If by

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spiritual substance your lordship means an immaterial substance in us, as you speak a little farther on, I grant what your lordship says is true, that it cannot, upon these principles, be demonstrated. But I must crave leave to say at the same time, that upon these principles it can be proved, to the highest degree of probability. If by spiritual substance your lordship means a thinking substance, I must dissent from your lordship, and say, that we can have a certainty, upon my principles, that there is a spiritual substance in us. In short, my lord, upon my principles, i. e. from the idea of thinking, we can have a certainty that there is a thinking substance in us; from hence we have a certainty that there is an eternal thinking substance. This thinking substance, which has been from eternity, I have proved to be immaterial. This eternal, immaterial, thinking substance, has put into us a thinking substance, which, whether it be a material or immaterial substance, cannot be infallibly demonstrated from our ideas; though from them it may be proved, that it is to the highest degree probable that it is immaterial. (Letter 36)

On the one hand this passage can be read as a straightforward assertion that substance dualism cannot be conclusively demonstrated, and this is so even despite the fact that we do know, with certainty, that there are thinking things in the world. But we should ask whether Locke has also given us some evidence for the view that underwrites the negative claim—that we cannot prove that substance is immaterial.

Notice Locke begins with the admonition that a thinking substance need not be an immaterial substance. And while it is clear that we do have a thinking substance “in us,” it is also clear that God could have made it a substance that thinks and is material.

Some of these observations we have already seen in earlier quotations from the Letter to Stillingfleet and the Essay. However, this passage has one wrinkle that makes it especially intriguing. When Locke asks “And what certainty can we have that he hath not done it?” His response is that “We can have none from the ideas, for those are given up in this case; and consequently we can have no certainty upon these principles.” Locke’s point is this: because we have no clear ideas of the substance or substances involved we cannot know what they are with any certainty. However, since

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we can have clear ideas about individual complete substances, Locke must be thinking in terms of mysterious substrata. Indeed it would be perfectly apt. Thus, while we know with certainty that we think and that our thoughts, qua properties, must inhere in something—something “in us”—, we are nevertheless in complete ignorance about the substance at our core, because we can have no idea about it.30

This reading does, however, pose an interpretive problem. On my reading, Locke should not be arguing that we can only prove to “the highest degree probable” that the thinking substance in us is immaterial. He ought to be arguing that we are certain that the thinking thing in us cannot be inherently immaterial because mysterious substrata are, by definition, such that material qualities can inhere in them. While they do not have to be the subject of inherence of material qualities, they can be, and thus cannot be inherently immaterial. In other words, Locke should be arguing that mysterious substrata are, in essence, neither inherently material nor inherently mental, because they have no inherent qualities upon which to ground these classifications. Given the earlier argument that substrata are bare substances, he ought to be arguing that mysterious substrata are, to coin a phrase, nonmaterial: they are not inherently material but neither are they inherently immaterial. I can see two ways of responding to this problem.

We might simply accept that he is arguing purely on the grounds of what we can know from ideas, and only from ideas, and putting aside what we can arrive at via more abstract reasoning. If this is what he is doing than a weaker claim of ignorance would not be inappropriate. Alternatively, he could be offering the weaker ignorance claim in a

30Notice that this parallels the earlier discussion of 2.23 in which Locke admits to the inability to complete remove the fog of mysterious substrata from our ideas of complete individual substances.

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way similar to how I might note that I am ignorant of the means by which one could square the circle. That is, I do not know how because it is something that cannot be known.31 I am partial to the first explanation, if for no other reason than positing unusual uses of terms is rarely a profitable venture, but I admit that neither explanation is supported by conclusive evidence.32

Of course, if the proposed solution to the problem is unconvincing, then this concern clearly counts against my interpretation. It should be noted, however, that the conclusion that the inner substance is immaterial in the “highest degree probable” would be even more problematic for alternative readings such as Ayers’s. On my reading that the conclusion that the inner—mysterious—substance is probably not one in which solidity or extension must inhere makes sense. What does not make sense is simply

Locke’s unnecessarily-weak rhetorical stance. On Ayers’s reading the conclusion is itself problematic. A materialist ought not to be in the business of claiming that immaterial substance is at all probable. However, we may be able to turn to the Essay for some further evidence.

In 4.3 Locke indicates in several places that, at the limit of our understanding, substance dualism seems to provide the best conception of ourselves and our world:

“We have the Ideas of Matter and of Thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know, whether any material Being thinks or no” (4.3.6). Of course, as the title of the chapter,

“Extent of Human Knowledge,” and the end of that line suggest, Locke is not actually

31 Admittedly, this would be an unusual way to argue about something that cannot be known.

32There is a third alternative, Locke could be hedging his statement out of intellectual modesty. He may simply have been implicitly acknowledging that while, as far as he could see, being an individual person requires nothing more than a mysterious substrata and mental qualities, but he might nevertheless be wrong about that. Thus, leaving space for further developments by subsequent thinkers. This would, at least, be consistent with his pretentions to being an under-laborer in an age of master builders.

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making a claim about the kinds of things there are in the world but rather he is discussing the limits of what we can consider, bound as we are by ideas. This point is driven home later in the chapter. Locke argues that “As to the fourth sort of our

Knowledge, viz. of the real actual Existence of Things, we have an intuitive Knowledge of our own Existence; and a demonstrative Knowledge of the Existence of a God; of the

Existence of any thing else, we have no other but a sensitive Knowledge, which extends not beyond the Objects present to our Senses” (4.3.21), and that “we may be convinced that the Ideas we can attain to by our Faculties, are very disproportionate to Things themselves, when a positive, clear, distinct one of Substance itself, which is the

Foundation of all the rest, is concealed from us” (4.3.23). Locke’s point in taking this skeptical stance is not that we can have no thoughts of substance, clearly we can, but that when we focus on the very narrow evidence provided by our sensitive ideas the proper stance is a skeptical one.33 Furthermore, it is not merely a convenient assumption on my part that Locke means mysterious substrata when he uses substance here. The odd phrase “the substance at our core” is not merely highly suggestive; of the various notions that we see Locke ascribe to substance only the idea of mysterious substrata could be reasonably said to fit the sense of the sentence.

So it seems that, the skeptical conclusion offered in 4.3 is indeed partially bracketed off from his full picture. Why is this? In the 4.3 passages, Locke seems to have been interested only in making the claim that we cannot directly observe whether or not substrata are material, while putting aside the fact that we can argue that they are not. In other words, he believed that no substratum has material qualities as anything

33This, of course, does not preclude us from arriving at, via deduction or intuition, knowledge not provided by sensation.

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other than accidents, while acknowledging that he could make no argument, grounded explicitly in our observations, to support the claim. And this is strikingly similar to the point that he makes in at the end of the last block quote from the Letter to Stillingfleet:

“This eternal, immaterial, thinking substance, has put into us a thinking substance, which, whether it be a material or immaterial substance, cannot be infallibly demonstrated from our ideas; though from them it may be proved, that it is to the highest degree probable that it is immaterial” (Letter 36). We cannot deduce from empirical data whether a thinking thing is material or not, but—and here Locke goes beyond the point in 4.3—we can argue that it is not material.

We have just come through a lengthy dissection of many of Locke’s statements on substance. It would behoove us to pause and summarize what we have discovered.

First, while he often discusses substance dualism—or more accurately he often thinks of the world as being divided between material bodies and immaterial minds—

Locke never fully embraces substance dualism. Instead, he merely suggests that it is not an especially problematic theory. More specifically it is no more, and no less, problematic than a monist view. Indeed, in a significant number of statements he explicitly concludes that material thinking things are as plausible as non-thinking material things and non-material thinking things. Thus, suggesting that neither dualistic nor non-dualistic ontologies could be ruled out in principle.

Second, Locke, as a property theorist, concluded that each material thinking thing is a thinking thing simply because it has mental qualities and not because of any particular substantial nature or essence; a thinking thing is really nothing more than a mysterious substratum supporting mental primary qualities and, perhaps, material

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qualities, too. Indeed if, as I have argued, Locke believes in (1) bare substrata, (2) a distinction between primary physical qualities and primary mental qualities and (3) the notion that God could make it so that a particular substratum could gain or lose any quality, in theory if not in fact, it is hard to see how he could avoid being committed to the property theorist position.

It is telling that on my reading his view of what makes an individual a spirit—that it is a thinking thing that has mental qualities which in inhere a substance that we know not—is immune to the criticisms of substance theorists like Descartes and Hobbes that he levels in 2.13.34

As we noted in Chapter 5, we should conclude that in Locke’s considered view it is the case that each individual substance is a combination of qualities, physical, mental or both, inhering, accidentally, in a substratum. And as we have just ascertained a rock is a complete individual with nothing but physical qualities, a disembodied soul is a complete individual with nothing but mental qualities and a human, a sentient, embodied thing, is complete individual with both physical and mental qualities.

7.4 Superaddition

In Chapter 6 we learned that qualities inhere in a substratum and in the preceding section we learned that simply having mental qualities is what makes something a thinking thing. However, it is not at all clear how an individual comes to have mental qualities. Specifically, it seems natural to ask how, in Locke’s view, an individual physical thing comes to have mental qualities. Briefly stated, his explanation

34See 3.4.

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is that thoughts are, or at least could be, superadded to physical substances (4.3.6). But what does this mean?

In the recent literature there have been two dominant readings of Locke’s understanding of superaddition. Ayers argues that Locke meant simply that the world is designed, by God, in such a way, that thought is the natural result of properly organized matter (Ayers 1981). In this way thinking is much like the secondary qualities; thinking is a property of a particular individual physical thing because the arrangement of the thing’s physical structure. In other words, whether a particular physical thing can think is determined by a physical cause that is internal to the thing. However, Margaret Dauler

Wilson argues that Locke, aware of the limits of Boylean mechanism, held that material things could never, on their own, generate thought no matter how organized (Wilson

1999). Thus, particular physical things are able to think because of some necessarily external cause.35 In brief, Ayers argued for a view of thinking as a natural effect of properly arranged material things, while Wilson argued for a view of thinking as a feature added to physical things without any regard to their physical structure or properties.

In this section I shall take a look at Locke’s claims about superaddition in different contexts. In the following sections I shall take a closer look at Wilson’s and

Ayers’s interpretations. I will then conclude by arguing that which interpretation captures

Locke’s view depends on the context of the discussion.

35An external cause can be explained in Lockean terms as a cause that is independent of a thing’s real essence—i.e. its nature. Thus, God or even the laws of nature could count as external causes in this context. Of course, Locke does not offer an explanation for the mechanism by which thought is superadded to material things, preferring instead, to allow that it is simply within God’s power to do so. Whether God might do this directly or through something like bridge laws is uncertain. Although, so long as the efficient cause of the superaddition is not found within the nature of the material individual, it would still be compatible with Wilson’s reading—or, at least, this limited aspect of her thoughts on Locke.

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The basic problem that Locke tries to tackle in his treatment of superaddition begins with the observation that if thoughtfulness and materiality are ontologically distinct and independent then there is no way for one to generate the other.36 Thus, if a thing is a physical thing then, prima facie, it could not give rise to non-physical qualities; and, likewise, an immaterial thing would be unable to give rise to material qualities.37

This seemingly forces us to conclude that if an embodied thing is also a thoughtful thing, one—or both—of the qualities must be superadded.38 Importantly, the claim that thoughts could nevertheless be superadded to bodies is subject to at least two interpretations.

First, we might think that the superadded qualities are the normal result of a certain physical arrangements.39 More specifically, while there is indeed no conceptual link between thought and extension, once God has decreed that a certain kind of thing shall have thinking as a property, there is no further action, or intervention, necessary. It becomes a standard feature of the world that things with said arrangement of physical properties will be able to think. The thing will simply develop thought under the

36When Locke notes that thoughtfulness, i.e. having the primary mental qualities, and materiality, i.e. having the primary physical qualities, are distinct, he simply means that mental qualities are not an inherent feature of bodies and physical qualities are not an inherent feature of immaterial spirits. This is a bit tricky to work out metaphysically because, of course, bodies and immaterial spirits are nothing more than substance sorts and thus, to some extent, just human constructs. What he means is that something which is merely a body, e.g. an atom, will not, without divine intervention of some sort, generate thoughts and, vice-versa, something that is nothing more than a thinking thing will not, without divine intervention of some sort, generate a body. I will not argue for this claim here. However that Locke believed this is uncontroversial; it was a central feature of his argument for the proof of God and is stated explicitly numerous times in the Essay (4.10.9-10). Furthermore, it was the generally accepted position of 17th century philosophers (Rozemond and Yaffe 2004).

37Using thing rather loosely.

38The more common notion is that thought is superadded to physical things, but there is no reason, in principle to discount the notion that physical qualities might be superadded to a thinking thing. Nevertheless, in the following, I will only look at what is essentially the traditional view of the orientation.

39Again, this is Ayers’s view (Ayers 1991)

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appropriate conditions. In this way thoughts would be directly analogous to secondary qualities and certain kinds of powers.40 In short, superadded properties flow from the primary qualities of a thing in itself (or more likely the inner constitution of a thing), and this is so even though we are unable to understand how. In the following, I will refer to this view as naturalistic superaddition.

A second way to interpret the superaddition of thoughts is to think that they can never simply occur as an unassisted result of natural processes, but that each thinking thing is the result of specific, non-physical conditions.41 Of course, the special conditions could be determined by a single, divine volition establishing a special, on-going, relationship within nature; an action akin, in Locke’s eyes, to the establishment of gravitational attraction. The main point is simply that the break between bodies and thoughts cannot be overcome by internal material processes. Thus, if a specific physical thing is a thinking thing, it is so because of a cause that is external to it. On this reading the relationship between thoughts and substances would, presumably, not be analogous to the relationship between secondary qualities and bodies.42 In the following

I shall refer to this view as simple superaddition.

40 Thus, much like gravity and color, thinking would count as a physical quality.

41This view is, I believe, related to Wilson’s view, indeed Ayers’s seems to think that this view could be derived from Wilson’s comments. However, we should note that Wilson does not take this to be her view. She takes herself to be arguing for the more modest claim that Locke merely “thought these qualities cannot “arise naturally” from Boylean primary qualities, in the sense that the former cannot be “explained” (through something like geometrical demonstration) in terms of the latter” (1982, 249). Thus, Wilson admits that there may be a worldly, if not material, explanation for how thought arises from body. If I am not mistaken, because I focus on the relationship between thought and matter, what I say about simple superaddition can be applied mutatis mutandis to Wilson’s view.

42 Interestingly, the relationship between thought and matter on this reading would seem to be analogous to the relationship between physical qualities and their corresponding ideas in minds.

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These two positions could be amended, as McCann suggests (1985), by arguing that the superadded properties are the result of a combination of an arrangement of physical primary qualities and natural laws. This view places the cause of superadded thought outside of the nature of matter while still incorporating specific physical arrangements as an antecedent condition for thinking. However, this is not necessarily a third alternative. If the addition of regulatory laws leaves the central Ayers claim intact, that superadded properties are (in some sense) the result of, and not just dependent on, an arrangement of primary physical qualities, then this view is just a version of Ayers’s.

And since the two views are sufficiently similar for my purposes as to be of a kind, I trust that my comments on Ayers’s views are applicable to McCann’s as well. Alternatively, if the addition of regulatory laws casts the superaddition of thinking onto a material thing as an arbitrary maneuver, wholly unrelated to questions of the nature of material individual things, then McCann’s view is just a refinement of the simple superaddition reading; perhaps one that better captures Wilson’s view.43

One way of looking at the disparity between the two treatments is to assert that the central issue is really whether or not the notion of having thoughts conflicts with

Locke’s more orthodox statements on mechanism.44 On the naturalistic superaddition interpretation thought, as the natural result of physical processes, is straightforwardly

43McCann seems to think of his position as alike with Ayers’s.

44Here and in the following I will use a straightforward reconstruction of Locke’s sense of mechanism. For Locke, mechanism consists of two tenets: that the nature of bodies is (1) purely spatio-phsyical “Bulk, Number, Figure, and Motion of the parts of Fire, or Snow, are really in them, . . . and therefore they may be called real Qualities, because they really exist in those Bodies” (2.8.17); and that, (2) barring divine decree, change in bodies is conceivable only in terms of motion “the next thing to be consider’d, is how Bodies operate one upon another, and that is manifestly by impulse, and nothing else. It being impossible to conceive, that Body should operate on what it does not touch, . . . or when it does touch operate by any other way than Motion” (2.8.11, in the 4th edition, via (Downing 1997)). In short mechanism, in this sense, holds that the non-miraculous phenomenon of the world can be explained by operations of purely physical things in motion.

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compatible with mechanism. On the simple superaddition interpretation while thought may not be incompatible with mechanism, strictly speaking, it is not a proper part of a mechanistic view of the world.

In order to answer the question of which version of superaddition Locke implemented we should begin by noting that Locke offers up five different examples of properties that are superadded to substances: secondary qualities of body (4.3.13;

Second Replies, 460), thought (4.3.6) , gravity (Locke 1695, 246), the power of self- motion (Second Reply, 464) and the power to be moved (Second Reply, 460).45 So, should we expect Locke’s treatment of the superaddition of these disparate elements to be of a kind or should we think of each as superadded in their own way? There would seem to be evidence on both sides. Since, in the Essay, Locke describes gravity as neither a quality—gravity is not mentioned amongst the many lists of primary qualities— nor a power of things, it would seem to be superadded to things in a necessarily different way than the way that thought, secondary qualities, motion and self-motion are superadded—as all four of these are described as either powers or qualities in the

45In 4.3.13 Locke does not use the term superadded, however it is clear that he is discussing none other than the superaddition of secondary qualities to primary qualities. See also his comment on “whatever other qualities, not contained in [the] essence” of matter and but superadded to it in Second Replies 460.

In 4.3.6 he actually discusses both the superaddition of thought (or the power of thinking) and the superaddition of substances.

In 460 he notes that God could “superadds motion” and juxtaposes this with His power to add “spontaneous motion.” I take the former to be the power to be moved and the latter to be the power to move of ones own accord.

Locke actually mentions superaddition in at least three other contexts. He mentions that the idea of support is superadded to the idea of a color (Locke 1824b, 4:21) He also notes that vegetative and animal perfections are superadded to matter (Second Reply, 460). Finally, he mentions that the perceptions that we have in our minds must be superadded to their corresponding physical events in the world, since the “mechanical Affections of Bodies, having no affinity at all with those Ideas” (4.3.28). However, none of these examples are examples of properties superadded to substances. So, I will not consider them here.

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Essay.46 Of course, the similar classification of the latter group certainly suggests that they would be superadded to things in similar ways. If nothing else, it would be reasonable to conclude that the case for grouping motion, self-motion and thought is strong, as each is described, by Locke, as primary qualities (2.23.30).47 It would seem then that a reasonable divide might place gravity in one category of superaddition and thought, secondary qualities, motion and self-motion in another with the caveat that secondary qualities, because they are obviously not primary qualities, could be superadded to matter in some third way.

Fortunately, we are not forced to offer nothing more than extrapolated, general comments on how to think about gravity. While Locke does not offer his thoughts on gravity in the Essay, he does focus on it, at least momentarily, in his second response to Stillingfleet; what he writes there is illuminating.

In the course of defending his claim that thought could be superadded to matter if

God so made it, Locke makes several comparisons that treat the superaddition of motion, self-motion, gravity and thought analogously. He begins by likening thinking and gravity:

For to keep within the present subject of the power of thinking and self- motion, bestowed by omnipotent Power on some parts of matter: the objection to this is, I cannot conceive how matter should think. What is the consequence? ergo, God cannot give it a power to think. Let this stand for a good reason, and then proceed in other cases by the same. You cannot conceive how matter can attract matter at any distance, much less at the distance of 1,000,000 miles; ergo, God cannot give it such a power. You cannot conceive how matter should feel or move itself, or affect an

46Downing concludes that Locke could only conceive of the relationship between gravity and body as a well-supported generalization the true nature of which would require understanding of real essences and is thus unavailable to us (Downing 1997).

47And, elsewhere, thinking and self-motion are referred to as primary qualities that must be added to bodies (2nd Reply, 464).

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immaterial being, or be moved by it; ergo, God cannot give it such powers: which is in effect to deny gravity and the revolution of the planets about the sun; to make brutes mere machines, without sense or spontaneous motion; and to allow man neither sense nor voluntary motion. (Second Reply, 463)

Notice that, here, Locke does explicitly describe gravity as a power “to attract matter at any distance.” Moreover while referring to gravitation as simply a kind of self-motion, he also describes self-motion—physical or intellectual—to be a quality that is superadded to substances—physical or immaterial—by God:

for example, gravitation of matter towards matter, and in the several proportions observable, inevitably shows, that there is something in matter that we do not understand, unless we can conceive self-motion in matter; . . . and therefore this is no reason to deny Omnipotency to be able to give a power of self-motion to a material substance, if he pleases, as well as to an immaterial; since neither of them can have it from themselves, nor can we conceive how it can be in either of them. (Second Reply, 464)

In these passages Locke shows a clear propensity for grouping gravity with self-motion as features that are not essential to either material or immaterial substances, but which can be added to them by God’s decree.

If one prefers a more conservative reading of the text, this is not, strictly speaking, evidence that they all share the same metaphysical relationship to substances. They might all be qualities—or powers—that are similar in that they are superadded, but dissimilar in how they are superadded. Yet Locke never explicitly takes this position, and, whether or not they are actually analogous, it is still the case that the relationships of gravity, motion, self-motion and thought to substance, even if varied, are treated analogously by him. So, it would seem to be a safe bet that whatever one might say, in general, about the superaddition of gravity, motion, self-motion or thought to matter could be safely attributed to the others. Indeed, Locke relies on such a feature

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when he describes the relationship of each to the essence of matter (Second Reply

461-462).

Finally, in a passage that we have already excerpted above Locke explicitly likens the superaddition of self-motion to a material thing to the superaddition of thought to an immaterial thing.

To explain this matter a little farther: God has created a substance; let it be, for example, a solid extended substance: is God bound to give it, besides being, a power of action? that, I think, nobody will say. He therefore may leave it in a state of inactivity, and it will be nevertheless a substance; for action is not necessary to the being of any substance, that God does create. God has likewise created and made to exist, de novo, an immaterial substance, which will not lose its being of a substance, though God should bestow on it nothing more but this bare being, without giving it any activity at all. Here are now two distinct substances, the one material, the other immaterial, both in a state of perfect inactivity. Now I ask what power God can give to one of these substances (supposing them to retain the same distinct natures, that they had as substances in their state of inactivity) which he cannot give to the other? In that state, it is plain, neither of them thinks; for thinking being an action, it cannot be denied that God can put an end to any action of any created substance, without annihilating of the substance whereof it is an action: and if it be so, he can also create or give existence to such a substance, without giving that substance any action at all. Now I would ask, why Omnipotency cannot give to either of these substances, which are equally in a state of perfect inactivity, the same power that it can give to the other? Let it be, for example, that of spontaneous or self-motion, which is a power that it is supposed God can give to an unsolid substance, but denied that he can give to a solid substance. (Second Reply, 464)

In this passage we see Locke conjecture that God can create inert substances, both material and immaterial, and give to them—and withhold from them—the power to move and the power to think. Strikingly both cases are treated as essentially identical demonstrations of God’s power to create substances with or without certain qualities.

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Locke clearly thought of superaddition of self-motion and thinking to either material or immaterial substances as completely analogous.48

Thus, since it seems clear that Locke intended the disparate uses of superadded properties to be analogous, we should accept comments made about each to be informative about the rest. Nevertheless, even if this is right, there is still some ambiguity in what Locke meant when he argued that thought (or its analogues) is superadded to a physical substance. We have already taken note of the candidate resolutions: simple superaddition and naturalistic superaddition.

7.5 Simple Superaddition

The simple superaddition reading, generally speaking, is grounded in the notion that Locke’s view of mechanism cannot explain how a physical thing, qua physical thing, might have secondary qualities, nor can it explain how physical things come to have motion, thought, or any of Locke’s so-called vegetative perfections.49 In other words,

48 Notice that in 464 Locke argues that “Here are now two distinct substances, the one material, the other immaterial, both in a state of perfect inactivity. Now I ask what power God can give to one of these substances (supposing them to retain the same distinct natures, that they had as substances in their state of inactivity) which he cannot give to the other?” This bears on the earlier discussion of the deflationary interpretation of substratum (see footnote 120). To begin with, notice that Locke qualifies his point by “supposing them to retain the same distinct natures.” Thus, suggesting that the substances could change their natures, this seems significantly more problematic for the deflationary reading than for the bare substance reading. Furthermore, given the earlier admonition against restricting God’s power to what we find conceivable (463), why wouldn’t it be possible?

Finally, it is interesting to note that Locke seems to think it is possible to have an immaterial substance that has no thoughts, but if that’s possible why not a material, un-extended thing? Locke does not explicitly endorse such a thing, but his parallel treatment of the addition and subtraction of motion, a primary quality, from material substances suggests that he might accept the addition and subtraction of extension from the same. At least, he cannot short-circuit that possibility on the grounds that it is inconceivable.

49Wilson makes essentially this point: “Locke’s views about the relation of thought and matter turn out ultimately to undercut the central claim that a body’s sensible qualities flow from the primary qualities of insensible particles and with it the notion that secondary qualities are explainable in terms of primary ones. . . . In a subsequent section I will go on to show that Locke’s sense of the intrinsic inadequacy of Boylean principles of explanation goes well beyond the problem of understanding thought and its modes” (Wilson 1999, 198)

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Locke does not have an explanation for how secondary qualities can arise from the primary physical qualities, e.g. shape, bulk, and solidity, or even arrangements of the same—and given his view of our inability to grasp real essences an explanation may be impossible for any human. This limit on our understanding is exhibited in comments such as these on the connection between primary and secondary qualities:

our minds not being able to discover any connexion betwixt these primary qualities of bodies and the sensations that are produced in us by them, we can never be able to establish certain and undoubted rules of the consequence or co-existence of any secondary qualities, though we could discover the size, figure, or motion of those invisible parts which immediately produce them. We are so far from knowing what figure, size, or motion of parts produce a yellow colour, a sweet taste, or a sharp sound, that we can by no means conceive how any size, figure, or motion of any particles, can possibly produce in us the idea of any colour, taste, or sound whatsoever; there is no conceivable connexion betwixt the one and the other. (4.3.13)

The main point to focus on is Locke’s argument (here and in the immediately preceding sections) that secondary qualities are so unlike primary qualities that we cannot conceive of their connection. Furthermore, as he notes when he claims that “there is not conceivable connexion betwixt the one and the other,” this is not the only place that

Locke notes our inability to explain certain features of the world in terms of a purely materialistic world view.

In comments similar to these on secondary qualities Locke argues that matter cannot give rise to thought: “Matter, [i.e.] incogitative Matter and Motion, whatever changes it might produce of figure and bulk could never produce thought . . .”(Essay

4.10.5); and “Unthinking Particles of Matter, however put together, can have nothing thereby added to them, but a new relation of Position, which ‘tis impossible should give thought and knowledge to them”(4.10.16). In these lines Locke takes the strong view that it is inconceivable that matter could generate thought on its own. The similarity

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between his position on thought in these lines and on secondary qualities is striking; it would be surprising if such similar language were used in the service of wholly different ideas.50 Thus, we should conclude that the inability to find a link between body and both thought and secondary qualities is one that we shall never overcome.

From this an interesting question arises. Is our inability to see the connection between primary qualities and secondary qualities, or between body and thought, a logical or epistemic limitation? Locke’s use of absolutist terms implies that he thought that there is simply no link to be discovered; it is logically impossible to conceive of body giving rise to thought on its own. However, perhaps Locke should have been more circumspect in his conclusion. Our inability to conceive of the connections in question could simply stem from our inability to grasp real essences (or the nature of substance, if this is distinct from real essence) and thus the conclusion ought to be that it is impossible for us to grasp how primary qualities could generate secondary qualities while acknowledging that it may not be absolutely impossible to comprehend the connection. While this would be a reasonable option in isolation, Locke’s proof for the existence of God requires a stronger break between body and thinking than the mere claim that we cannot see how they could go together.51 So, Locke’s position seems to be the stronger one, whether or not he could legitimately support it.

50I do not think it is relevant for this discussion that secondary qualities are said to be unrelated to primary qualities while thought is said to be unrelated to matter. Indeed, given that thinking is a primary quality this asymmetry is to be expected.

51 In 4.5.10 Locke asserts that God must exist to avoid the logical impossibility of thought emerging, without external aid, from of thoughtless matter: “It being as impossible, that Things wholly void of Knowledge, and operating blindly, and without any Perception, should produce a knowing Being, as it is impossible, that a Triangle should make it self three Angles bigger than two right ones.”

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Thus, on the simple superaddition reading we are encouraged to conclude that what it means for thought to be superadded to body is not only that thought is an accidental property of body but also that it is contrary to the nature of body to think.

However Locke offers contradictory text:

We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know, whether any mere material being thinks, or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover, whether omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter so disposed a thinking immaterial substance (4.3.6)

So, while Locke begins from the position that matter cannot produce thought on its own, he then argues that this does not mean that thought is in any sense incompatible with matter.52 Of course, that matter and thought are, in some sense, compatible does not amount to a suggestion that matter can, of itself, generate thought. His original insight about the origin of thought is left intact. In this respect, the relationship between thought and matter is perhaps most similar to the relationship between self-motion and matter; a body cannot, by its nature, move on its own, but moving is in no way incompatible with the nature of body. Indeed Locke, himself, makes this exact comparison:

Let us suppose any parcel of matter eternal, great or small, we shall find it, in itself, able to produce nothing. . . . Is it possible to conceive it can add motion to itself, being purely matter, or produce any thing? Matter then, by its own strength, cannot produce in itself so much as motion . . . But let us suppose motion eternal too; yet matter, incogitative matter and motion, whatever changes it might produce of figure and bulk, could never produce thought: And I appeal to every one’s own thoughts, whether he cannot as easily conceive matter produced by nothing, as thought to be produced by pure matter, when before there was no such thing as thought, or an intelligent being existing? (4.10.10)

52See also Locke’s second reply to Stillingfeet (Locke 1824b)

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In this passage, Locke’s comments on thought closely echo his comments on motion; just as matter cannot be the origin of motion it cannot be the origin of thought. More importantly in the last sentence we see Locke likens the generation of thought by matter to the generation of matter ex nihilo, thus, again, taking the strong stance that it is impossible for matter to generate thought instead of the weaker claim that we cannot conceive of the connection. Locke also likens the superaddition of self-motion—and gravitation—and thought when he argues that denying the possibility of one entails denying the possibility of the other (Second Reply, 461).

Given that Locke describes both motion, and thought as primary qualities and that neither can be generated by matter, it seems reasonable to conclude that he believed that thinking is in no less compatible with mechanism than motion—or secondary qualities, or gravity, but no less explainable by mechanism, either. In other words Locke’s position seems to be that while we are in no position to say how matter and thought are related—and indeed that they are completely independent—, we can be confident that they are compatible.

Nevertheless this does not explain why it seems to be that only certain things are thinking things. Indeed, on the simple superaddition reading there would be no explanation available. If there is no connection, then there is no principled way to explain why only some material bodies are able to think nor why all bodies move or gravitate toward each other.53 That bodies do move, gravitate and sometimes think

53Strictly speaking, this is not true. There could be any number of explanations available to us, divine fiat comes to mind as a possibility. It would thus be more accurate to say that there is no way to explain why some bodies have thought or why all bodies gravitate toward each other in strictly Boylean terms.

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would seem to be nothing more than a brute fact stemming from an apparently arbitrary distribution.

Before moving on to the next we should note that this reading is entirely compatible with my observations on the nature of substance and Locke’s property theory. We shall see how after the next section.

7.6 Naturalistic Superaddition

An alternative account to simple superaddition would be to maintain that Locke admits an account of superadded qualities grounded in the notion that they are in, at least some sense, ‘perfections’ (Ayers 1981, 250). As Locke writes: “I see no contradiction in it, that the first eternal thinking Being or omnipotent Spirit should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought” (4.3.6). The interesting part of this line is the idea that it is to “certain systems of created matter, put together as he sees fit” that God chooses to annex thought. A strict reading of this is that it is only to such fit systems that God will annex thought. Thus, any unfit systems would, of course, be unthinking systems. Much in the same way that an unfit system—a rock or an animal— cannot photosynthesize. This view, that certain abilities are the result of appropriately arranged structures, certainly fits with our naïve observations, and this greater fit with our observations should clearly count as evidence for naturalistic superaddition.

However, there is some uncertainty as to what counts as a fit system. Could absolutely anything be decreed a fit system? Could God make it so that rocks are fit to think? To answer that concern we could muster a common sense response: fit systems are complex individual substances that have features the same as or very similar to

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those held by animals for sensation and persons for thought. But we can do better than that.

In 4.3.6 Locke gives us what amounts to two ideas of how to think of fitness. On the one hand, he takes a strong position that “since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator.” In other words, because we cannot hope to understand God’s actions we are, strictly speaking, forced to admit that He could have given any individual whatsoever the ability to think. Thus, again strictly speaking, no individual thing is absolutely unfit. However, I think Locke had a less arbitrary view of which individuals are fit to have thought.

In another line from the same, lengthy, section he writes:

For since we must allow he has annexed Effects to Motion, which we can no way conceive Motion able to produce, what reason have we to conclude that he could not order them as well to be produced in a Subject we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as in a Subject we cannot conceive the motion of Matter can any way operate upon?

Here we see what, at first blush, seems to be a statement in support of the strong, arbitrary assignment, reading, i.e. God can arrange things in whatever way it pleases

Him to do so, including ways that we do not comprehend. However, we should notice that Locke is thinking of thought as the result of motion and therein lays an interesting clue. Locke seems to think that for a subject to have thought it must have the right kinds of motion of its parts. This is, of course, entirely in keeping with the mechanistic framework that is characteristic of Locke’s thinking about the natural world. He reinforces this view, just a bit earlier, in the very same passage: “What certainty of

Knowledge can any one have that some perceptions, such as, v.g. pleasure and pain,

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should not be in some bodies themselves, after a certain manner modified and moved, as well as that they should be in an immaterial Substance, upon the Motion of the parts of Body?” In other words sensations are the result of a properly “modified and moved” body. So, it would seem that Locke’s preferred view of what it means to be an individual that is fitly disposed to think is of a complete individual substance whose parts are arranged and operate in such a way as to produce perception and thinking. And yet he acknowledges that, strictly speaking there is no way that we can say with certainty that it is impossible for God to make it so that an atom, or a simple block of wood, is as fit for thought as complex parcels of matter such as brains.

We can add to this observation another wrinkle. In 4.3.29, Locke seems to propose that regularities are governed by natural laws.

The Things that, as far as our Observation reaches, we constantly find to proceed regularly, we may conclude do act by a Law set them; but yet by a Law, that we know not: Whereby, though Causes work steadily, and Effects constantly flow from them, yet their Connexions and Dependencies being not discoverable in our Ideas, we can have but an experimental Knowledge of them.

This would seem to count as evidence against the simple superaddition reading in that if

Locke considers lawful regularities to have a role in the world, it is plausible to infer that lawful regularity could play a role in superaddition.54

So, since it seems that, according to Locke, God dictates that the interactions between individual substances and qualities follow natural laws we have no reason to conclude that they are not compatible with mechanistic explanations of purely physical

54This is especially apparent if McCann is right in seeing his own view as of a type with Ayers’s view.

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interactions.55 This helps in our treatment of thought, if we recall that Locke’s treatment of thought, qua superadded quality, seems to be analogous to his treatment of other qualities. Thus, it seems appropriate to conclude that Locke believed that thought, even though it would not arise from the nature of body without divine intervention, is superadded to body in a way governed by natural law and features of properly disposed individuals.

Again, we should note that this reading is entirely compatible with my observations on the nature of substance and Locke’s property theory.

7.7 Summary Notes

As I noted at the end of each of the last two sections, I find both the simple and naturalistic interpretation of superaddition to be compatible with my reading of Locke’s metaphysics and, indeed, reasonable in their own way. Given Locke’s dual understanding of substance, either reading of superaddition is acceptable. More specifically, the question of which is the best reading appears to be context dependent.

The basic claim is this: if we think of the relationship between thought and complete, individual substances, then it would seem that the naturalistic reading is right; however, if we think of the relationship between thought and mysterious substrata, then it would seem that simple reading is right.

Given that all qualities inhere in substrata accidentally there is nothing in the nature of each substratum that determines whether it is the subject of inherence of thoughts. So that, with respect to substrata, the superaddition of thought to physical things is essentially arbitrary, and this is just a special case of the rule that it is possible

55This is, at any rate, in line with Locke’s position on our inability to know how secondary qualities are conjoined with mere bodies or generated by primary qualities.

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for a substratum to have any quality whatsoever; with respect to mysterious substrata all primary qualities are on par. They all inhere and can be alienated from distinct substrata without reservation. In this respect, motion, thought and gravity would be similar in that they inhere in mysterious substrata without depending on the other primary qualities. In fact, there is, in terms of inherence in substrata, no difference between the properties classified as Primary Qualities, extension, bulk, etc., and thought or gravity.56 If the latter did depend on other primary qualities they would be, in a sense, secondary qualities and Locke would have put forward a very different understanding of the world. When we consider how these properties inhere in mysterious substrata the answer does not involve the other primary qualities. Indeed when we ask how they inhere we have no answer available to us but that it pleases God that they do.

To be a bit more explicit, I only mean to say that there is no reason in the substratum itself that explains why any qualities inhere in it. There might certainly be some other, worldly, reason for the inherence of the qualities in the substratum.57

However, while this reading might to justice to the question of how thought is linked to individual mysterious substances, and attendant complete substances, it does not seem to capture the way in which Locke explained why some bodies can think while others cannot.

Indeed, that question cannot be answered by discussion of inherence in mysterious substrata. This is to say, an individual substratum cannot itself provide a

56That Locke, as we have seen, lists motion, self-motion and certain mental qualities as both a Primary Qualities and a superadded properties strengthens this observation.

57But then this would make inherence to be the result of natural processes, thus rendering the primary distinction between simple and naturalistic superaddition, moot.

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reason for why a complete individual thing does or does not think. The answer to that question lays in Locke’s thoughts about complete individual substances.

Locke often remarks about the essence of individuals:

I do not take them to flow from the substance in any created being, but to be in every thing that internal constitution, or frame, or modification of the substance, which God in his wisdom and good pleasure thinks fit to give to every particular creature, when he gives a being: and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist (Letter, 82)

And it is in these essences that lies the answer to why a particular thing does or does not think. Here the analogy between thinking, other perfections and secondary qualities is particularly instructive. Locke is clear that the latter two are attributed only to things which are properly disposed—which have an inner configuration that is properly configured: “the real essence is that internal constitution of things, from whence their powers and properties flow . . . I know nobody that ever denied the certainty of such real essences or internal constitutions” (Letter 82).58 Locke thought that complete individual substances had internal natures which could be used to explain which properties an individual thing has, and this includes the property of thought.

The view is simply this: naturalistic superaddition maintains that God can make it so that it is natural (i.e. proper) for systems of matter to be configured in such a way as

58For more comments on the relationship between internal constitution and properties (including qualities and powers) see Letter, 83, 85, and 3.6.17-19, and many other passages. And in 3.3.17 he writes “The other, and more rational Opinion, is of those who look on all natural Things to have a real, but unknown Constitution of their insensible Parts; from which flow those sensible Qualities which serve us to distinguish them one from another, according as we have Occasion to rank them into sorts under common Denominations” affirming the point that qualities are generated by the internal constitution of a thing. And in 3.6.9 he notes that “It is evident the internal constitution, whereon their properties depend, is unknown to us: for to go no further than the grossest and most obvious we can imagine amongst them, What is that texture of parts, that real essence, that makes lead and antimony fusible, wood and stones not? What makes lead and iron malleable, antimony and stones not” again affirming the point.

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to generate certain non-material properties including motion, self-motion, gravity, tertiary powers and thought.

On this account, Ayers’s view is basically right in the context of how thought is superadded to specific complete individual substances. A thing’s internal constitution is the paramount factor in determining whether or not a thing has thought. The color of gold and the ability of a man to think are determined by the same essence in each individual substance.

So, if the central question of the puzzle of superaddition is why does this substance think? We must give two answers. When we ask why a complete individual substance thinks the answer is that it is made fit to do so by its internal nature. When we ask why a substratum thinks the answer is that it is made to do so, arbitrarily, by the will of God.

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CHAPTER 8 CONCLUSION

Descartes and Locke are often juxtaposed as promoting radically different philosophical systems, and, of course, in many ways their work is diametrically opposed to one another’s. In the context of the material covered in this work Locke and

Descartes diverge on key points.

The disagreement is perhaps starkest in their treatment of created substance.

Locke argued for a two-tiered theory in which individual things are, in a sense, substances only derivatively. Complete individuals things, the substances that we experience in our standard interactions with the world, are composed of mysterious substrata and properties. Mysterious substrata, the unknowable substances in which qualities inhere, are the metaphysical foundation of complete individual substances.

Thus Locke maintained that substrata are distinct from and independent of qualities. It is these latter substances that play the greater role in Locke’s fundamental disagreements with Descartes.

In his work, Descartes argues that substances are identical with their principal attributes and thus complete in themselves. There is no distinction, beyond an abstract, rational distinction of the mind, between a substance and its attribute. Body is just extension and mind is just thought.

This fundamental disagreement plays out in some interesting ways. As I just mentioned, Locke argued that mysterious substrata are unknown, their nature and existence conjectured about solely via indirect evidence. Descartes argued that substance can be both directly experienced and rationally understood. Indeed, for

Descartes metaphysical investigations are the beginning of a complete and transparent

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system of knowledge. In a sense, their disagreement over the ability to clearly and distinctly conceive of the nature of substance is the root of their disagreement.

Furthermore, Locke argued that properties, even fundamental ones such as primary qualities, inhere in mysterious substrata only accidentally. This means that, among other things, complete individual things can gain and lose primary qualities during their existence: because no quality necessarily inheres in the substratum of any individual thing. The disagreement is clearly demonstrated in Locke’s conjectures that

God could have created material substances that think and immaterial substances that do not.1 This is, of course, inimical to Descartes’ conception that the relationship between substance and attribute is central to our ideas of substance and more specifically to his identification substance with principal attribute.

The disagreement over how we ought to conceive of the relationship between substance and properties impacts other areas of thought as well. Locke believes that personhood is ultimately feasible only as a mixed-mode of thinking substances.

However, Descartes would suggest that persons are nothing more than minds and, as such, complete substances in their own right. Interestingly, neither philosopher would argue that having a body is a logically necessary condition for being a person.

Finally, perhaps the most significant impact of their different conceptions of substance is in their respective treatments of mind. Locke argued that a mind is a complete individual substance that may or may not have primary physical attributes.

Indeed, having a body is so far from being incompatible with being a thinking thing that,

1 An interesting question is whether all primary qualities are independent of each other. Locke certainly thinks you can have extension without motion, but would he argue that you could have extension without figure?

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in Locke’s system, thinking is a perfection exhibited by a properly organized body. To be clear, having a properly disposed body is not a logically necessary condition for having thought; God could superadd thought to absolutely any physical, or non-physical, individual. It is however the case, that God has arranged it so that, in this world, thought is the result of a certain kind of physical fitness.2

Descartes, of course, argued that minds, as complete individuals in their own right, are completely distinct and independent from body, i.e. the substances are really distinct. While it may be the case that, in the world, minds happen to normally correspond with specific bodies—and it is the case that mind-body pairings have a special relationship: the mind is not just a sailor on a ship—it is nevertheless true that minds do not have to go with bodies in any metaphysical sense.

That Descartes and Locke disagreed on the basic conception of substance and minds is clear. In this work, I have tried to illuminate their views in order to help us have a better understanding of their disagreements and, more importantly, of the theories themselves. I take the most important elements of my work to lie in showing that

Descartes could not have had a trialistic metaphysics and providing a better explication of Locke’s views on mysterious substrata and superaddition.

2 It is interesting that, if pressed by Gassendi, it is not likely that Locke could provide a satisfactory explanation for how thought is superadded to properly fit bodies. In that respect, at least, Descartes and Locke’s views—and those of many others—are similarly limited.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Eugenio Enrique Zaldivar emigrated from Cuba in 1978; graduated from Miami-

Dade Community College with an Associate of Arts in 1994; from Florida International

University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1999; from the University of Florida with a Master of

Arts in 2005; and again, from the University of Florida as Doctor of Philosophy in 2012.

In the fall of 2010 Eugenio began his career in philosophy as an Assistant

Professor at Santa Fe College, in Gainesville, Florida.

Upon completing his Ph.D. Eugenio will do a happy dance.

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