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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Atomism follows from the definition of substance on strictly a priori grounds.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Spinoza's Ethics demonstrates that 'substance' can be defined as that which is in itself and conceived through itself, entailing exactly one infinite substance.
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    • 2.If atomism follows a priori from the concept of substance, competing a priori derivations yielding monism refute the claim that the inference is uniquely valid.
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    • 3.The a priori route from 'substance' to 'atoms' is therefore underdetermined by the definition alone and requires suppressed empirical or metaphysical assumptions.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Leibniz argued that true unities need not be spatially partless but can be non-extended simple substances (monads), satisfying the same indivisibility criterion Cordemoy invokes.
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    • 2.If the a priori definition of substance requires only metaphysical indivisibility, not physical partlessness, then extended atoms are not the uniquely derived conclusion.
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    • 3.The inference from 'substance must be simple' to 'bodies must be spatially atomic' smuggles in a contestable identification of metaphysical simplicity with spatial indivisibility.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Bodies are posited as substances.
      ?

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    • 2.Substances cannot have parts without ceasing to be substances.
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    • 3.Therefore, bodies must be posited as partless, i.e., atoms.
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