Thomas Hobbes on Incorporial Substances
The idea that some things that do not have a body (often called 'immaterial') has a long history. Talk about 'souls' go back to the times of ancient Greece. There is the conception that there are things that don't have a physical body - like gods, souls, and spirits. Philosophers have named such things 'incorporeal substances.'
Thomas Hobbes has an objection to the whole idea of incorporeal substances. In his view, terms like incorporeal substances are self-contradictory and don't mean anything. Saying that a substance is incorporeal is like saying that a particular body is bodiless. Here's what Hobbes said the Leviathan:
...when men make a name of two names, whose significations are contradictory and inconsistent; as this name, an incorporeal body, or (which is all one) an incorporeal substance, and a great number more. For whensoever any affirmation is false, the two names of which it is composed, put together and made one, signify nothing at all (Hobbes 1655, 4.20–1).
The passage by Thomas Hobbes probably isn't going convince non-materialists that materialism is true, yet I think this might be an excellent place to start. Let this be a challenge for the non-materialists to provide a definition of incorporeal substances, which makes it clear that it isn't inconsistent.
Thomas Hobbes has an objection to the whole idea of incorporeal substances. In his view, terms like incorporeal substances are self-contradictory and don't mean anything. Saying that a substance is incorporeal is like saying that a particular body is bodiless. Here's what Hobbes said the Leviathan:
...when men make a name of two names, whose significations are contradictory and inconsistent; as this name, an incorporeal body, or (which is all one) an incorporeal substance, and a great number more. For whensoever any affirmation is false, the two names of which it is composed, put together and made one, signify nothing at all (Hobbes 1655, 4.20–1).
The passage by Thomas Hobbes probably isn't going convince non-materialists that materialism is true, yet I think this might be an excellent place to start. Let this be a challenge for the non-materialists to provide a definition of incorporeal substances, which makes it clear that it isn't inconsistent.
Comments (7)
I think there's deep fallacy of equivocation here.
First of all, go back to the origin of the philosophical term 'substance'. It means nothing like 'substance, stuff, or thing' in the modern lexicon. It was derived from a Latin word, substantia, used to translate the Greek 'ouisia', which is also translated as 'being' or the verb 'to be'.
In that context, a 'substance' was the 'bearer of attributes'. Really the word means something closer to 'being'.
Second point. Descartes defined the mind as 'res cogitans', literally 'thinking thing'. But in so doing, he also transformed the meaning of 'substance' into something that was purportedly objective. This is fundamental to Cartesian dualism, which Western culture is very much an inheritor of.
But Aristotelian dualism, hylomorphic dualism, is not the dualism of matter and mind, but of matter and form. So within that conception, the mind, nous, is 'what understands forms'. It is not conceived as something which is separable from the body, in the way that it is conceived by Cartesian dualism.
There's just so many threads on materialism and I dread this disloving into yet another monotonous materialism vs nonmaterialism discussion. I thought Thomas Hobbes had a refreshing view on the matter. However judging from what you posted here, you seem to disagree.
There's a bit more than the quoted section I provided. (SEP)
Interestingly, SEP also judges Hobbes arguments as weak.
Overall then, something of a puzzle remains. Hobbes clearly was a materialist about the natural world, but the explicit arguments he offers for the view seem rather weak. Perhaps he just had a good deal of confidence in the ability of the rapidly developing science of the his time to proceed towards a full material explanation of the mind. --- SEP
That's because it's an incoherent philosophy, and there aren't any strong arguments for it.
The issue of substance has already been addressed. As to “incorporeal body”, this will be a contradiction in terms only when “body” is itself interpreted as strictly referencing material givens. This as the Latin “corpus” does, tmk at least.
However, the English term “body” can also signify, “A coherent group; a unified collection of details, knowledge, or information” as in, for example, a body of evidence.
Now suppose the hypothetical of an incorporeal self—with possible examples including angels and deities—things we can all imagine despite disagreements on the ontological possibility of such. Here, then, you can coherently declare each of these to be an “incorporeal body”—such that the body addressed references a coherent bundle of information, or knowledge, pertaining to some consciousness that is devoid of material attributes. There is yet a self that stands in dualistic relation to that which is not-self, to other, but this self and its properties will (in the conjectures here specified) be fully immaterial and, thereby, incorporeal. The extents of this immaterial self will here be the given self’s immaterial body, standing in contrast to that which is other.
Without intending to argue for one side or the other, and regardless of one’s ontological stance on the possibility of such incorporeal beings, when thus interpreted the term “incorporeal body” is thoroughly consistent, rather than being self-contradictory.