Editing Substance theory (section)

==Criticism==
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The idea of substance was famously critiqued by [[David Hume]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Forbidden History of Science|last=Hockney|first=Mike|publisher=Hyperreality Books|year=2015}}</ref> who held that since substance cannot be perceived, it should not be assumed to independently exist.<ref>{{Cite SEP|url-id=substance|title=Substance|first=Howard|last=Robinson|first2=Ralph|last2=Weir|date=Spring 2020}}</ref>

[[Friedrich Nietzsche]], and after him [[Martin Heidegger]], [[Michel Foucault]] and [[Gilles Deleuze]] also rejected the notion of "substance", and in the same movement the concept of [[subject (philosophy)|subject]] - seeing both concepts as holdovers from [[Platonic idealism]]. For this reason, [[Althusser]]'s "anti-humanism" and Foucault's statements were criticized, by [[Jürgen Habermas]] and others, for misunderstanding that this led to a fatalist conception of [[social determinism]]. For Habermas, only a subjective form of [[liberty]] could be conceived, to the contrary of Deleuze who talks about "''a'' life", as an impersonal and [[immanence|immanent]] form of liberty.

For Heidegger, Descartes means by "substance" that by which "we can understand nothing else than an entity which ''is'' in such a way that it need no other entity in order to ''be''." Therefore, only God is a substance as ''Ens perfectissimus'' (most perfect being). Heidegger showed the inextricable relationship between the concept of substance and of subject, which explains why, instead of talking about "man" or "humankind", he speaks about the ''[[Dasein]]'', which is not a simple subject, nor a substance.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www20.uludag.edu.tr/~kadir/Roma.pdf |author=A. Kadir Cucen |title=Heidegger's Critique of Descartes' Metaphysics |publisher=Uludag University |date=2002-01-18 |access-date=2011-12-28}}</ref>

[[Alfred North Whitehead]] has argued that the concept of substance has only a limited applicability in everyday life and that metaphysics should rely upon the [[Process philosophy|concept of process]].<ref>See, e.g., Ronny Desmet and Michel Weber (edited by), ''[https://www.academia.edu/279940/Whitehead._The_Algebra_of_Metaphysics Whitehead. The Algebra of Metaphysics. Applied Process Metaphysics Summer Institute Memorandum]'', Louvain-la-Neuve, Éditions Chromatika, 2010 ({{ISBN|978-2-930517-08-7}}).</ref>

Roman Catholic theologian [[Karl Rahner]], as part of his critique of [[transubstantiation]], rejected substance theory and instead proposed the doctrine of ''transfinalization'', which he felt was more attuned to modern philosophy. However, this doctrine was rejected by [[Pope Paul VI]] in his encyclical ''[[Mysterium fidei (encyclical)|Mysterium fidei]]''.

The 20th century Australian philosopher [[Colin Murray Turbayne]] also raised fundamental objections to the concepts of "substance" and "substratum", arguing that both have little if any meaning at best. In Turbayne's view, such concepts are more properly described as linguistic [[metaphors]] which served as the foundation for the physicalist and mechanistic theories of the universe proposed by [[Isaac Newton]] and the [[mind-body dualism]] put forth by [[René Descartes]]. Turbayne contends mankind has fallen victim over the course of time to such metaphors by misinterpreting them as examples of literal truth and subsequently utilizing deductive reasoning to incorporate them into the development of modern scientific hypotheses.<ref> [https://books.google.com/books?id=DsKvAwAAQBAJ&dq=Colin+Murray+Turbayne&pg=PA2451 ''Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers'' Shook, John. 2005 p. 2451 Biography of Colin Murray Turbayne on Google Books]</ref><ref name=Hesse1966/> He concludes that mankind can successfully embrace more beneficial theoretic constructs of the universe only after first acknowledging the metaphorical nature of these two concepts and the central role which they have assumed in the guise of literal truth within the realm of [[epistemology]] and metaphysics.<ref name=Hesse1966>{{cite journal |last1=Hesse |first1=Mary |title=Review of The Myth of Metaphor |journal=Foundations of Language |date=1966 |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=282–284 |jstor=25000234 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.sas.rochester.edu/phl/about/prize.html The University of Rochester Department of Philosophy- Berkley Essay Prize Competition - History of the Prize Colin Turbayne's ''The Myth of Metaphor'' on rochester.edu]</ref><ref> [https://books.google.com/books?id=DsKvAwAAQBAJ&dq=Colin+Murray+Turbayne&pg=PA2451 ''Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers'' Shook, John. 2005 p. 2451 Biography of Colin Murray Turbayne on Google Books]</ref>