Gabriele Olveira Substanz denken – philosophische Untersuchungen zu Aristoteles und A. N. Whitehead

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A task of philosophy is the consideration of basic ideas. One such fundamental term in ontology is the concept of “substance”. Since at least the 20th century substance, or Greek “ousia” has been vehemently disregarded as a “rigid, isolated amorphism. Any attempt to remove “substance” from the repertory of ist philosophical roots have remained unfulfilled – the complexity and facet wealth of Aristotle´s “substance” is radically misunderstood.

Entities we come across in everyday life are considered to be independent and relatively constant. However on further examination they prove to be permanently changing. Organisms exist in a condition of continuous change with their surroundings and permanently adapt various characteristics.

Why aren´t they the same today as they were yesterday? How can something which changes permanently possess an identity? Is it not the case that even entities which are in a permanent state of change also have something lasting? Change is only possible when something exists to be changed. The difference between a permanent state and change and furthermore between unity and multiplicity or between being and becoming belong insolubly together. There must be something which gives the “entities” a definition and continuity which encroaches the numerous mental and physical processes: an ousia of all processual occurrences.

The comparison of two contradictory theories reveals that Whithead, as representative of a modern process ontology and Aristotle do not differ if ousia is interpreted as a logically necessary foundation of the behavior of continuity and change – a mental and physical foundation of natural entities, as synthesing centre of diverse changing: non-expandable, non-locatable, a sort of principle of organization.