Asserting substance

What is substance?

I highly recommend reading Grammar of knowledge – before you continue

For Aristotle(384 – 322 BC), Expressions signify the following things:
Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Place, Time, Position, State, Action, Affection.
None of these alone involve any affirmation(true or false) – Only combinations of such terms that positive or negative statements arise. This is important because every assertion must be either true or false.
The truth or falsity of a statement depends on facts(Although Nietzsche Conflicts and thinks otherwise), not on any power on the part of the statement itself of admitting contrary qualities – nothing can alter the nature of statements and opinions.

There are no facts, only interpretations. – Nietzsche

Substance:

• • That which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject
  • E.g. Individual man or horse – signifies that which is individual 
  • Has no contrary
  • Predicated univocally (one meaning) 
  • Doesn’t admit variation in the degree
    • “Man” cannot be more or less “Man” than himself or other men
    • Although Nietzsche again conflicts and criticizes Aristotle with his quote: 

For thus speaketh justice unto me: “Men are not equal.” And neither shall they become so! What would be my love to the Overman, if I spake otherwise? – Nietzsche

• • • Maybe we can “merge” Nietzsche and Aristotle by removing “Man” from the “Species category”
  • Capable of admitting contrary qualities:
    • The same individual unit/person/ substance at one time white at another black, warm or cold, good or bad
    • By a process of change 
    • “He is sitting” Can be both true and false – depending on the circumstances. The statement and opinions themselves, however, remain unaltered.
  • Primary: Everything is either predicated on the primary substance or present in them.
    • Underlie the subjects of everything else
    • If primary substance didn’t exist, it would be impossible for anything else to exist.
  • Secondary: Give definitions and convey knowledge of the primaries
    • Class with certain qualifications
      • Predicable of more than one subject
    • Indicate quality with reference to substance 
    • Species: “Man” – More truly substance than the Genera
    • Genera: ” Animal” – Include the species  

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