As we have seen in Chapter 1, Strawson's famous distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics describes two different methodological approaches to the question of fundamental ontology. In this chapter, I focus mainly on the origin of the descriptive enterprise in Aristotle's metaphysics and examine Whitehead and Quine's criticisms of this approach to the formulation of a viable conceptual scheme for modern physics. The project of descriptive metaphysics and the concept of substance are rejected on both scientific and philosophical grounds.

ARISTOTLE'S CONCEPTION OF SUBSTANCE

Aristotle spends considerable time in his Categories and Metaphysics working out the details of the nature of substance – a revival of the old Pre-Socratic question: what is ontologically basic? He described his subject, metaphysics or first philosophy, as the study of ‘being qua being’, that is, the subject that concerns the issues that are most fundamental or at the highest level of generality. ‘Being qua being’ defines being simply as being, or what it is to be. The physicist studies one particular genus of being, but the philosopher's enquiry into the nature of being, claims Aristotle, is universal and deals with the nature of primary substance (1941: 736).

The basic categories of being are: substance, quality, quantity, time, place, position, state, relation, action and affection. All except the first have dependent being. For Aristotle, an analysis of ordinary language reveals these general categories and demonstrates how substance gains ontological priority over the other categories. The underlying supposition behind his metaphysics is: grammar is the guide to ontology. That is, he thinks that the way we speak about the world is no accident; the basic subject-predicate grammar faithfully corresponds to the way the world is really put together. This means that nouns and proper names identify substances, verbs and adverbs identify actions or events, and adjectives identify properties and class relations.