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Wiki MarkupIn the past, I have  have criticized Descartes's definition of substance as "that that 
which requires nothing but itself in order to exist" because  because it denies the the 
essential internal relatedness of concretes to other concretes.  But I  now see 
reasons to think that the interpretation presupposed by this  criticism may, in 
fact,  be a  misinterpretation. 
In the past, I  have criticized Descartes's definition of substance as "that which requires nothing but itself in order to exist" because it denies the essential internal relatedness of concretes to other concretes.  But I  now see reasons to think that the interpretation presupposed by this  criticism may, in fact, be a misinterpretation. 

In the But I now see reasons to think that the interpretation presupposed by this criticism may, in fact, be a misinterpretation. Inthe course of arguing persuasively that "Whitehead is  ... in full  agreement with Aristotle  as to what constitutes the  ultimate metaphysical  problem"; and that "\[i\]n declaring that 'the final problem is to conceive a  complete \[nuv'tEAllC;\]  fact' Whitehead is placing himself fully in the great  philosophical  tradition," Leclerc holds-again persuasively-that "\[ w \]hat  Whitehead means by a  'complete fact'  is  a  'complete  existent,'  that which  exists  in the  complete sense of the  word 'exist.II " Whereupon he  goes on to  say:  "This is the same as what Gilson was expressing in the passage above by ' a distinct ontological unit which is able to subsist in itself and can be defined  in itself.' It is  this that Descartes had in mind in defining _thethat_ _ with which  we are concerned as  that 'which requires nothing but itself in order to exist,' pinoza 5pinoza and Leibniz  used very similar words in this  connection._ _It_ _is clear that the factor of  clear 

that the factor of 'being,' of  of 'existence,' is absolutely  absolutely central. But it is not not 

'existence' as  as such, in the abstract; it is the_ _existence of a particular,_ _a  in the  abstract; it is  the  existence  of a  particular,  a  'that.' 

Moreover, the  'that' which is in question is the  the that which is possessed of is  possessed of 

'full existence existence,' the that which exists 'in and of i tself"'_ _(Whitehead's Metaphysics:_ _20, 17)._ _If{_}{_}Leclerc is right about all this, as I strongly suspect he is, Descartes's point in asserting the independence of substance is essentially the same as Whitehead's in insisting-in Leclerc's words-that, "although other types of entity do exist, they are (Le., exist as) either 'ingredients in' actual entities, or ... 'derivative from' actual entities. So that whatever there is, in any sense of 'is' or 'exist,' either is an actual entity or has its locus in some actual entity or actual entities" (24_ _f.)._ _Or it is the same as Hartshorne's point when he insists that the abstract, although real, is not actual save as somehow included in the concrete, which is the inclusive form of reality, the abstract being the included form thereof. And, of course, it is only of a piece with this insistence that Hartshorne argues (against Aristotle and the classical tradition\!) for "event pluralism," rather than "substance pluralism," Le., that the only fully_ _2{_}{_}particular and concrete reality is not "substance," i.e., an-individual person or_

thing, but rather an "event, or a "state,"

dependence upon which-individuals, as partially abstract, alone exist.

To be sure, Descartes and others may still be fairly criticized for not recognizing the primacy of "relational predicates," on which Hartshorne insists in saying, "Subjects are what they are not through mere private predicates or properties, but through the references which it is their natures to make to certain other subjects" ("Religion in Process Philosophy": 247).

 the  that which exists  'in  and  of i tself"'  (Whitehead's 

Metaphysics:  20,  17). 8 March 2006in which-and therefore in In other words, Descartes and others may very well perpetuate what Whitehead calls "the defect of the Greek analysis of generation" because they continue to fail "to grasp the real-operation of antecedent particulars imposing themselves on the novel particular in process of creation." But it still seems that Descartes's point in the definition criticized is not simply the instance of this failure that I have misinterpreted it as being. It is the different point that Whitehead and Hartshorne also, in their ways, make-and that I, too, must make-between the utterly concrete and the more or less abstract, or, alternatively, between the fully actual and the merely real.