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In the past, I  have have criticized Descartes's definition of definition of substance as "that 
which 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 now see reasons to think that the interpretation presupposed by this  criticism may, in 
in fact,  be be a  misinterpretation. 
In  In the past, I  have 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 now see reasons to think that the interpretation presupposed by this  criticism may, in fact, be a misinterpretation. unmigrated-wiki-markup

In the 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  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" 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 and Leibniz  used very similar words in this  connection. It is  clear that 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 [παντελης] 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." 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 the that with which we are concerned as that 'which requires nothing but itself in order to exist,' Spinoza and Leibniz  used very similar words in this  connection. It is clear that the factor of 'being,'  of of 'existence,' is  absolutely absolutely central. But it is not 'existence'  as as such,  in in the  abstractabstract; it is  the  existence  of existence of a  particularparticular,  a  a 'that.' Moreover Moreover, the   'that' which is in question is  the the that which is  possessed possessed of 'full  existenceexistence,'  the  that the that which exists 'in and of itself"' (Whitehead's Metaphysics: 20,17). 

If Leclerc is right about all this, as I strongly suspect he is, Descartes'in  and  of i tself"'  (Whitehead's Metaphysics:  20,  17). 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 (i.e., 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," i.e., that the only fully particular and concrete reality is not "substance," i.e., an individual person or thing, but rather an "event, or a  "state," in which—and therefore in 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). 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. 

8 March 2006