The Concept of Matter (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from The Concept of Matter

The concept of matter: First, one might well ask about the propriety of the 'the' here. Surely there have been many concepts of matter, some of them scarcely connected with the others? What is the common bond to be? There is no word that we can trace etymologically through an evolution of senses, as we can in the case of 'mass'. Before Aristotle's time, there was not even an accepted word for the philosophical concept of matter, so what do we mean here by talking of the concept of matter in Thales or Plato? In the case of many other terms, like 'man', we can agree on the class of entities to which the term applies; what Thales meant by 'man' (in the sense of: what refer ents the term designated) is the same as what any other philosopher has meant. So that to trace the concept of man is much simpler, because one has only to ask how this known reference-class has been understood by different philosophers, i.e. What basic properties are the entities called 'man' said to have in common? But in the case Of the concept Of matter, there is no agreed reference-class of this sort; 'not only is there not agreement as to which en tities ought to be called material, but the term, 'matter', itself is frequently assumed not to be the name of a designatable entity.

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