Substance
This chapter identifies the source of the failure to satisfy the explanatory demand with regard to being or substance. The culprit is the presupposition that we are trying to understand what it is to be a relational substance, a substance that stands in relations. Chapter 3 argues that any attempt to meet the explanatory demand for a relational substance is embroiled in vicious explanatory regresses or circles. Potential objections to this argument are shown to be lacking, and a comparison between this argument against relational substance and Bradley’s famous regress argument against the reality of relations is offered. The only way to save the notion of substance is to affirm undifferentiated or non-relational substance. This is a Parmenidean Ascent with regard to being: there are no beings, not even one being, rather there is simply being. A comparison between this conception of being and Aquinas’ conception of God is offered.