szubsztancia

Szubsztancja, sometimes written szubsztancia, is a philosophical term used for the fundamental bearer of properties: that which exists independently and can be described as the subject of predicates. The word derives from Latin substantia (and Greek ousia) and is commonly translated as substance. In Polish philosophical writing the standard term is substancja, but szubsztancja appears in some texts and translations as a variant.

Historically, the concept originates in Aristotle, who distinguished substances (ousiai) as primary beings that exist on their own, with properties and relations dependent on them. Substances were conceived as underlying subjects that combine form and matter to constitute particular entities, such as a given man or horse. In the medieval period, scholastic philosophy developed the distinction between substance and accidents, and introduced the idea of a substratum or haecceity as the underlying support for changing properties.

In modern philosophy, substance was reformulated by Descartes (res cogitans, res extensa) as two kinds of substances: thinking and extended. Spinoza proposed a single substance with infinite attributes, namely God or Nature. Leibniz defended the view that the world consists of simple substances called monads. Against these views, Hume and later some contemporary writers argued for a bundle theory: what we call a substance is simply a collection of coexisting properties without an underlying substratum. Kant challenged the possibility of knowable things-in-themselves, treating substance as a regulative idea rather than an easily separable thing.

In science, substance also denotes pure chemical substances, i.e., definite kinds of matter, underscoring a practical use that differs from the philosophical debate about what existence consists in. The term remains central to discussions of persistence, identity, and ontology.