The Problem of Matter's Inherent Nature

TL;DRAbstract

What distinguishes a pebble from an empty region of space of the same size? What is matter's inherent nature, the quality which fills space and in virtue of whose filling there is matter in space? Here I raise that question for a variety of metaphysical systems, from ancient atomism to contemporary scientific realism. In the first chapter I argue that the secondary qualities can't serve as matter's inherent quality because they aren't physically basic, and each of the primary qualities is unqualified because it is either purely spatial (as are size and shape) or relational (as is motion) or dispositional (as are impenetrability, solidity and mass). The second chapter is a survey which shows that philosophers typically want matter's nature to (1) be mathematizable; (2) explain change; (3) have a manifest basis if it is dispositional; (4) be monadic; (5) be determinate; (6) account for matter's permanence; (7) characterize discrete chunks of matter; (8) be an intensive quality; (9) not b

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