Substance (philosophy)

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

In philosophy, a substance is something which could exist even if nothing else did. For example, it is commonly thought that a property like redness could not exist if there were not also some thing which was red, and hence properties are distinguished from substances, and substances are often thought of as the things which bear properties.

The notion of substance has been the subject of considerable debate in philosophy, and some consider it suspect. It is sometimes rejected altogether by modern, scientifically-inspired metaphysics, which substitutes the notions of fields or processes as fundamental.