The Metaphysics of Transubstantiation: The Problem of Individuation in the Seventeenth Century

Collins, Conrad J. (2017) The Metaphysics of Transubstantiation: The Problem of Individuation in the Seventeenth Century. Undergraduate thesis, under the direction of Timothy Yenter from Philosophy, The University of Mississippi.

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Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to look at the recurring question of the relationship between theology and philosophy by investigating the 17th century debate on the Eucharist as it revolved around Descartes and Leibniz. The Jesuit explanation of transubstantiation involves the philosophical problem of individuation, which asks what makes an individual substance what it is. Therefore, the study focuses specifically on the problem of individuation as it is treated by the philosophers Descartes and Leibniz as they try to answer the previous question. Descartes’s mechanical philosophy runs against the notion of what constitutes a body, while Leibniz’s monadology finds an obstacle in explaining a change of substance. The evidence of these attempts suggests that what transubstantiation implies can be demonstrated only within a proper metaphysics. Thus, the question shows that certain theological commitments have specific metaphysical consequences and vice versa.

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