The Constitution of Objects by Systems

Aristotle got it wrong, imho. He thinks of substances as self-contained, as having within themselves the wherewithall to be what they are. I will argue that this is incorrect. The notion of substance that I want to reject is the idea that there are selfsufficient things-in-themselves that are what they are in their own right. An oak tree gets its oakness, and its treeness from within itself, as it were. Nothing more is needed for it to be what it is. Whether historically Aristotle held this view or not is not my concern at the moment. I'll leave that to people who are better historians than me. My aim is to overthrow this notion whoever held it. I'm going to argue that substances need something else besides themselves to be what they are. What is this extra? I will start historically with the claim that the extra is subjectivity, using Husserl as the proponent of this view. I will look at Foucault for an alternative to subjectivism. Then I will leave history behind and move to the philosophical position that biological organisms and complex systems offer us alternative answers to the "what more" question.