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The Aristotelian Categories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. M. Gillespie
C. M. Gillespie
Affiliation:
The University of Leeds
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Extract

The precise position to be assigned to the Categories in the Aristotelian system has always been somewhat of a puzzle. On the one hand, they seem to be worked into the warp of its texture, as in the classification of change, and Aristotle can argue from the premiss that they constitute an exhaustive division of the kinds of Being (An. Post. I. 22, p. 83 b 15). On the other hand, both in the completed scheme of his logic and in his constructive metaphysic they retire into the background, giving place to other notions, such as causation, change, actuality and potentiality. Investigation has, moreover, been hampered, especially in Germany, by attempts to correlate them with the Kantian Categories, with which they have obvious points of contact. But Kant's formal a priori concepts by which the mind makes for itself a world, to use Mr. Bosanquet's phrase, imply an attitude to knowledge and reality so utterly opposed to the Aristotelian that the comparison has tended to confusion rather than elucidation. Scholars now realize better that the Aristotelian Categories can only be understood in connexion with the problems of Aristotle's own age.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 1925 , pp. 75 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1925

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References

page 75 note 1 Maier, , Die Syllogistik des Aristoteles, II. 277Google Scholar sqq.

page 75 note 2 Apelt, o.Beitra`ge zur Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, 1891, PP. 106Google Scholar sqq.

page 75 note 3 Gercke, A., Ursprung der aristotelischen Kate-gorien, Archiü für Geschichte der Philosophie, 1891, Vol. IV., pp. 424 sqqGoogle Scholar. sqq.

page 76 note 1 Analysis of the arguments in the Charmides shows that nearly all make use of τπoι dealt with by aristotle in the Topics.

page 76 note 2 Cf. with Categ. 6 a 36 sqq., Charmides, 168 A. The list in Rep. 437 B is the same and in the same order.

page 76 note 3 Here I follow Maier.

page 76 note 4 See the distinction of ö;ν κατ⋯ συμβεβηκ⋯ς and ὂν καθ' αὑτό, Metaph. δ 7, 1017 a 7 sqq. Apelt's equation of ỏν καθ αὑτ⋯ and τ⋯ κατ⋯ μηδεμαν σνμπλοκ⋯ν λεγόμενον (op. cit., P. 117) is manifestly wrong. καθ' δ or καθ' αὑτ means that the deter-mination attaches to the subject in respect of the subject itself and not in respect of the determina-tion. See καθ' δ and καθ' αὑτό, Metaph. δ 18, 19, 1022 a 14 sqq.

page 77 note 1 See Topics I. 4.9, 101 b 11 sqq. The pre-dicables and the categories together constitute περ⋯ ὦν ο⋯ λ⋯γοι κα⋯ ⋯ξ ὧν, 103 b 39; the material has to be organized on this bassic before it can be used in argument. The close correspondence between Topics and Categories is illustrated, interalia, by the fact that the commonest τόποι, ⋯κ μλλόν καὶ ἧττον and ξ ναντων are supplemented in the Categories by discussions how far these dis-tinctions are to be recognized in several cate-gories.

page 77 note 2 No satisfactory grounds for the rejection of the Categories have been adduced. The discrep-anices with other works of the Corpus, e.g. the Metaphysics, are explicable on the hypothesis that this is an early work, of the same horizon as the Topics. The confusion between thought and verbal expression observable in some passages suggests immaturity of logical development.

page 77 note 3 Soph. El. 183 b 25 alludes to the τχναι of material Tisias and other rhetors, and claims to be doing for Dialectic what they did for Rhetoric.

page 77 note 4 The sixth book of the Topics lays down the inter etiquette for questioner and answerer: the treatctlia. the treatment implies a strict separation of these rÔles. The complaint of Thrasymachus in Republic 337 A that Socrates will ask, but not answer, questions may perhaps point to a convention established in the Socratic schools.

page 77 note 5 Simplicius in Categ., pp. 9 sqq., Kalbfleisch.

page 77 note 6 The phrase is Meinong's. Meinong's Gegen-standstheorie is useful in its recurrence to the thoroughly objective and realistic attitude towards knowledge which distinguishes ancient from most modern thought.

page 78 note 1 The term κατμγoρ⋯α in its specially technical sense of Category goes back to this early way of regarding the judgment. As Maier shows (against Apelt), op. cit., II. 304 n. it primarily expresses, not the relation of predicate term to subject term in the SP proposition of the Prior Analytics, but the relation of the δνoμα to its object. But Maier himself looks at the matter through modern spectacles; he writes: ‘Das Wort ist κατηγoρα, sofern als Prädikat seiner Bedeutung, seines Begriffs.’ This is too sophisti-cated for a primitive logic. Adam gave names to things, not to meanings; these things have natures of their own, signified by the name. It is wise to avoid speaking of concepts and Begriffe in connexion with Plato and Aristotle.

page 78 note 2 Sophist 251 A. Cf. Metaphysics δ 29, 1024 b 32.

page 78 note 3 See Soph. El. 166, b. 32.

page 79 note 1 Laws 895 D ἇῤ οὐκ ᾱν ⋯θλοις περἰ ἕκαστον τρἱα νοεῖν…ἓν μν τν οὐσἱαν ἓν ον δἔ τ ς οσας τν λγον ἓν δ νομα. The fourth term πργμα is given in ἒκαστον.

page 79 note 2 There is a curious passage in Topics II. 1, 109 a 10, which seems to retain a vestige of a primitive treatment of predication as giving two names to one thing: ἔστι δ χαλεπώτατον τ ντιστρφειν τν π το συμβεβηκτος οἰκεαν νο-μασαν τ γρ πῇ κα μ καθλου πἱ μνων νδ-χεται τν σνμβεβηκτων. 'δντιστρφειν here does not mean the convertibility of S and P in exten-sion, as in the Prior Analytics. It means the interchangeability of the expressions τῷ A ὑπρχει τ B and A στ B: in definition they are convertible, for ὑπρχει τῷ A ξῴῳ πɛξῷ δποδι εῖναι is equivalent to A στ ζον πεζν δπονν; but ὑπρχει τῷ A λενκςτμς dose not imply A, στ λευκς for he may be white only κατ τι—e.g. the eyeballs. The phrase οἰκεαν νομασαν recalls the οἰκεῖος λγος of Antisthenes, Metaph, δ 29, 1024 b 32.

page 79 note 3 Categ. 11 b 16; Metaph, δ 5, 1018 a 20.

page 80 note 1 Soph. El. 166 b 16: τ⋯ ὑγια⋯νειν ⋯μοѡς τῷ σχματι τς λξεως λγεται τῷ τμνειν ἣ οἰκο-δομεῖν κατοι τò μν φoν τι κα διακεμενον σηuανει, τ δ π *οιεῖν τι

page 80 note 2 E.g. Gercke, op. cit., p. 424.

page 80 note 3 Metaph, A 5, 986 a 22.

page 80 note 4 Gen. Corr. I. 3, 319 a 14; Metaph, Γ 2, 1004 b 27.

page 81 note 1 Jaeger, , Aristokles, p. 117Google Scholar , suggests that the use of Coriscus' name as a school-example prob-ably goes baek to the time, soon after the death of Plato, when Aristotle, Coriscus, and other Academicians sojourned at Assus.

page 82 note 1 Metaph. H 2, 1042 b 19.

Ross, ad Ar. Metaph. 1022 b 4, gives the following examples: Metaph. 1055 b 13; De Respir, 474 a 26; De An. Inc. 711 a 6; Plato, Rep. 433 E 12; Crat. 414 B 9; Theaet. 197 B 1; Soph, 247 A 5; Laws 625 C.

page 83 note 1 See the table in Apelt, op. cit., p. 140.

page 83 note 2 So Maier, as against Apelt, op. cit., II. 309 n.

page 83 note 3 Top. I. 10. 104 a 8; ἒστι δ πρτασις διαλεκ-τικἢ ⋯ρώτησις ἔνδoξoς. An. Pr. I. 1, 24 a 16; ρτασς στι λγος καταψατικς ἢ ποψατικς τιν⋯ς κατ⋯ τινος.