TheCategories (Ancient Greek:Κατηγορίαι,romanized: Katēgoriai;Latin:Categoriae orPraedicamenta) is a text fromAristotle'sOrganon that enumerates all the possible kinds of things that can be thesubject or thepredicate of aproposition. They are "perhaps the single most heavily discussed of all Aristotelian notions".[1] The work is brief enough to be divided not into books, as is usual withAristotle's works, but into fifteen chapters.
TheCategories places everyobject of humanapprehension under one of ten categories (known to medieval writers as the Latin termpraedicamenta). Aristotle intended them to enumerate everything that can be expressed without composition or structure, thus anything that can be either the subject or the predicate of a proposition.
The text begins with an explication of what Aristotle means by "synonymous", orunivocal words, what is meant by "homonymous", orequivocal words, and what is meant by "paronymous", ordenominative (sometimes translated "derivative") words.
It then divides forms of speech as being:
Either simple, without composition or structure, such as "man", "horse", "fights".
Or having composition and structure, such as "a man argued", "the horse runs".
Only composite forms of speech can be true or false.
Next, he distinguishes between what is said "of" a subject and what is "in" a subject. What is said "of" a subject describes the kind of thing that it is as a whole, answering the question "what is it?" What is said to be "in" a subject is a predicate that does not describe it as a whole but cannot exist without the subject, such as the shape of something. The latter has come to be known asinherence.
Of all the things that exist,
Some may be predicated (that is, said) of a subject, but are in no subject; asman may be predicated of James or John (one may say "John is a man"), but is not in any subject.
Some are in a subject, but cannot be predicated of any subject. Thus, a certain individual point of grammatical knowledge is in me as in a subject, but it cannot be predicated of any subject; because it is an individual thing.
Some are both in a subject and able to be predicated of a subject, for examplescience, which is in the mind as in a subject, and may be predicated ofgeometry as of a subject ("Geometry is science").
Last, some things neither can be in any subject nor can be predicated of any subject. These areindividual substances, which cannot be predicated, because they are individuals; and cannot be in a subject, because they are substances.
Then we come to thecategories themselves, whose definitions depend upon these four forms of predication.[2][3] Aristotle's own text in Ackrill's standard English version is:[4]
Of things said without any combination, each signifies eithersubstance orquantity orqualification or arelative orwhere orwhen orbeing-in-a-position orhaving ordoing orbeing-affected. To give a rough idea, examples ofsubstance are man, horse; ofquantity: four-foot, five-foot; ofqualification: white, grammatical; of arelative: double, half, larger; ofwhere: in the Lyceum, in the market-place; ofwhen: yesterday, last-year; ofbeing-in-a-position: is-lying, is-sitting;of having: has-shoes-on, has-armour-on;of doing: cutting, burning; ofbeing-affected: being-cut, being-burned. (1b25-2a4)
A brief explanation (with some alternative translations) is as follows:[5]
Substance (οὐσία,ousia, essence or substance).[6]Substance is that which cannot be predicated of anything or be said to be in anything. Hence,this particular man orthat particular tree are substances. Later in the text, Aristotle calls these particulars “primary substances”, to distinguish them fromsecondary substances, which are universals andcan be predicated. Hence, Socrates is a primary substance, while man is a secondary substance.Man is predicated of Socrates, and therefore all that is predicated of man is predicated of Socrates.
Quantity (ποσόν,poson, how much). This is the extension of an object, and may be eitherdiscrete orcontinuous. Further, its parts may or may not have relative positions to each other. All medieval discussions about the nature of the continuum, of the infinite and the infinitely divisible, are a long footnote to this text. It is of great importance in the development of mathematical ideas in the medieval and late Scholastic period. Examples: two cubits long, number, space, (length of) time.
Qualification orquality (ποιόν,poion, of what kind or quality). This determination characterizes the nature of an object. Examples: white, black, grammatical, hot, sweet, curved, straight.
Relative (πρός τι,pros ti, toward something). This is the way one object may be related to another. Examples: double, half, large, master, knowledge.
Where orplace (ποῦ,pou, where). Position in relation to the surrounding environment. Examples: in a marketplace, in the Lyceum.
When ortime (πότε,pote, when). Position in relation to the course of events. Examples: yesterday, last year.
Relative position, posture, attitude (κεῖσθαι,keisthai, to lie). The examples Aristotle gives indicate that he meant a condition of rest resulting from an action:‘Lying’, ‘sitting’, ‘standing’. Thusposition may be taken as the end point for the corresponding action. The term is, however, frequently taken to mean the relative position of the parts of an object (usually a living object), given that the position of the parts is inseparable from the state of rest implied.
Having or state,condition (ἔχειν,echein, to have or be). The examples Aristotle gives indicate that he meant a condition of rest resulting from an affection (i.e. being acted on):‘shod’, ‘armed’. The term is, however, frequently taken to mean the determination arising from the physical accoutrements of an object: one's shoes, one's arms, etc. Traditionally, this category is also called ahabitus (from Latinhabere, to have).
Doing oraction (ποιεῖν,poiein, to make or do). The production of change in some other object (or in the agent itselfqua other).
Being affected oraffection (πάσχειν,paschein, to suffer or undergo). The reception of change from some other object (or from the affected object itselfqua other). Aristotle's namepaschein for this category has traditionally been translated into English as "affection" and "passion" (also "passivity"), easily misinterpreted to refer only or mainly toaffection as an emotion or toemotional passion. For action he gave the example,‘to lance’, ‘to cauterize’; for affection,‘to be lanced’, ‘to be cauterized.’ His examples make clear that action is to affection as the active voice is to the passive voice — asacting is tobeing acted on.
The first four are given a detailed treatment in four chapters, doing and being-affected are discussed briefly in a single small chapter, the remaining four are passed over lightly, as being clear in themselves. Later texts by scholastic philosophers also reflect this disparity of treatment.[citation needed]
In this part,[7] Aristotle sets forth four ways things can be said to be opposed. Next, the work discusses five senses wherein a thing may be consideredprior to another, followed by a short section on simultaneity. Six forms of movement are then defined: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, and change of place. The work ends with a brief consideration of the word 'have' and its usage.
^Smith, Robin 1995 "Logic". In J. Barnes (ed)The Cambridge companion to Aristotle, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 55.
^The forms of predication were called by the medievalscholastic philosophers theantepraedicamenta.
^Note, however, that although Aristotle has apparently distinguished between “being in a subject”, and “being predicated truly of a subject”, in thePrior Analytics these are treated as synonymous. This has led some to suspect that Aristotle was not the author of theCategories[citation needed].
^Thomasson, Amie (2019), Zalta, Edward N. (ed.),"Categories",The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved2020-01-17
^Note that while Aristotle's use ofousia is ambiguous between 'essence' and substance' there is a close link between them. See hisMetaphysics
^This part was probably not part of the original text, but added by some unknown editor,Ackrill (1963) pp. 69—70
Aristotle (1936). L. Minio-Paluello (ed.).Categoriae et Liber de Interpretatione. Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN9780198145073.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Aristotle (1938). H. P. Cooke, Hugh Tredennick (ed.).Categories; On Interpretation; Prior Analytics. Loeb Classical Library 325. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.ISBN9780674993594.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Categories public domain audiobook atLibriVox
