IX*—MULTIPLICITY AND UNITY OFBEING IN ARISTOTLE

by Enrico Berti

ABSTRACT I. In analytic philosophy, so-called ‘univocalism’ is the prevailinginterpretation of the meaning of terms such as ‘being’ or ‘existence’, i.e. thethesis that these terms have only one meaning (see Russell, White, Quine, vanInwagen). But some analytical philosophers, inspired by Aristotle, maintain that‘being’ has many senses (Austin, Ryle). II. Aristotle develops an argument infavour of this last thesis, observing that ‘being’ and ‘one’ cannot be a singlegenus, because they are predicated of their differences (Metaph. B 3). III. But‘being’ for Aristotle has also a unity, i.e. ‘focal meaning’, which coincides withsubstance (Metaph. Γ 2), and substance has not only an ontological priority, butalso a logical priority, in respect to the other beings, as was shown by G. E. L.Owen. IV. This ‘focal meaning’ cannot be identified with primary substance, i.e.with the unmovable mover, as some interpreters pretend, because this latterhas only an ontological, not a logical, priority in respect to the world. V. Theimpossibility of this interpretation results from Aristotle’s rejection of an essenceand a substance of being (Metaph. B 4), i.e. the rejection of what the Christianphilosophers called esse ipsum subsistens.

I

Being and existence in contemporary ‘analytical ontology’. Inthe history of analytic philosophy the prevailing interpret-

ation of the meaning of terms such as ‘being’ or ‘existence’ wasso-called ‘univocalism’, i.e. the thesis that they have only onemeaning, as was shown in a clear exposition by Morton Whitemore than forty years ago.1 The author indicated the origins ofsuch a position in John Stuart Mill, and attributed the most clearformulation of it to Bertrand Russell, though admitting that thelatter initially held a position which could be called ‘duovocal-ism’, according to which the existence of physical objects andthe existence of universals (e.g. of numbers) were affirmed withdifferent meanings, respectively equivalent to being in space andtime and being not in space and time. Later on Russell discovered

*Meeting of the Aristotelian Society, held in Senate House, University of London,on Monday, 19th February, 2001 at 4.15 p.m.

1. See White, Toward a Reunion in Philosophy, Cambridge Mass. 1956, pp. 60–80.

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that these different meanings could be reduced to only one. Hediscovered that affirming the existence of anything is equivalentto saying that it is something, where being something is a genusof which being in space and time and being not in space and timeare the species.

Summarizing Russell’s position, White wrote:

We can therefore say that there is a correspondingly generalexpression, namely ‘There is at least one’, which we can put beforethe phrase ‘physical object’ and before the word ‘universal’. Inboth of the resulting sentences, ‘There is at least one physicalobject’ and ‘There is at least one universal’, the phrase ‘there is atleast one’ is used in the same sense, and this is reflected in the factthat we can use logical notation and symbolize these two sentencesas follows: ‘(∃x) (x is a physical object)’ and ‘(∃x) (x is a univer-sal)’. Now ... the symbol ‘(∃x)’, read in English as ‘there is an xsuch that’, is used in the same way in both cases.

White acknowledged that a third position is possible. He calledit ‘multivocalism’. The champion of this position is Gilbert Ryle,according to whom

It may be true that there exists a cathedral in Oxford, a three-engined bomber, and a square number between 9 and 25. But thenaıve passage to the conclusion that there are three existents, abuilding, a brand of aircraft and a number soon leads to trouble.The senses of ‘exists’ in which the three subjects are said to existare different and their logical behaviours are different.2

To illustrate Ryle’s position White quoted another famous pass-age, this time drawn from his major work, The Concept of Mind :

It is perfectly proper to say, in one logical tone of voice, that thereexist minds and to say, in another logical tone of voice, that thereexist bodies. But these expressions do not indicate two differentspecies of existence ... They indicate two different senses of ‘exist’,somewhat as ‘rising’ has different senses in ‘the tide is rising’,‘hopes are rising’ and ‘the average age of death is rising’. A manwould be thought to make a poor joke who said that three thingsare now rising, namely the tide, hopes and the average age ofdeath. It would be just as good or bad a joke to say that there existprime numbers and Wednesdays and public opinion and navies; orthat there exist both minds and bodies.3

2. Ryle, Philosophical Arguments, Oxford 1945, pp. 15–16.

3. Ryle, The Concept of Mind, London 1949, p. 23.

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According to White, Ryle could dispense with multivocalism. Allthe existential statements mentioned by Ryle can be translatedinto ‘(∃x) (x is ...)’, and these translations free us from the needto assert the existence of things like relationships, possibilitiesand attributes, and save us from having to say that the phrase‘exists’ applies to some ‘entities’ in one sense and to others inanother ‘sense’.

Today’s champion of univocalism is surely W.V.O. Quine. InWord and Object he wrote:

There are philosophers who stoutly maintain that ‘exists’ said ofnumbers, classes, and the like and ‘exists’ said of material objectsare two usages of an ambiguous term ‘exists’. What mainly bafflesme is the stoutness of their maintenance. What can they possiblycount as evidence?4

Resting on the refutation of Ryle made by White, Quine couldconclude:

In our canonical notation of quantification, then, we find therestoration of law and order. Insofar as we adhere to this notation,the objects we are to be understood to admit are precisely theobjects which we reckon to the universe of values over which thebound variables of quantification are to be considered to range.Such is simply the intended sense of the quantifiers ‘(x)’ and ‘(∃x)’:‘every object x is such that’, ‘there is an object x such that’. Thequantifiers are encapsulations of these specially selected, unequivo-cally referential idioms of ordinary language.5

Also, in Ontological relatiûity and Other Essays Quine wrote:

Are there two senses of existence? Only in a derivative way. Forus common men who believe in bodies and prime numbers, thestatements ‘there is a rabbit in the yard’ and ‘there are prime num-bers between 10 and 20’ are free from double-talk. Quantificationdoes them justice ... It has been fairly common in philosophy earlyand late to distinguish between being, as the broadest concept, andexistence, as narrower. This is no distinction of mine; I mean‘exists’ to cover all there is, and such of course is the force of thequantifier.6

4. Quine, Word and Object, Cambridge Mass. 1960, p. 131.

5. Ibid., p. 242.

6. Quine, Ontological Relatiûity and Other Essays, New York 1969, pp. 99–100.

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From a point of view which he defines as ‘broadly Quinean’,a representative of so-called ‘Analytical Ontology’, Peter vanInwagen, recently argued in favour of the following theses: ‘Beingis univocal’; ‘The single sense of being or existence is adequatelycaptured by the existential quantifier of formal logic.’7 Thesetheses are defended by means of the observation that existence isclosely tied to number, because ‘to say that unicorns do not existis to say something very much like saying that the number ofunicorns is 0’, while ‘to say that horses exist is to say that thenumber of horses is 1 or more’. On the basis of this observationvan Inwagen can conclude that ‘the univocacy of number andthe intimate connection between number and existence shouldconvince us that there is at least very good reason to think thatexistence is univocal’.

What impressed me, as an old frequenter of Aristotle’s philos-ophy, was the thesis that Being is univocal, which van Inwagentoo, like White, formulates in opposition to Ryle, a philosopherwho never concealed his Aristotelian inspiration. According tovan Inwagen, ‘Ryle has made no case for the thesis that existenceis equivocal.’ And he adds—but it is not clear whether referringto Ryle or in general—‘I know no argument for this thesis thatis even faintly plausible.’ This enables him to say: ‘We musttherefore conclude that existence is univocal.’

In fact, Ryle was not the only philosopher who admitted dif-ferent senses of being. Before him John L. Austin, the first whointroduced Aristotle into analytical Oxford philosophy, in hisfamous article entitled ‘The meaning of a word’ (1940), claimedthat ‘exist’ is used paronymously, i.e. with a ‘primary nuclearsense’ and other senses dependent on it, just like ‘healthy’ inAristotle.8 In Sense and Sensibilia he wrote:

‘Real’ [the translation of the Greek on, i.e. ‘being’] is not a normalword at all, but highly exceptional; exceptional in this respect that,unlike ‘yellow’ or ‘horse’ or ‘walk’, it does not have one singlespecifiable, always-the-same meaning. (Even Aristotle saw throughthis idea.) Nor does it have a large number of different meanings—it is not ambiguous, even ‘systematically’.9

7. Inwagen, ‘Meta-Ontology’, Erkenntnis, 48, 1998, pp. 233–250.

8. Austin, Philosophical Papers, 2nd edn., Oxford 1970, p. 71.

9. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, Oxford 1962, p. 64. Italics in the text.

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The doctrine that being, and perhaps also existence, are at leastnot univocal, if not equivocal, is distinctive of Aristotle. He refersto it several times,10 in the most part of which he never bringsany argument in defence of this doctrine. By so doing, Aristotlegives the impression of considering the doctrine perfectly evident,though he was clearly persuaded of being the first philosopherwho discovered this truth. In the whole Corpus Aristotelicumthere is—as far as I know—only one passage where Aristotlemakes an attempt to prove that being is not univocal. This isMetaphysics B 3, 998b22–27. This is an astonishing situation, butjust for this reason the passage is worthy of some attention,greater than that which is usually reserved to it even by Aristot-le’s interpreters.

II

The meanings of being in Aristotle. As is well known, Book B ofAristotle’s Metaphysics is entirely devoted to the discussion ofthe aporiai, i.e. of the main difficulties, of first philosophy. Theseventh of these aporiai concerns the Platonic doctrine that themost universal genera, i.e. Being (to on) and One (to hen), are thefirst principles of all things. Aristotle criticizes it by observingthat ‘it is not possible for either One or Being to be a genus ofthings’ (992b22).11 We will examine Aristotle’s reasons for thisthesis later on. For the moment I would like to point out thatnot only Being, which includes, as we will see, existence, but alsoOne, i.e. the notion to which existence is reduced in the Quineantendency, are not univocal, because they are not a single genus.

We might wonder why Being and One cannot be a singlegenus. Aristotle provides us with a reason for this in Metaph. B3,998b23–24: ‘It is necessary both for the differences of each genusto be and for each of them to be one.’ It is evident that the verb‘to be’ is used in this sentence with an existential meaning. Thisis, in fact, the only meaning of ‘to be’ which can be predicated ofall things, and therefore also of the differences between the speciesof a genus, as Aristotle makes clear a couple of lines before

10. Aristotle, Metaphysics Γ 2, 1003a33; E 4, 1028a5; Z 1, 1028a10; N 2, 1089a7.

11. Translation by A. Madigan (Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Books B and K 1–2, Oxford1999) with some modifications.

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(998b21). When we say, for instance, that ‘man is a rationalanimal’, we mean that man is an animal with a difference, i.e.with the property expressed by the word ‘rational’. Now we maysay that this property is, in the sense that it exists, and that it isone, in the sense that it has a unity and can be counted as onedifference among others. Perhaps—but I am not sure of this—by taking together being and being one as predicated of the dif-ferences, Aristotle supposes that they have the same existentialmeaning. If this is true, we could say that he is using the verb ‘tobe’, i.e. ‘to exist’, exactly in the same sense indicated by the Quin-ean tendency, i.e. in the sense of being at least an instance of aclass. But this verb is not univocal for Aristotle: not only can itbe predicated of each genus, but also of the differences of eachgenus of things.

Immediately after, Aristotle explains to us why a term predi-cated of the differences of each genus cannot be a single genus:

It is impossible either for the species of the genus to be predicatedof their own differences or for the genus to be predicated apartfrom its species (998b24–26).

The first point is irrelevant to what Aristotle is proving. Nobodyclaims that Being and One are species, and probably it is madefor the sake of completeness.12 The second point must be under-stood in the sense that it is impossible for the genus to be predi-cated of its own differences, as all interpreters admit.13 It is notclear what ‘apart from its species’ means and no commentator,as far as I know, explains it. Presumably it means that it isimpossible for the genus to be predicated of its differences ‘in theabsence of its species’,14 or ‘instead of being predicated of itsspecies’. We know, in fact, that every genus can be predicated ofits species. But why is it impossible for the genus to be predicatedof its own differences?

As all interpreters admit, the answer to this question is givenin Top. VI 6, 144a32–b3:

12. Aristotle’s Metaphysics, a revised text with introduction and commentary byW. D. Ross, Oxford 1953, I, p. 235.

13. This results also from the Revised Oxford Translation (‘it is not possible for thegenus to be predicated of the differentiae’).

14. This is the translation by C. Shields, Order in Multiplicity: Homonymy in thePhilosophy of Aristotle, Oxford 1999, pp. 247–248.

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It seems that the genus is predicated, not of the differentia, but ofthe objects of which the differentia is predicated. Animal (e.g.) ispredicated of man and ox and other terrestrial animals, not of thedifferentia itself, which we predicate of the species.15

The differentia which we predicate, together with the genus‘animal’, of the species ‘man’ in order to give its definition, is‘rational’. Aristotle claims that the genus ‘animal’ cannot bepredicated of the differentia ‘rational’, i.e. that it is impossibleto say that ‘rational is an animal’. This is impossible for tworeasons:

For if animal is to be predicated of each of its differentiae, thenmany animals ( polla zoia) will be predicated of the species; for thedifferentiae are predicated of the species. Moreover, the differen-tiae will be all either species or individuals, if they are animals; forevery animal is either a species or an individual.

The first argument is not immediately clear. In particular, it isnot clear what is meant by ‘many animals will be predicated ofthe species’, and why Aristotle considers this impossible.16 Theinterpretation I would like to propose goes as follows. If thegenus ‘animal’ could be predicated of its difference ‘rational’,then rational would be an animal, not because it would be ident-ified with animal, but because it would be a particular instanti-ation of the genus ‘animal’. In this case, the genus ‘animal’ wouldenter into the definition of ‘rational’, and ‘rational’ would bedefined as animal with another particular difference.17 Now, asthe genus and the difference must be both predicated of the spec-ies ‘man’, two ‘animals’ would be predicated of this species, i.e.the genus ‘animal’ and the difference ‘animal’, or—as Aristotlehimself says—‘many animals’ ( polla zoia). The animals wouldbe as many as the differences of which the genus ‘animal’ can bepredicated. But in this way only genera, and no difference, would

15. Revised Oxford Translation.

16. See the different interpretations in T. Waitz (Aristotelis Organon graece, Leipzig1844–1846, II, p. 500), W. D. Ross (Aristotle’s Metaphysics, I, p. 235), J. Tricot(Aristote, Organon. V: Les Topiques, Paris 1950, ad loc.), A. Zadro (Aristotele, ITopici, Napoli 1974, p. 485), C. Shields (op. cit., pp. 252–253), Madigan (op. cit., pp.74–75).

17. This case would produce, following a book not yet published by S. Menn on TheAim and the Argument of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which he kindly sent me, a sort ofabsurd regress to the infinite.

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be predicated of the species. There would remain nothing whichcould distinguish the species of the genus from one another. Inother words, if the genus could be predicated of the difference,the difference would become itself a species and would lose itsfunction of distinguishing one species from the other species ofthe genus.

Even in the case in which ‘animal’ would be predicated of‘rational’ without being its genus, but simply as an accident ofit, it would be predicated also of ‘man’, i.e. of the species ofwhich the difference is predicated, in virtue of the logical ruleaccording to which the predicate of a predicate is a predicate ofthe subject (nota notae, nota rei). In any case, Aristotle’s argu-ments ultimately rest on the doctrine of the definition of a speciesby its genus and its differentia, where the genus expresses whatevery species has in common with the other species within thesame genus, and the difference expresses what distinguishes aspecies from the other species of the same genus. If the genuscould be predicated of the difference, either as its genus or as anaccident, then the definition would only indicate the commonaspects of the species, losing what enables it to distinguish themfrom one another. If Aristotle’s arguments are valid, as I havetried to show, we can conclude that his attempt to demonstratethat being is not univocal is successful.

Metaph. B makes it clear that the non-univocity holds bothfor being conceived as existence and for being conceived as unity.The ‘univocacy of number’, invoked by van Inwagen, does nothold among objects belonging to different genera, as is the casewith beings. We cannot, in fact, count the objects contained in aroom if they belong to different genera. We can count, forinstance, persons, tables, chairs, books. In the Aristotelian lan-guage they are all substances. But we cannot count, together withthem, the colours of the tables, the weight of the books, theactions or the feelings of the persons, though we must admit thatany of these things does exist and is at least one instantiation ofits class. In particular, Aristotle said that ‘to be one ... is speciallyto be the first measure of a kind’,18 and that ‘the measure isalways homogeneous with the thing measured: the measure ofspatial magnitudes is a spatial magnitude, and in particular that

18. Aristot. Metaph. I 1, 1052b16–18.

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of length is a length, that of breadth a breadth, that of articulatedsounds an articulate sound, that of weight a weight, that of unitsa unity’.19 This doctrine was endorsed by modern analyticalphilosophers such as P. T. Geach, M. Dummett and C. Wright,and it was attributed by them to one of the founders of thistradition, G. Frege.20

III

The unity of being in Aristotle. But the risk of univocity is notyet completely eliminated. As we are going to see, even in admit-ting the multiplicity of the meanings of being, there is still thepossibility of conceiving one of these meanings as the essence ofbeing, which for Aristotle would be equivalent to admitting theunivocity of being. At the beginning of Metaph. Γ, after statingthat ‘there is a science that investigates being as being’, Aristotleadds that ‘there are many senses in which a thing may be said‘‘to be’’, but they are related to one thing ( pros hen), i.e. onedefinite kind of thing, and are not homonymous’. In order toillustrate this case, he adduces two examples:

Everything which is healthy is related to health, one thing in thesense that it preserves health, another in the sense that it produceshealth, another in the sense that it is a symptom of health, anotherbecause it is capable of it. And that which is medical is relative tothe medical art, one thing in the sense that it possesses it, anotherin the sense that it is naturally adapted to it, another in the sensethat it is a function of the medical art.

This happens also about being, where everything that is said tobe either is a substance (ousia) or is relative to substance:

Some things are said to be because they are substances, othersbecause they are affections of substance, others because they areprocesses towards substances, or destructions or privations orqualities of substance, or productive or generative of substance, orof things that are relative to substance, or negations of some ofthese things or of substance itself (1003a33–b10).

19. Ibid., 1053a24–27.

20. Geach, Reference and Generality. An Examination of some Medieûal and ModernTheories, Ithaca 1980, p. 63; Dummett, Frege. Philosophy of Language, London 1981,p. 547; Wright, Frege’s Conception of Numbers as Objects, Aberdeen 1983, p. 3.

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This situation was considered by Austin as a case of ‘par-onymity’. Paronymity is described in Cat. 1 as different fromboth homonymy, which implies an identical name with differentconnotations, and synonymy, which implies an identical namewith identical connotations. ‘Paronymity—affirms Aristotle—belongs to things that have different names, but derived fromone of them, e.g. when the grammarian gets his name from gram-mar, or the brave gets his name from bravery’ (Cat. 1, 1a12–15).This is not exactly the case of ‘being’, or ‘healthy’, or ‘medical’.In fact, these names remain always the same. However, Austinconsidered the multiplicity of meanings of a word, which are allrelative to one of them, a particular form of paronymity. Hedescribed it as the situation in which ‘a word may possess conno-tations which are partly identical and partly different’. Heexplained this fact as follows:

When we speak of a ‘healthy exercise’ the world ‘healthy’ has aconnotation which is only partly the same as that which it has inthe phrase ‘a healthy body’: a healthy exercise is an exercise whichproduces or preserves healthiness in bodies. Hence healthinessa,when predicated of an exercise, means ‘productive or preservativeof healthinessb ’, i.e. of healthiness in the sense in which it is predi-cated of bodies. Thus ‘healthinessb ’ and ‘healthinessa ’ have conno-tations which are partly identical and partly different.21

Speaking of the word agathon, i.e. ‘good’, Austin argued: ‘Some-times it means x, sometimes ‘‘productive, etc., of x’’ etc.; andclearly it is only the ‘‘nuclear’’ meaning of ‘‘x’’, which is commonto both, with which they are concerned.’22 In his article on ‘Themeaning of a word’, speaking of the word ‘healthy’, Austinwrote: ‘In this case there is what we may call a primary nuclearsense of ‘‘healthy’’: the sense in which ‘‘healthy’’ is used of ahealthy body: I call this nuclear because it is ‘‘contained as apart’’ in the other two senses which may be set out as ‘‘productiveof healthy bodies’’ and ‘‘resulting from a healthy body’’.’ Thesame situation holds—said Austin—also for the word ‘exist’, i.e.being.23 Now, it seems to me that, if the Aristotelian doctrine of

21. Austin, Agathon and eudaimonia in the Ethics of Aristotle’, in PhilosophicalPapers, pp. 1–31, esp. p. 27.

22. Ibid, pp. 27–28.

23. Austin, ‘The meaning of a word’, in Philosophical Papers, p. 71.

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a multiplicity of meanings relative to one meaning were inter-preted in this way, i.e. if substance (ousia) was taken as thenuclear meaning, ‘contained as a part’ in all the other meanings,and ‘common’ to all of them, as suggested by Austin, substancewould become the genus of being and the other meanings wouldbe only specifications of this genus. They would specify the genuswithout modifying it. The genus is in fact the common part ofthe definition, and it is specified by the suitable differences. Iftherefore the definitions of different meanings have a part incommon, and this part is always the same, this part would benecessarily the genus. Moreover, given that the genus is part ofthe essence, substance, conceived as a genus, would be nothingbut an essence, the essence of being, or a part of the essence ofbeing.

But the examples given by Aristotle do not suggest this idea.The different meanings of ‘healthy’ stand in different relations tohealth. Apparently, the relations Aristotle is thinking of are thoseof production, preservation and manifestation of health. Theyare proper to things such as a healthy medicine, a healthy cli-mate, a healthy complexion, which do not belong to the samegenus and do not have the same essence. We cannot say thathealth is the essence of the healthy medicine, or the healthy cli-mate, or the healthy complexion. We must say that health is theproduct of the healthy medicine, or the thing preserved by thehealthy climate, or finally the thing manifested by the healthycomplexion. In all these cases there is surely a relation betweenthe single healthy thing and health. This relation is neverthelessdifferent in each case. The different healthy things cannot there-fore be considered as mere modifications, or qualifications, ofhealth. This is also the case with being, at least in my opinion.Every meaning of being, i.e. every category of being, substance,quality, quantity, relation, time, place, etc., stands in a certainrelation to substance and is said to be in virtue of this relation.But substance is not the essence of quality, quantity, relation,time, place, etc. Nor are these latter mere modifications, or quali-fications, of substance in the sense that they would be substanceswith some accidental qualifications: they are other kinds of being,different from substance, though dependent on it.

In the Eudemian Ethics, illustrating the different kinds offriendship, Aristotle himself explains that they are all relative to

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one, which is primary, just as in the case of the word ‘medical’,and adds: ‘Everywhere, then, we seek for the primary. Butbecause the universal is primary, they also take the primary tobe universal, and this is an error’ (Eth. Eud. VII 2, 1236a22–25).The target of his criticism are the Platonists, who took the pri-mary as a universal, i.e. a common aspect, a common predicate,like the genus. According to Aristotle, this is a mistake: the pri-mary meaning of friendship is not the genus of which the othermeanings are the species. ‘The primary is—Aristotle says—thatof which the notion is present in us’ (en hemin), not ‘in the defi-nition of all’ (en pasin), as many interpreters believe.24 Thismeans that the primary is only a term of reference, i.e. that towhich the others stand in relation ( pros), and it is common toall just for this reason, and not because it is a universal in con-formity with which (kata) the others are said.

Interpreters do not completely agree with one another on thispoint. In a famous article entitled ‘Aristotle and the Ambiguityof Ambiguity’, Hintikka distinguishes three cases: the case inwhich the multiple applications of a term have totally differentdefinitions (homonymy), the case in which the multiple appli-cations of a term have totally identical definitions (synonymy),and finally the case in which the multiple applications of a termhave definitions which are partly identical and partly different.According to Hintikka, this last case is that of being. This isdescribed by Aristotle sometimes by the relation of its appli-cations to one central point ( pros hen), and sometimes by theaffirmation that their definitions are derivable from each other‘by adding to and taking away’.25

There is a passage of Metaph. Z 4 which illustrates the lattersituation, and which Hintikka quotes in support of his interpret-ation. It reads:

Essence (to ti en einai) will belong, just as the ‘what’ (to ti estin)does, primarily and in the simple sense to substance, and in a sec-ondary way to the other categories also—not essence simply, butthe essence of a quality or of a quantity. For it must be either

24. This is the text of all the manuscripts, while en pasin is a correction made byBonitz.

25. Hintikka, ‘Aristotle and the Ambiguity of Ambiguity’, Inquiry, 2, 1959, pp. 137–151, esp. 142.

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homonymously that we say that they are, or by making qualifi-cations or abstractions ( prostithentas kai aphairountas) (in the wayin which what is not known may be said to be known)—the truthbeing (to ge orthon) that we use the word neither homonymouslynor in the same sense, but just as we apply the word ‘medical’when there is a reference to one and the same thing, not meaningone and the same thing, nor yet speaking homonymously; for apatient and an operation and an instrument are called medicalneither homonymously nor in virtue of one thing, but with refer-ence to one thing ( pros hen) (1030a29–b3).

In this passage it is not clear whether the use of the verb to be‘by making qualifications or abstractions’ coincides or not withthe use of this verb with reference to one and the same thing. Inthe first case, the meaning of being in the other categories (qual-ity, quantity, etc.) would be the result of a qualification of themeaning that being has when it is used for substance. Substancewould be the purest instance of being, i.e. its essence, and whatis associated with the other categories would be substance with orwithout some further qualification. In the second case, substancewould be only the term of reference for the other categories, i.e.the thing to which they stand in relation, without being theiressence. It seems to me that Aristotle does not identify the twouses of being. The example Aristotle adduces to illustrate ‘bymaking qualifications or abstractions’, i.e. ‘the way in whichwhat is not known may be said to be known’, coincides withwhat is mentioned some lines before, i.e. with the case of thepeople who say that that which is not is (1030a25–26). Now,Aristotle himself qualifies these people as speaking ‘in a mereverbal way’ (logikos), and contrasts them—I suppose—with ‘thetruth’ (to ge orthon), which consists in using the word neitherhomonymously nor in the same sense, but just as we apply theword ‘medical’.26

A further clarification of Aristotle’s doctrine of being wasoffered by G. E. L. Owen in his paper entitled ‘Logic and meta-physics in some earlier works of Aristotle’. He introduced the

26. This interpretation was in part suggested to me by Paolo Fait in a seminar onAristotle held in Padua in April 2000. It is present also in Notes on Book Zeta ofAristotle’s Metaphysics, ed. by M. Burnyeat and others, Oxford 1979. In favour ofthe identification of the two uses is clearly oriented the commentary of M. Frede andG. Patzig, Aristoteles ‘Metaphysik Z’, Text, Ubersetzung and Kommentar, Munchen1988, II, pp. 70–71.

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expression ‘focal meaning’ to describe the first of the meaningsof a word said in many senses, but all relative to one of them.27

This is much better than ‘nuclear meaning’: it does not presup-pose that the first meaning is a part of the others, but indicatesthat it is only the focus, i.e. the term of reference, of the others.Nevertheless, the way Owen describes focal meaning turns outto be fairly close to what was already suggested by Austin.According to Owen, in fact, a sense of a word is primary ‘inthat its definition reappears as a component in each of the otherdefinitions’. He speaks of a ‘reductive translation’ about therelation between the definition of substance and the definitionsof the other categories, explaining that ‘all the senses of on mustbe defined in terms of ousia, substance’.28 Finally, he makes itclear that this is the relation of ‘logical priority’, i.e. priority inlogos or definition. All these expressions could be applied also tothe genus, which is also contained in the definition of the species,and therefore is logically prior in respect to it.

Logical priority as well as natural priority, or priority in being,is ascribed to substance in Metaph. Z 1. Here Aristotle says thatsubstance is prior ‘in notion’ (toi logoi) to the other categories,because ‘in the definition of each term the notion of the substancemust be present’ (1028a35–36). Given that, as we know that sub-stance is prior to the other categories not as the genus in con-formity with which (kata) they are said, but as the principle towhich they stand in relation ( pros),29 the logical priority of sub-stance must be interpreted in a particular way, which does notresult from Owen’s interpretation. Even the natural, or ontologi-cal, priority of substance in respect to the other categories mustbe different from that of the genus in respect to the species. Thislatter is presumably the ontological priority admitted by Plato(cf. Metaph. ∆ 11, 1019a1–6), but it is explicitly distinguished by

27. Owen, ‘Logic and metaphysics in some earlier works of Aristotle’, in I. Duringand Owen (eds.), Aristotle and Plato in the mid-fourth century, Goteborg-Stockholm-Uppsala 1960, pp. 162–190, repr. in Owen, Logic, science, and dialectic: Collectedpapers in Greek philosophy, Ithaca, N.Y. 1986, pp. 180–199.

28. Ibid., p. 184 and n. 16. The ‘reductionist’ tendency of these expressions wasstrongly criticised by W. Leszl, Logic and metaphysics in Aristotle, Padova 1970. Itwas also corrected by Owen himself in his later articles.

29. Substance is called a ‘principle’ (arche) in Metaph. Γ 2, 1003 b 6, and the thingssaid ‘in conformity with one’ (kath’hen) are distinguished from the things said ‘inrelation ( pros) to one nature’ at 1003b12–14.

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Aristotle from the priority of substance in respect to the othercategories (ibid).

The claim of Metaph. Z 1 that substance is not only that whichis ‘primarily’ (to protos on), but also that which is ‘simply’(haplos) rather than being something (ou ti on) (1028a30), mightappear to pose a problem for this interpretation. The expression‘which is simply’, as opposed to ‘being something’, might suggestthat substance is pure being, without qualifications, perhaps pureexistence, i.e. the essence of being, or the essence of existence.This interpretation was advanced in the German translation ofFrede and Patzig: ‘Das, was primar Seiendes und nicht nur inbestimmter Hinsicht, sondern uneingeschrankt Seiendes, dieousia ist.’ On the basis of this translation, in fact, substance turnsout to be ‘unlimited being’, which seems to be the being foressence, the essence itself of being.

IV

Being and primary substance. This interpretation is suggested alsoby another contribution of Patzig and Frede, concerning therelation between substance in general and the primary kind ofsubstance, i.e. unmovable substance. In an article concerning therelationship between ontology and theology in Aristotle’s Meta-physics, Gunther Patzig, apparently ignoring the contributions ofAustin and Owen, employed paronymity not only to explain thedependence of the other categories on substance, i.e. the unity ofontology, but also to explain the dependence of the various kindsof substance on unmovable substance.30 For Patzig, not only isbeing used in many senses, all referred to one of them, i.e. tosubstance, but also substance is used in many senses. Substancemay mean three kinds of things, the movable and corruptiblesubstance (the sublunar bodies), movable and incorruptible sub-stance (the heavenly bodies), and finally unmovable substance(the movers of the spheres). This last substance is the cause ofthe others, and it is ‘first’ and a ‘principle’ with regard to them.Therefore, on the basis of the rule stated by Aristotle at Metaph.Γ 2, 1003b16–17 (‘Everywhere science deals chiefly with that

30. Patzig, ‘Theologie und Ontologie in der Metaphysik des Aristoteles’, Kant-Stud-ien, 52, 1960–1961, pp. 185–205.

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which is primary, and on which the other things depend, and invirtue of which they get their names’), the science of substance isprimarily the science of this substance. This is the reason whyAristotle calls it theology. But, as the science of substance, invirtue of the paronymy of being qua being, is also the science ofbeing, theology would coincide with ontology, and it would be‘universal in this way, because it is first’ (Metaph. E 1, 1026a30–31).

Patzig founded this interpretation on many passages whereAristotle actually says that unmovable substance is a ‘principle’(Metaph. Λ 7, 1072b11–14: arche) and is ‘first’ (Metaph. Λ 8,1073a30: prote). The first mover—says Patzig—is the paronymicprinciple of all the substances, ‘the substance of the substances’.First philosophy is first not because it comes before the others(on the contrary, it comes last). Nor is it first because of thedignity of its object. First philosophy is first because it is thescience of first substance. In this way we can explain the doublecharacterization of first philosophy as ontology and as theology.This results in a unique and consequential process of thinking,which goes from books A–E to book Λ of the Metaphysics, evenif in books Z–Θ, which for Patzig are posterior, paronymy isreplaced by analogy.31

The same interpretation has been recently endorsed, andfurther developed, by Michael Frede.32 In light of the article ofOwen, Frede no longer speaks of paronymity but of ‘focal mean-ing’. He shows no hesitation in affirming that substance is thefocal meaning of being, and that unmovable substance is thefocal meaning of substance, and therefore of being as a whole.In his interpretation unmovable substance, i.e. divine substance,would be the particular way of being, ‘in terms of which all otherways of being have to be explained’. Unmovable substance wouldbe nothing but the focal way (or sense) of being. Apparently,Frede extends the use of the notion of focal meaning as it wasdefined by Owen, that is to say as implying logical as well asontological (or natural) priority. He makes use of this notion

31. In the English translation of his article, published in J. Barnes, M. Schofield andR. Sorabji, Articles on Aristotle, vol. III, London 1973, pp. 33–49, Patzig corrects hisinterpretation, distinguishing paronymy from ‘focal meaning’ and founding the unityof metaphysics only on the latter.

32. Frede, Essays in Ancient Philosophy, Minneapolis 1987, pp. 81–95.

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to describe both the relation between substance and the othercategories and the relation between unmovable substance and theother kinds of substance. The expression ‘in terms of which’seems in fact to be used to describe the situation in which a cer-tain notion is contained in another, i.e. precisely a situation oflogical priority.

Frede is aware that in Aristotle’s texts this thesis is notexplicitly stated. Nevertheless he thinks that it is implied in whatAristotle affirms about sensible substance in book Z of Meta-physics. Here, as it is well known, Aristotle identifies ‘substantialform’—the expression is used by Frede—with ‘first substance’,i.e. with the substance ‘in terms of which the substantiality ofthe sensible substances has to be explained’. Now, unmovablesubstances are nothing but substantial forms separated frommatter; they have therefore the same type of substantiality asbelongs to substantial forms. They are prior, as substances, tosensible ones, and ‘we shall achieve a full understanding of thesubstantiality of sensible substances only when we have under-stood the substantiality of non-sensible substances’. The con-clusion that Frede proposes, on the basis of a passage whereAristotle says that simple and actual substance, i.e. God, is thefirst intelligible object (Metaph. Λ 7, 1072a26), is that ‘ultimatelynothing is intelligible unless it is understood in its dependence onGod’. In the light of this it is clear that Frede is ready to acceptthat God is not only ontologically but also logically prior toother beings.

This is confirmed by his presentation of the entire Aristotelianontology in terms of a ‘scale of perfection’ in which the lowerforms of being somehow imitate higher forms of being: on theone hand, animals procreate in order to imitate the eternity ofthe heavens, and by so doing to secure eternity for their ownspecies; on the other, the heavens eternally rotate in order toimitate, as they can, the unchanging nature of the unmovablemover. Unmovable movers—continues Frede—are ‘beings in aparadigmatic way, in that they are perfectly real’, and the separ-ate substances are ‘paradigmatic as substances’ because they havethe necessary qualifications for substantiality, which are to be thelast subject of predication and also to be separate. In this waygeneral metaphysics has as its core the study of the way of beingof the divine substances, and ultimately coincides with theology.

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It seems to me that this is a Platonic rather than Aristotelianconception of being, or in any case it is the result of an interpret-ation of Aristotle in a Platonizing or even Neoplatonizing vein.33

The relation of imitation that it establishes among the variousways of being is in fact the same as the relation which Platoadmits between Ideas and sensible things. This can be supportedonly by some Aristotelian texts, being in contrast with others. Itis true that Aristotle considers procreation as an imitation of theeternity of the heavens (De Gen. Corr. II 10, 336b32–337a7; Dean. II 4, 415a26–b2). But Aristotle never says that the circularmotion of the heavens is an imitation of the immobility of theunmovable mover. This is only an interpretation of his thought,whose Platonizing character was already denounced byTheophrastus, who attributed the conception of heaven’s desireas imitation of the unmovable mover to ‘people who admit theOne and the numbers’, i.e. the Platonists.34 Aristotle, on the con-trary, sharply criticizes the exemplaristic, i.e. ‘paradigmatic’,causality of those separate substances which are Platonic Ideas,and therefore also their utility for understanding sensible sub-stances, affirming for instance that the cause of Achilles is notthe universal man, who does not exist, but Peleus, i.e. his efficientcause, and ‘of you, your father’ (Metaph. Λ 5, 1071a21–22).

Frede’s interpretation, for its tendency to consider the caus-ality of unmovable substances in terms not only of ontologicalbut also of logical priority, ultimately depends on analytical phil-osophy, that is to say on the analysis of ontological relations onlyin terms of logico-linguistical relations, whose model is Owen’sanalysis of ‘focal meaning’. At least in this case there is a singularconvergence with Platonism. The results of Frede’s interpretationare exactly the same as those obtained, 50 years ago, by a wellknown Thomist interpreter of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Father J.Owens, a pupil of E. Gilson in the Pontifical Institute of Medi-aeval Studies in Toronto, who belonged to that stream whichemphasizes the Platonic and Neoplatonic elements of Thomism.In his book of 1951, on The Doctrine of Being in the AristotelianMetaphysics, Owens claimed that between sensible and separate

33. This has been noted also by an Italian scholar who shares the interpretation ofFrede, P. Donini, La Metafisica di Aristotele: Introduzione alla lettura, Firenze 1995,p. 101.

34. Theophrastus, Metaph. 7, 5a25–27.

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substance there is the same relation of pros hen legesthai whichexists between the other categories and substance, and that thislatter (called by him ‘entity’), in its primary instance, is the form,which can be the form of a compound or a pure, i.e. separate,form.35 Owens too, like most Platonizing interpreters, consideredthe causality of the unmovable mover as an exemplaristic caus-ality, affirming that the heavens move circularly in order to imi-tate the immobility of the unmovable mover.36

What is doubtful in the interpretation proposed by Patzig andFrede, at least to my mind, is that unmovable substance is logi-cally prior to the other kinds of substance. I do not see howthe definition of movable substance can contain the notion ofunmovable substance. There is only one passage which could goin this direction. In Metaph. Λ 7, 1072a27–32, Aristotle affirmsthat ‘the primary (ta prota) objects of desire and thought are thesame’, and that they are ‘the substance which is simple and existsactually’. This substance—Aristotle adds—like all the terms ofthe positive series, is intelligible by itself (noete kath’hauten). Thissurely means that the notion of unmovable substance does notcontain other notions, i.e. that it belongs to the things betterknown by nature, not for us, because it is the farthest from per-ception. Does this imply that the notion of unmovable substanceis contained in the definition of the other substances? The notionof form, or the notion of actuality, is certainly contained in thedefinition of all the other substances. From this we are neverthe-less not entitled to conclude that the definition of separate form,or pure actuality, is contained in the definition of the other sub-stances. It does not seem to me that these notions are withoutqualification, as Frede claims. Separateness and purity areimportant qualifications, which we discover only at the end ofour philosophical research, that is to say after having demon-strated the existence of the unmovable mover.

I can share Frede’s claim that ‘nothing is intelligible unless itis understood in its dependence on God’, but only if by depen-dence we mean ontological, not logical, dependence, and onto-logical in the sense of causal dependence, not in the sense of the

35. Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics, Toronto 1978, pp.395, 457.

36. Cf. also Owens, ‘The Relation of God to the World in the Metaphysics’, in P.Aubenque (ed.), Etudes sur la Metaphysique d ’Aristote, Paris 1978, pp. 207–228.

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Platonic dependence of the species on the genus. I can also sharethe affirmation that God is the being ‘in terms of which all otherways of being have to be explained’, but only if ‘in terms ofwhich’ means ‘in dependence on which’, and the dependence inquestion is ontological in the specified sense. I cannot share theclaim that God is being ‘in a paradigmatic way’. In fact I donot believe that Aristotle admits a relation of exemplarity, i.e. ofimitation, between God and the other substances. This seems tome to belong to the Platonic tradition rather than to Aristotle.What I want to emphasize is that, for Aristotle, to be ‘first’ doesnot mean necessarily to be a model, a perfect exemplar, the high-est degree, the purest instance, but it can also mean a principle,or cause, or moving cause.

V

Aristotle’s rejection of an essence and a substance of being. If pri-mary substance were the purest instance of being, it would be theessence of being. In other words, there should be a substancewhose essence would be being itself. This is the concept of Godas Esse ipsum subsistens, which is present in all the religiousinterpretations of Greek philosophy, i.e. in the Jewish theologyof Philo of Alexandria, in the Muslim theology of Avicenna, andin the Christian theology of Thomas Aquinas.37 In general, thesupporters of this conception do not pay enough attention to thefact that Aristotle not only knew this conception, but ascribed itto Plato and criticized it by arguments which are closely connec-ted to his doctrine of the multiplicity of the meanings of being.His criticism of this conception is once again contained in BookB of the Metaphysics, which is considered by all interpreters asan aporetic, or dialectical book, and presumably for this reasonis not taken seriously.38

In the eleventh aporia of book B, which is said to be ‘the mostdifficult of all even to study and the most necessary for knowl-edge of the truth’, Aristotle asks ‘whether being and one are

37. I cannot here document this affirmation, for which I refer to W. Beierwaltes,Platonismus und Idealismus, Frankfurt a. M. 1972.

38. More than twenty years ago I wrote an article on this subject, which, thoughpublished in an important miscellanea, remained without replies: cf. Berti, ‘Le pro-bleme de la substantialite de l’etre et de l’un dans la Metaphysique’, in P. Aubenque(ed.), Etudes sur la Metaphysique d ’Aristote, pp. 89–130.

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really the substances of beings (ousiai ton onton), and whethereach of them, without being something else, is being or onerespectively, or whether it is necessary to inquire what being andone really are, supposing that another nature underlies them asa subject’ (1001a4–8). He attributes the first opinion to somephilosophers, and the second to others. As supporters of the firstopinion he names Plato and the Pythagoreans, whose doctrinesare described as follows: ‘Plato and the Pythagoreans think thatneither being nor one is something different, but that this is whattheir nature is, supposing that its ousia is to be one and being’(1001a9–12). In Aristotle’s language ousia means not only ‘sub-stance’ but also ‘essence’, and this last meaning should be pre-ferred when the term is followed by the genitive (ousia ofsomething). But if so, we must conclude that, for Aristotle, Platoand the Pythagoreans conceived of being and one as substances,whose essence was respectively to be being and to be one.

Aristotle’s criticism of the second opinion, which he ascribesto Empedocles, ultimately rests on arguments which have senseonly from an Academic, i.e. Platonic, point of view. After thiscriticism, Aristotle goes back to the first opinion, which hereformulates in the following way: ‘If there exists some one itself(auto hen) and being, then one and being are necessarily theirsubstance (ousia). For nothing different is predicated of themuniversally, but rather they themselves’ (1001a27–29). Aristotlenormally uses the pronoun ‘itself ’ (auto) to designate PlatonicForms.39 In the following line he applies it also to being (autoon). Also in the light of this it seems that he is thinking of Platorather than the Pythagoreans, and that he is ascribing to Plato adoctrine which considers Being itself, i.e. the Form of being, andOne itself, i.e. the Form of one (it is not clear whether theycoincide or not), as the substances, i.e. the formal causes, of allbeings. This corresponds partially to the doctrine of the One andthe indefinite Dyad as principles of all things, ascribed to Platoin book A of the Metaphysics.

What is most interesting is the criticism which Aristotleaddresses to this doctrine:

But on the other hand, if there is to be some being itself (auto on)and one itself (auto hen), there is much aporia about how anything

39. Cf. Madigan’s commentary to Metaph. B already quoted, p. 111.

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different will exist alongside them: I mean, how beings will be morethan one. For that which is different from being is not. So, in linewith the argument of Parmenides, the necessary consequence isthat all beings are one and that this is being (to on). But either wayit is difficult (1001a29–b1).

Notice that the sentence ‘that which is different from being isnot’ is justified only ‘in line with the argument of Parmenides’,i.e. only if we admit that being has only one meaning, the doc-trine that Aristotle usually ascribes to Parmenides.40 Ross thinksthat here Aristotle is not justified in ascribing to Plato the Par-menidean notion of being, for this reason: ‘For Parmenides it [toon] means ‘‘what is’’, i.e. the universe; for the Platonists it means‘‘being’’, i.e. the attribute of existence. It is this abstraction thatthey make a substance, and there is nothing in this to preventtheir recognizing other substances.’41

But Aristotle’s interpretation of Plato’s notion of being is notwithout reasons. Elsewhere he says that the Platonists admittedtwo principles, i.e. the One and the indefinite Dyad, because

they frame the difficulty in an old-fashioned way (aporesaiarchaikos), for they thought that all things that are would be one—viz. Being itself (auto to on), if one did not join issue with andrefuted the saying of Parmenides: ‘For never will this be proved,that things that are not are.’ They thought it necessary to provethat that which is not is; for thus—of that which is and somethingelse—could the things that are be composed, if they are many(Metaph. N 2, 1089a1–6).

Apparently, the Platonists thought that, if we do not admit twoprinciples, i.e. the One and the Dyad, which are equivalent toBeing and Not-being, we are not able to account for the multi-plicity of things. The reason for this is that Parmenides as wellas the Platonists conceived being as having only one meaning.The objection that Aristotle immediately addresses to them isthat ‘being has many senses’ (1089a7). But if being has manysenses, there is no need of another principle opposed to it, i.e.not-being, to account for the multiplicity of things.

40. Cf. Madigan, ibid., p. 113. Apparently, the Aristotelian criticism of the existenceof a being itself is shared by J. Owens, ‘The Content of Existence’, in M. Munitz(ed.), Logic and Ontology, New York 1973, pp. 21–35.

41. Ross, op. cit., I, p. 245.

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Plato conceived being as having only one meaning because heconceived it as a genus, that is to say as an universal predicateexpressing only what is common to all things, i.e. only a singleaspect of things. This was, in fact, the condition for conceivingit as a separate Form, i.e. Idea. And this was also the conditionfor conceiving being and one as the essence of a substance, i.e.being itself (ipsum esse subsistens) and one itself (ipsum unum sub-sistens). In conclusion, if primary substance is the essence ofbeing, being must be understood univocally. If being has anessence, it is this essence. It cannot be many essences. But this isimpossible; because we see many things, and their differences areexisting and each of them is one. This is the core of Aristotle’scriticism of Plato as it is expounded in Metaph. B 4. This criti-cism ultimately rests on the argument offered in Metaph. B 3,and the view that Being and One cannot be genera.

Department of PhilosophyUniûersity of PaduaI 35139 Padoûa (Italy)