Gillespie, The Aristotelian Categories, 1925

7/29/2019 Gillespie, The Aristotelian Categories, 1925

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The Aristotelian Categories

Author(s): C. M. GillespieSource: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1925), pp. 75-84Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/635916

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THE ARISTOTELIAN CATEGORIES.THE precise position to be assigned to the Categories in the Aristotelian systemhas always been somewhat of a puzzle. On the one hand, they seem to be workedinto the warp of its texture, as in the classification of change, and Aristotle can arguefrom 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 ofhis logic and in his constructive metaphysic they retire into the background, giving

place to other notions, such as causation, change, actuality and potentiality. Investi-gation has, moreover, been hampered, especially in Germany, by attempts to cor-relate them with the Kantian Categories, with which they have obvious points ofcontact. But Kant's formal a priori concepts by which the mind makes for itselfa world, to use Mr. Bosanquet's phrase, imply an attitude to knowledge and realityso utterly opposed to the Aristotelian that the comparison has tended to confusionrather than elucidation. Scholars now realize better that the Aristotelian Categoriescan only be understood in connexion with the problems of Aristotle's own age.The best general account of the Categories known to me is that given by Maier,'who accepts the interpretation of Apelt 2 in its main lines, correcting it in someimportant points. It is the great merit of Apelt to have firmly grasped the principlethat, whatever the applications to which Aristotle put the scheme of the Categories,it is primarily connected with the use of linguistic thought to make assertions aboutreality and hence with the proposition, the judgment as expressed in language. Indetails, I think, he is misled by the associations of post-Kantian logic, which preventhim from entering fully into the attitude adopted by the early Greek logic towardsthe fact of assertion.In view of the undoubted fact that the scheme of the Categories follows thelines of Socratic-Platonic thought, Gercke's suggestion 3 is tempting that it originatedin the Academy. Gercke, whose own view of the Categories is strongly coloured byKantianism, relies almost entirely on the greater point given to the arguments inthe Ethics against the Idea of the Good if we suppose them to accuse Plato ofinconsistency with his own doctrine of the Categories. Except as supplementingstrong independent evidence an argument of this kind carries no weight. The caseis certainly weakened if it can be shown that Aristotle uses the Categories to solve aphilosophical problem in explicit opposition to the solution offered by the Academy.This can be done, I think. In Metaph. N. 2. lo88 b 18 he sets the Categoriesagainst Platonist doctrine. He is criticizing the idpto-Trosvs,, and traces the originof this conception to T- o-opyo-at dpXa'KK-: the Platonists found it necessary toattack the Parmenidean dictum and establish the existence of To' I `v (cf. Plato,Sophist 237 A, 256 D). But how will this account for the plurality of being (roa ,yap 07-t ova-ta "/.Lacal, 7-6SE'6207-t rotoV, TO" SE 03-t oV,rLc y ctXaa KaT?7yoppt'Io89 a 7)? In the corresponding passage of the Physics (I. 2. 184 b 15 sqq.)Aristotle solves the Parmenidean difficulty through the multiplicity of the Categories(186 a 25), and alludes to the inadequacy of the Academic solution (187 a i).

1 Maier, Die Syllogistik des Aristoteles, II. 277sqq.2 0. Apelt, Beitrdgezur Geschichte ergriechischenPhilosophie, 1891, pp. lo6 sqq.

3 A. Gercke, Ursprung der aristotelischenKate-gorien,Archiv fir Geschichteder Philosophie, 1891,Vol. IV., pp. 424 sqq.


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76 C. M. GILLESPIEThe inference to be drawn from these passages, in conjunction with thechapter in the Ethics on which Gercke relies, is the negative one that Plato and hissuccessors in the Academy did not apply the scheme of the Categories to the

fundamental philosophical questions of Being and Good. Positive evidence must besought in another aspect of the doctrine. Now the Topicsexhibits the Categories inintimate association with dialectical logic. The work itself purports to codifymethods in regular use but not hitherto systematically treated. That these methodswere employed in the Academy is amply attested by the Platonic dialogues.1Further, as the Topics and particularly the Sophistici Elenchi show, they weredeveloped in close connexion with the eristic logic of Antisthenes and the Megarians.This fact at once establishes a contact with the treatment of the problem 'one thing,many names' in Plato's Sophist(251 A). This difficultywas removed by drawing adistinction between differentkinds of being, and Aristotle himself regards it as finallydisposed of by the doctrine of the Categories. That some of the kinds of beingincluded in the scheme were already recognized in the Academy is plain. In theTopics r~ rrpd's ' have a number of their own -dwro&, nd the varieties of rrpds T&enumerated in the Categoriesollow closely on the lines of division in the Charmides.2Much of the matter of the Topicsmust have been common to Academy and Lyceum.But this is not to say that the Categories as a complete and exhaustive schemebelonged to the Academy. Eudemus (apud Simplicius, Phys. I., p. 97. 25 Berlin)tells us that Plato solved the difficultiesof Lycophron and others by a dual distinctionof being.I shall accordingly assume in what follows that the scheme of the Categorieswas evolved in the course of efforts to establish a doctrine of judgment which shouldsettle the difficultiesraised by Megarian and other critics; that the applicationto thesolution of the larger metaphysical problems was a later development ;3 that thefoundations of the scheme were laid in the Socratic tradition of the Academy; thatthe completed scheme is probably Aristotle's own; and that the original workingout of the scheme did not contemplate extension beyond the metaphysics implied inpredicationto the more fundamental metaphysics of the First Philosophy. Hencewe must look to the analysis of empirical propositions for the origin of the scheme.Now if we examine the scheme itself, we find three aspects of it to havespecial significance :(a) The first is the distinction between predication KaTa (T-V/5fEfPqKOS andpredication KaO'aErd.' MovCrTK6s may be ypaL1-aTcK g, but only Kacr' OXXo, iz.:uaKaXlasg; KaXXlas is ypaCppaT'KsKaO' aro'dv. This distinction provides the firstcondition of scientific predication,and is regarded as of fundamental importance byAristotle, who prefaces his accounts of such notions as unity and being withreferences to the accidental uses of these terms (Metaph. A 6, 1015 b 16 ; 7, IoI7 a 7).(b) Closely connected with the previous distinction is the doctrine that all theCategories. (including ovcrlaas predicate) imply a brrOKE[J'LEVOV,which is the point ofreal connexion between the predicates, and provides the basis of their coexistence.The Categories classify the rroXXa d3v6pora which we apply to the ~risJvOpworoq(Sophist251 A), and give expression to the fact that he does not lose his unity in theprocess.

1 Analysis of the arguments in the Charmidesshows that nearly all make use of r6rot dealt withby Aristotle in the Topics.2 Cf. with Categ. 6 a 36 sqq., Charmides,168 A.The list in Rep. 437 B is the same and in thesame order.3 Here I follow Maier.4 See the distinction of OvKaRTrVL9EfLK6t nd

av KaO' afr6, Metaph. A 7, 1017 a 7 sqq. Apelt'sequation of 6V KaO'arTd and rTbKtar&~rslayv a o.E-7rXoK'v Xey6gLEVOOP. cit., p. 117) is manifestlywrong. KaO' or KaO'arTbimeans that the deter-mination attaches to the subject in respect of thesubject itself and not in respect of the determina-tion. See KaO'0 and KaO'a1r6, Metaph. A 18, 19,1022 a 14 sqq.


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THE ARISTOTELIAN CATEGORIES 77(c) Furthermore, all direct relations of implication and incompatibility liewithin the Categories severally. They are, so to say, independent variables. Therelation of genus to species is everywhere confined within the limits of a category,and so is the relation of contrary opposition. This suggests a close connexion withthe Platonic OStaLperoE,hich, as we know from the Sophist and the Politicus and fromAristotle, was so prominent in the Platonic conception of scientific method.The intimate connexion between the Categories and the Predicables providesan invaluable clue to the meaning of the Categories. For in the Topicswe are toldthat both of these schemes are the principal instruments in the equipment of thedialectician, and they are used in constant conjunction throughout the detaileddiscussions of that work.1 Whether the extant treatise on the Categories e the workof Aristotle himself or of a later member of the Lyceum, the close general cor-respondence between its point of view and that of the Topicsentitles us to use it asan authority for the official doctrine of the school.2 Now the Topicsis a practical

manual of Dialectic to be compared with the Tr~Xvacf Rhetoric ;3 and internalevidence shows that the dialectical practices there codifiedare at least predominantly,if not exclusively, those of the Platonic tradition. We may, therefore, see a closeconnexion between the scheme of the Categories and the technique of the Platonicdialectic. This technique embodied the logic of the Academy in large measure, andwas the forerunner of the Aristotelian syllogism, leaving its clearly discernibletraces in the scientific syllogism of the PosteriorAnalytics.If we are to understand the dialectical logic, we must bear in mind that it wasdeveloped in connexion with the practice of dialectical discussion, which demandedrules of debate so that it should not lapse into aimless conversation. Some of theserules determined the procedure, such as those which defined the privileges andduties of questioner and answerer.4 Others were of a more strictly logical nature.But this logic was clothed in the dress appropriate to the occasion, and logicaldistinctions themselves were drawn in a form close to the untechnical speech ofeveryday life. Thus in Plato definition is simply the answer to the question r o10t,carefully limited; the technical name for the process, 'pu-/o's, seems of later date.The ancient commentators on the Categories5 istinguished three relations as impliedin the logical judgment: (i) A relation asserted between things; (2) a relationbetween the terms as verbal signs (cowval); (3) a relation between ideas in the mindof him who forms the judgment. These three relations were in ancient timesregarded as parallel. The third is recognized by Aristotle as a O-vOErLs vo0rydrowv,but is treated merely as a ' psychological presupposition 6 of the logical propositionor judgment as expressed in words, which is the subject of logical analysis. So in

1 See Topics . 4-9, ioi b ii sqq. The pre-dicables and the categories together constitute,repl Cv oi X yo rKai d V, 103 b 39; the materialhas to be organized on this basis before it can beused in argument. The close correspondencebetween Topics and Categories s illustrated, interalia, by the fact that the commonest i-rrot,EK Tro

M&XXova' 770rovnd eSlvic-rlwy are supplementedin the Categoriesby discussions how far these dis-tinctions are to be recognized in several cate-gories.2 No satisfactorygroundsfor the rejectionofthe Categorieshave been adduced. The discrep-ancies with other works of the Corpus, e.g. theMetaphysics,are explicable on the hypothesis thatthis is an early work, of the same horizon as theTopics. The confusion between thought andverbal expression observable in some passages

suggests immaturity of logical development.3 Soph. El. 183 b 25 alludes to the rdtXvaLfTisias and other rhetors, and claims to be doingfor Dialectic what they did for Rhetoric.4 The sixth book of the Topics lays down theetiquette for questioner and answerer: the treat-ment implies a strict separation of these r6les.The complaint of Thrasymachus in Republic337 A that Socrates will ask, but not answer,questions may perhaps point to a conventionestablished in the Socratic schools.5 Simplicius in Categ., pp. 9 sqq., Kalbfleisch.6 The phrase is Meinong's. Meinong's Gegen-standstheorieis useful in its recurrence to thethoroughly objective and realistic attitude towardsknowledge which distinguishes ancient frommost modern thought.

F


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78 C. M. GILLESPIEPlato thought is described as inner speech (Sophist 263 A). Moreover, as therelation in thought tends to be merged in the relation in language, so the latter tendsto have incorporatedin it objective relations between things. The formal analysisof propositionand syllogism in the PriorAnalyticsuses the logical term mainly in itsaspect of class-denotation; but we do not hear of logical terms in the Topics,whichrepresents a less developed stage of logical analysis. There subjects and predicatesare distinguished according to the real relations between things which are classifiedin the schemes of the Categories and the Predicables. The analysis contained in thePrior Analyticspresupposes the use of symbols and diagrams; the earlieranalysis isone that would develop in the process of dialectical discussion, with a markedemphasis on the vital importance of definition. Its nomenclature starts from thesimple distinction between names (dv46para)nd things (-rpd'y7ara). At the outsetthe proposition seems to have been considered as primarily giving two names toone thing.1The development of the complementary schemes of Categories and Predicablesseems to have been determined partly by the necessity of overcoming difficultiesarising from the application of Eleatic andquasi-Heracliteanprinciples in the domainof knowledge, partly by the original orientation of the Socratic methodology.The possibility of rational discussion was challenged in the name of strict logicitself. How can I give more than one name to one thing ? A thing is itself, andnot anything else. So I may rationally say ' man is man' and ' white is white'; butI cannot say 'man is white' without an equivocation in the use of the verb to be.2This Eleatizing objection can only be met by an appeal to experience, like theParmenidean rejection of the plurality of existence. Experience shows that withincertain limits many names may be applied to one and the same thing withoutdestroying its concrete unity. In accordance with this fact another kind of' being'must be assumed. The systematic development of this point of view results in thescheme of the Categories.Rational discussion was equally imperilled by the tendency of an infant logic toconfuse names with things and grammatical forms with logical meanings, and sojustify all sorts of absurd inferences. What the trivially ingenious minds of theGreek eristics could do in this line we know from the Euthydemusand the SophisticiElenchi. If the doctrine of Antisthenes reduced the area of significant predicationto so small a compass that all contradiction disappeared, so this other tendencyremoved all criteria of truth and falsehood. To meet a laxity of thinking whichallowed (e.g.) the inference that if Socrates is both Socrates and a man, he is otherthan himself,3 it was necessary to limit systematically the conditions of mutualimplication.The double scheme of Categories and Predicables as a whole centred round theSocratic rt'&-rtv; According to the Socratic method you can only determine thequestion ro'TEpov ?j dpET~ LBaKTZBV oil; when you have defined the term dpET'(Meno70 A). Definition implies the analysis of species into genus and differentia;but &aKrTrvs not related to dpETin either of these ways-how then is it related to

1 The term Karq'yoplain its specially technicalsense of Category goes back to this early way ofregarding the judgment. As Maier shows(against Apelt), op. cit., II. 304n, it primarilyexpresses, not the relation of predicate term tosubject term in the SP proposition of the PriorAnalytics, but the relation of the 6lvoa to itsobject. But Maier himself looks at the matterthrough modern spectacles; he writes: ' DasWort ist Ka-r-'yopla, sofern als Praidikat seiner

Bedeutung, seines Begriffs.' This is too sophisti-cated for a primitive logic. Adam gave namesto things, not to meanings; these things havenatures of their own, signified by the name. Itis wise to avoid speaking of concepts and Begriffein connexion with Plato and Aristotle.2 Sophist 251 A. Cf. MetaphysicsA 29, 1024 b32. See Soph. El. 166, b. 32.


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THE ARISTOTELIAN CATEGORIES 79dpET7 The answer to this question completes the list of the Predicables. TheTopics,which embodies the point of view of dialectical logic, is so dominated by thesystem of the Predicables as to represent organized knowledge in a totally differentlight from the Prior Analytics. That work seems to aim at a progressive series ofsyllogisms after the manner of Euclid, whereas the Tofics sets up as its goal thesystematization of all possible predicates of one and the same subject. Both subjectand predicate are thought of objectively in terms of the objects signified, not interms of the signs, as things and their modifications, their qualities and theirbehaviour.The Tofics and the Platonic dialogues point to an early dialectical logic,realistic in its general attitude and terminology, the traces of which still survive inthe more highly developed system of Aristotelian logic. This dialectical logic workswith four fundamental notions: (i) The -7pa^yua r thing in its empirical setting, ofwhich (2) the 6vola is the verbal sign; (3) the ovo-la r essence of the thing, the thingas it is for analytical thought, of which (4) the Xo'yos r Xo'yos7sn3o-;lag, the definingformula, is the sign in speech. The quadruple distinction is explicitly stated inPlato's Laws, appears again and again in the Platonic dialogues, and is not whollysuperseded in the developed logic of Aristotle.' Its influence may be traced inAristotle's doctrine of definition. In modern formal logic the definition would beresolved into a proposition with a convertible predicate attached to the subjectby the copula. But Aristotle distinguishes the Eo-'rlv f definition from the copula ofthe ordinary proposition: the latter implies that you predicate Ti Kai-d rtvog; but ino avOpwrwo'o-- ov or pov rEbYvt'rovv the o-r71oes not implyr't K ar rtvog, becauseNov r-Ebv 8t'ovv are really part of the -rpypa,because part of its o'o-a. For thesame reason the -roo'vof the 8ta/opcd of anything in the category of ot;ola is properlytreated under ovo-la, and not under the category of 7wodv.2The objective and material character of the early dialectical logic and itspreoccupationwith names is well exhibited in the use made by the Topicsof inherentrelations between terms-e.g. similarity and contrariety. The attention of the earlylogicians was turned to the mutual relationsof implication or incompatibility implieddirectly or indirectly by certain terms. The abstract investigation of the relationsbetween three terms ABP contained in the PriorAnalyticsbelongs to a later stage oflogical development. The Aristotelian treatment of opposition is instructive in thisregard. Of the four varieties enumerated, three-viz. relation, contrariety, '$i&and


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8o C. M. GILLESPIESophist,sought to find in the scheme a classification of primarycosmogonic concepts.But its omission is no more unintelligible than that of causation. For in change isimplied something that changes and has successively opposing predicates attachedto it. The representation of becoming requires two propositions about being. Inpoint of fact, the scheme provides for an exhaustive classification of change from itsown standpoint.Trendelenburg's suggestion that the grammatical parts of speech had at least aconsiderable influence in determining the details of the scheme has been undulydepreciated by later writers. The account of the category of relation especiallyshows that grammatical expression was prominent in the minds of those whoinvented the scheme; and Aristotle himself has to warn his readers that grammaticalform may be a misleading guide in assigning a term to its proper category.' TheCratylusand the Topicssupply abundant evidence that the first workers in the fieldof logic had great difficulty in disentangling logical meaning from verbal expression.The suggestion does not carry us very far; but inasmuch as it connects the schemewith the somewhat pedestrian task of clearing up elementary obscurities in theordinaryuse of thought, and not with any ambitious attempt to find a formula forthe universe, Trendelenburg was on the right track.The suggestion thrown out by several writers2 that the number ten is due toPythagorizing influences appears to me baseless. It is impossible to link up thescheme with the list of ten pairs of contraries attributed by Aristotle to some of thePythagoreans.3 Aristotle's own


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THE ARISTOTELIAN CATEGORIES 81ibid.7, Il7 a 7 sqq., `v llustrated by vOprrosoiKo86ost&KaLoOVO-LKO~.Many otherexamples might be added.Similarly it will be found that a favourite type of proposition used to illustratefallacies in the SophisticiElenchi is that in which the subject is a proper name.If, again, we turn to the passage in Plato's Sophistwhere the question is raisedhow one thing can have many names (251 A), the example is the individual man.Later on in the same dialogue, where the simple proposition is analyzed, theexamples chosen are OEaL'Tq7TOdOlqTaL,OaEcr'rT7SETETaL (263 A).These passages furnish a basis on which to build. I put forward the hypothesisthat the scheme was built up by an investigation, gradually becoming moresystematic, into types of predicates which could be attached to one and the samesubject at one and the same time. It was built up in dialectical discussion, and bya convention (students of Greek methods will have no difficulty in admitting theprobability of a convention in this connexion) one of the company was chosen as theexample (as in Sophist1.c.). Observe that the typical proper names used in logicalexamples in the Topics and other Aristotelian works tend to be taken from theSocratic-Platonic circles--Socrates himself, Callias the art-patron of the Protagoras,Coriscus the Academician.' The choice of the individual man as WOKE/EVOV isnot to be considered fortuitous. For only in the case of human beings was theproper name in use, and the proper name as such is a mere label attached to a' this' and directly implying no 'what,' so that it is normally subject and notpredicate. To refute the critic who denied that many predicates could be assertedof the same thing it was necessary to develop the scheme with an identical subjectthroughout. The Categories how that the official exposition of the scheme in theLyceum took Socrates or Callias or Coriscus as subject, and worked through the liston this basis. Moreover, as the most complete, the most concrete object known, ahuman being would be most suitable for developing an exhaustive scheme ofpredication, since to him alone could moraland many psychological predicates attach.If the scheme is considered in referenceto such a subject as Callias, we can seesomething of a serial order in it; for though Aristotle does not always enumeratethe Categories in the same order, still there is a sort of average order. First wehave the predicates describing him as a whole in the category of substance. Then agroup describing certain qualitative and quantitative aspects of him as he is inhimself. To these have to be added some aspects implying determinate relations toothers; thus rraTrp at first sight might seem a substantive predicate, but if it is soregarded or treated as implying an indeterminate correlative, as in some of theeristic quibbles (e.g., Euthydemus298 B), absurdities follow. Then come twovariable relations to the world around, in place and time: these have to be added inorder to meet such sophistical interpretationsof 1 Ka'/1VW7taLtvEaS imply that healthand illness are not incompatible, for if implicit time-qualifications are inserted, theproposition becomes rdOTEKaILVWVvv LtamVELnd the contradiction disappears.Then, again, Callias as a complex body can vary the position of his limbs relativelyto each other and to the outer space: KEdOat. In a certain extended sense Calliasincludes all that he calls his, things that from another standpoint are outside him,his possessions, and specially the clothes he is wearing, and the instruments he isusing. Lastly, his relations with determinate things in the environment are those ofagent or patient : as surgeon he uses knife or cautery, as patient he has these usedupon his body. Thus in connexion with Callias the Categories present in asystematized and exhaustive form our idea of Callias as a concrete being, a goingconcern in a changing environment.1 Jaeger, Aristoteles, p. 117, suggests that theuse of Coriscus' name as a school-example prob.ably goes back to the time, soon after the death

of Plato, when Aristotle, Coriscus, and otherAcademicians sojourned at Assus.


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82 C. M. GILLESPIEThis hypothesis, that the scheme was originally developed in connexion with anindividual name as the typical subject, seems to provide a satisfactory explanation ofsome of the difficulties and anomalies of the list.Two of the Categories, KEra-OaL and EXELV, have always been a great stumbling-block in the way of interpretation. They are never explicitly mentioned except inthe complete list of the Categoriesand that of the Topics, both of which treatisesbelong to the same plane of thought. The ancient commentators had apparentlynoinformationabout them beyond what is contained in the Categories nd book A of theMetaphysics. As regards their content, the fundamental difficulty is this: all theother categories can be applied quite intelligibly to other objects than men, and areso far free to be used as universal aspects of being. But these two categoriesin respect of the examples given in illustration include only states peculiar to men:

KETOLaU in its examples is simply 'posture' (rather like o-xryjian the medicaltreatises), standing, sitting, reclining; while E'XEWeans wearing shoes or carryingarmour.We have no real evidence for the use of these terms as categoriesn a generalizedsense. KEZ-rOaL,with its correlative 0-crLs,s capable of extension to any materialobject in space: the cup may lie the right way up or on its side or upside down,irrespective of its place as a whole (covered by the category of -rov^).But I know ofno evidence that such determinations would be included by Aristotle under thecategory. The position of the stone relatively to the framework of the doordetermines whether it is to be called VrEwpOvpovr o863s: they differ O6ro-E.l Positionis part of the idea, just as time forms part of the idea of KcatpLos:the analogysuggests that Aristotle is here thinking of the category of KE OOaL. But ultimatelythese distinctions can be resolved into spatial relations, and in any case they do notcarry the implications that standing, sitting, and reclining have for human life.As regards 'XEtL, we have accounts of gts and &8tdEc-trn book A of theMetaphysics. 'E$cs is treated immediately after &OeLo-s?,and both these terms arerecognized in the Categories and elsewhere (Cat. 8 b 26) as 'rodorpreS. But before thiscommon sense of i"gs, the verbal noun correlative with the intransitive meaningof i'XEtV, he writer notices a use connected with the transitive meaning of the verb:tv$A XEYETU E'VaLE" VLE TpllOV OtOV EVEPYEta TV9V EXOVTO1 Kat EVOLE/VOV; &worepD WDCl TV71KLVr/rtLS. &r7av Y~P b JLV 7Z~OL/TO1) TO OE CL&a, E(Tt 7rOt-q0-fIEta1v.Vi)t19 K roy 'xoVrE`0-77aKaiLn7^EXOL;E'vEcr0-t^jTO3GTL LETa$V $Lt. TcLVT-qVLEYOl'Wo,avepov OTLOV-KEVSEXEXTLLEXEt ThV 9?$-' E11 "7POV yap ftLEaL, EL10at EXt"TVlXO

v'TVO aOXELV T'/V ELV (Metaplh.A 20, 1022 b 4 sqq.). The last words are added in order to contrast this sort of lsvwith $?ts as formed faculty, since you can say XE dperV; and as Esk in the lattersense comes under rot'v, the writer may be thinking of the category of E'XEL. Nowthis transitive sense of "'asis unusual; Liddell and Scott contains no examplesexcept this one in Aristotle and several from Plato.2 One of these seems to havesome bearing on the present subject. In Theaetetus197 B a careful distinctionis drawn between KTr^oTand "Sst. 'Err&o-rao-Oathas been defined, says Socrates,as Eirr(rrj~urAt, but he prefers EiWrtT1'JJL-pKTl7o-"L:OV TOtVVV LOL aVTbVcalVETaL7T KEKT O"LL Tb EXELV' O OV LL?LTLOV WptLcEVOd 7TL Kab EyKpaTij~ t V (Li) LOpwV, E6XELV AYV VOKcv abrBv avro, KKTr1Oa ye, ?/jv afEV. "ExELY s wearing clothes in contrast withmerely possessing them. So in Laws 625 C r??v ;v drrAovE$LVmeans the carryzingof arms. When Aristotle describes the active i$s as an ivipyea, has he similarly inmind the actuality of wearing the clothes as contrasted with the potentiality of merepossession?

1 Metaph. H 2, 1042 b 1g.Ross, ad Ar. Metaph. 1022 b 4, gives thefollowing 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 I ; Soph.247 A 5; Laws 625 C.


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THE ARISTOTELIAN CATEGORIES 83In a 23, 1023 a 8 sqq., various meanings of the verb ''XEtVre noted. The firstincludes the case of dress, and apparently seeks to generalize it: E"va .v "rp&0rovbO.7YEV aT&qV a1YTO 7vi ) Ka"Ta7V aVTroVop/lv, ELb ,EyrrVpaoET0 TE EXELVTVavOpwrovCLo rtpatvvoOL7r 7OdXElGatLi'ov G-a ot'dc"rLEXOEVoL.hewordingfthedefinitioneemsevolved n parallelismwith thefourth enseof holdingorsupporting:7TtTbKWAVOV aTa 7V aTOV Opq VTV KLVEUOatL rpaTT . .. OYOV at Ot KtOVESarELKdEL(Eva8api. Other meanings enumeratedare the containing of the form by theXKqr EKTLKOIV,as the brass contains the form of the statue and the body containsdisease, and the containing of the water by the vessel or the population by the city.The common idea found by Aristotle in the examples under the first head is activepossession or, more briefly, use, and there is thus a close connexion between thisEXEtv nd the 2's of the Theaetetus. Both appear brought into conjunction with theCategory through the common examples.I suggest that this is precisely what was meant by the original Category of EXELV.In running through the various items composing your idea of a man, you find oneessential to civilized man and not shared by any other creature-viz. the use ofartefacta, clothes, arms, instruments. This forms a unique class of activities orbases of activities. In course of time the scheme was put to new uses. From beinga sort of working classification of predicates used in connexion with dialecticalpropaedeutic it came to be a groundwork of scientific logic and method, as in theclassification of changes in terms of the four relevant categories. Hence the twocategories KEieOat and EXELV, hich were directly applicable only to mankind, werequietly dropped, or at least relegated to the background.The hypothesis that the scheme originated in connexion with dialectical dis-

cussion accounts for another important feature of it, the nomenclature. For it is tobe observed that six of the categories, all those that are not normally expressed byverbs, have names implying answers to questions. II6o'ovro'&ov rov and 7rTE are obvious.In the category of relation a predicate only becomes precise when the question ?trvo8t&7Xcrtov,80VXo3, TrvLapotov is answered. The category of substance is frequentlydenominated Tb 7T.1 This has no connexion with the i E-rtv of definition (itselfanother example of the derivation of technical terms from questions), for thatrequires a universal as subject.2 It is to be correlated with the common question,'what is Socrates ?' as distinguished from such questions as 'what is he like ?''how tall is he?' As the names are derived from specific forms of question theinference is irresistible that the scheme originated in dialectical practice. We maycompare the change in the technical meaning of rprao-sc, which is the name for adialectical question in the Topicsand becomes the name of a logical proposition in thePrior Analytics.3If the scheme of the Categories had the origin suggested in this paper, we cansee that it had no immediate connexion with the Platonic uCLyoa Yv1 of TaVTbVEEpovV, OrTaOLSKViqO-L. These distinctions cover the whole field of existence andknowledge. Sameness and difference are the fundamental featuresof things regardedfrom the standpoint of knowledge; they are worked out in classification; but theycannot be Categories, because these are in the last resort a detailed account of thedifferencesto be recognized within an empirical subject, so that the distinction ofsameness and difference is a condition of the scheme as a whole. Rest and motionare factors of the universe on the side of reality: from the standpoint of theCategories they imply successive predications of states and positions of the subject.Moreover, they have nothing to do with the metaphysical question of the

1 See the table in Apelt, op. cit., p. 140.2 So Maier, as against Apelt, op. cit., II. 309 n.3 Top. 1. 10, 104 a 8 : f"art 6U rp6ratsc a tXK-TLKtc)pc$7ots gvAooto. An. Pr. I. I, 24 a 16:rp6brais it rt X6yos Ka7ctaoTLKt t drog7r LKdS TLV61KAtreTIP7tV.


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84 THE ARISTOTELIAN CATEGORIESultimate nature of the universal, though they fully recognize its logical validity. Infact some of Plato's characteristic arguments to prove that the universal is distinctfrom the particularimply some of the essential features of the analysis worked outin the system of the Categories. For the primary distinction between the -evaKaXOand -r7 Kakbv s that the former are KaXak rpayt?ua, which as rpcyara have natures(ovar-aL)of their own as faces, men, actions, etc., but partake in the KXooswhich isempirically realized only as an aspect of them.As may be seen, my case proceeds from the assumption that no explanation ofthe origin of the Categories is satisfactory unless it accounts for the inclusion ofKELOrEL and EXELvn the full list, combined with the total absence of reference to themas Categories in any other passage. Hence the only direct evidence that we havefor their meaning is the examples given of them in the Categories. In both cases theexamples seem to imply highly specialized predicates. KEZ-,r0as applicable only tocomplex animal bodies, with mobile limbs controlled by voluntary effort: E'XEV isapplied only to the highest type of animal, having intelligence to make and useclothes and tools for the convenience of life. No other Category is so specialized:the other two dealing with behaviour, viz: action and passion, can be generalized,though of course they take special forms in mankind. Hence it is intelligible thatwhen the Categories are mentioned, those applicable only to certain limited classesof subjects should be omitted. Assume that these two Categories are specialized inthe sense indicated: bear in mind that the usual subject in illustration is theindividual man: observe that the complete list of the Categorieswith the examplesgiven aims at supplying an exhaustive classification of the manifold aspects of manas a concrete going concern: then the conclusion seems natural that the scheme inits original intention was built up round the idea of the individual man. Itis no objection to this reading of the scheme that Aristotle treats the list asexhaustive, so that we must find a universal meaning for every Category: if theCategories of Aristotle were the Kantian categories, then each must be applicable toany object whatever: but the Platonic-Aristotelian world is divided into things ofan ascending order of completeness, and some kinds of predicates can only beattached to the higher orders of existence. I do not claim that these two Categorieswere confined entirely to predicates of the types given in the examples of the list inthe Categories; for in the detailed analysis of, e.g., Relation and Quality, manyvarieties are dealt with which do not appear in the corresponding accounts in thelist. That these two Categories also were generalized so as to apply to other objectsthan human beings I do not doubt; what I argue is that their fundamental ideaswere such that in a general survey of the modifications of things they had littleimportance, and so fell into the background.If my general conclusion is established, that Category and Predicable togetherconstitute a joint system of preparingthe material for formal dialectical discussion,that this system grew up in the Platonic school as the representative of Socraticmethodology and was completed by Aristotle, that systematized dialectical ruleswere the forerunner of the Aristotelian logic-if this is a correct reading of thehistorical evidence, it follows that Category and Predicable together may beexpected to form the substructure of the logic of Aristotle, especially the scientificlogic. Or, to express the same meaning in anothermetaphor,that in the Aristoteliansystem the raw material of experience should be given a form through the ideas ofpredicable and category as a preliminaryto the building of the larger structures ofscientific knowledge, just as the clay must be made into bricks before it can be usedby the builder. At some later opportunity I hope to show that the most character-istic features of Aristotle's logic of science can be accounted for on these lines.C. M. GILLESPIE.

THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS.

Gillespie, The Aristotelian Categories, 1925

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