barrington, an introduction to the first five chapters of aristotle's categories, 1975

7/30/2019 Barrington, An Introduction to the First Five Chapters of Aristotle's Categories, 1975

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that we can have a man as a unit of enumeration without there

being any one particular man that is that unit.

2. Homonymy, Paronymy and Synonymy :As these notions are introduced in the first chapter of the work

examples of synonyms would be all the individual men that there

might be, of homonyms a man and a man in a picture, of paionymsall the brave. All these are, so to speak, of the same ontological type.However, certain writers have wanted to exempt paronymy from this

type ot interpretation. On their account paronyms are not, for example,all the brave, one to another, but a brave man and bravery. Thus,

Hintikka writes:" ... paronymy appears as a notion incomparable with synonymyand homonymy: Things are defined to be synonyms and homo-

nyms in so far as they share the same name, whereas two thingsare paronyms when they are called by different 'names' (terms)of which one is nevertheless derived (grammatically) from the

other,"2

and, in more linguistic frame of mind, Owen claims that:

" ... the definition of paronyms is merely grammatical. It shows...how adjectives can be manufactured from abstract nouns by

modifying the word-ending."3Now, though there is no need to read the characterization of paro-

nymy as it is given in chapter 1 in this way, whereby the paronymsare the item called by an adjective which is an inflected form of a

`name' for a property and the property 'named', and hence as pro-

ducing an asymmetry with the characterizations of homonymy

and synonymy in the first chapter, these writers have a point. For,as 'paronymy' is actually employed in the work, the relata are indeed

what they claim (v. 6 b 11-14, 10 a 27-b 11, 2 a 27-29; v. too Phys.245 b 11-12). This 'twist', however, is not restricted to paronymy.As homonymy and synonymy are employed in the work the relata

are not items of the same ontological status. Thus, examples of syn-

onymy are a particular man and what he is, his eidos :


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"It is a characteristic of substances and differentiae that all thingscalled from them are so called synonymously. For all the pred-icates from them are predicated either of the individuals or of

the species... And the primary substances admit the definition

of the species and of the genera, and the species admits that ofthe genus... Similarly, both the species and the individuals admit

the definition of the differentiae. But synonymous things were

precisely those with both the name in common and the samedefinition. Hence all the things called from substances and dif-ferentiae are so called synonymously" (3 a 33-b 9, trans. Ackrill;v. too Top., 109 b 4-7).

Equally, homonymy is employed in such a way that the colour white

and a thing that is white are homonyms (2 a 29-32; v. too 3 a 15-17).So there is no asymmetry between the three notions. As they are

introduced in the first chapter, the members of each of the three

classes are of the same type; as they are used in the body of the work

they are all given this 'twisted' application.In the earlier paper, I suggested that "the point of paronymy...

is to license the inference from a certain number of literate individualsto that number of literacies.4 Miss J. Annas has suggested that "any

inference-licence would seem to go the other way. According toAristotle ... the literate man is so called from literacy."5 Thus,"the direction of derivativeness is from noun to adjective, not from

adjective to noun. "6 Now, calling paronymy an "inference-licence"is not meant to explain his use of the word "from" in his characteriza-

tion, and clearly the characterization is not presented as a thesis about

counting. Probably, the 'derivativeness' expressed by "from" is meant

to be a generalization of that type of explanation of the possession of

properties byindividuals so common in the ethical

writingsofAristotle

and the early dialogues of Plato. On this model, we explain why a

person is brave by reference to his bravery, why Charmides is tem-

perate by the presence of temperance in him, and more generally

why a person is good by reference to his virtue. Such a model clearly

presupposes the inference-licence in question: the good man is suchbecause of his virtue, Charmides tempeiate because of the presenceof temperance in him. Since the aim of the analysis of the Categories


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in "Individuals" and the present paper is not to claim that Aristotle

self-consciously set out to construct an ontology on the explicitbasis of a consideration of counting, but rather to endeavour to deter-

mine the extent to which considerations of counting enable us to

understand the work, all that is required is the presupposition oftheses ielevant to counting. It is clear that counting does form partof the basis of the work, and so this enterprise is justified.

More importantly, what the appeal to counting does explain is the

rationale of the three-fold division in chapter 1, and it is this that

most needs explanation. Why just these classes? To treat paronymyas an exception is, as we have seen, unsatisfactory. The interpretationin terms of counting does present an adequate explanation and it has

as much, indeed rather more, basis in the text as interpretations inteims of 'grammar' or 'universals' and the like.'

7

Accordingly, it looks as though it will be profitable to approach the

work from the standpoint of enumeration. The measure of the profitis the ability of the approach to resolve or to illuminate difficulties.

So let us see how able it is.


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3. `Being In' and `Being Said Of' :

When we discriminate distinct substances this is done on the basis

of the applicability of the appropriate sortal-expression, and equallyin the case of non-substances we can count and discriminate on

the basis of the appropriate sortal: two different colours are different

colours and each is a colour. However, since no non-substantial

individual is, as such, an instance of the sortal in question, since

Socrates' white is not a distinct colour, such a discrimination can,in these cases, yield only a typical differentiation. In the case of sub-

stances, on the other hand, it is always possible for such a discrimina-

tion to yield numerically distinct instances of the sortal in question.Substances are items which terminate claims of enumeration. We

count individual whites by counting white things and we count these

simply by counting the things (men, chairs, tables) and not by counting

anything yet further. Now all the items, be they substances or not,discriminated in this way are synonyms. They are synonyms in the

sense in which that term is introduced and illustrated in chapter 1:

Socrates and Plato, discriminated by means of the sortal "a man",are each men and have the appropriate definition applicable to them,and thus they are synonyms of one another; two colours will equally

stand in the relation of synonymy one to another. More importantly,they are each synonyms of what is referred to by the sortal in question:Socrates is a man and can be called "a man" and will have the def-

inition applicable to him, and similarly for white and a colour.

Since this is so, the relation between each discriminated item and the

referent of the sortal is that of 'being said of' (2 a 19-27, 3 a 17-20,

3 a 33-b 9).

'Being in' and 'being said of' are clearly distinct relations. This may

be satisfactorily brought out by the following consideration. In talkingof the thing that 'is in' something in the earlier paper I repeatedlyand naturally used expressions of the form 'the o of a' - "Socrates'

literacy", "Plato's white". Now it seems to be distinctive of Aristotle's

substances that they cannot be said to be 'of' anything in a similar

way. "The man of Socrates" does not make sense. One can use "of"

with substance words but not in such a way as to suggest that the

existence of that substance is somehow dependent on that of the thingof which it is. One can speak of the man of La Mancha, but Don

Quixote would be who and what he is wherever he lived. Some philos-

ophers have attempted to disguise this disparity by coining the

expression "the manhood of..."; one can talk of the manhood of


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Socrates. Unfortunately, "the manhood of Socrates" refers most

readily to his virility and not to the fact that he is a human being.Further, if "manhood" were used to refer to that in virtue of which

a human being is that, it must be objected that there are fundamental

disparities between "man" and "manhood". I can count under the

concept "man" ard achieve items such as Socrates and Plato, but the

best I could do under the concept "manhood" is to isolate Socrates'

manhood and Plato's and so on. Yet there is the need to recognize the

existence of items which can be individuated without reference to some-

thing other than what they themselves are - and manhood is not what

Socrates is. This lack of an 'of' is not absolutely unique to substances.

If we consider the relation between white and colour, we find the same

impossibility. Whereas we can refer to that in virtue of which Socratesis white as "the white of Socrates", we cannot refer to that in virtue

of which white is a colour as "the colour of white". White is a colour,it is not coloured (v. Top., 109 a 34-b 12). Equally the knowledge of

literacy is different from the knowledge that is literacy. Accordingly,we must distinguish that in virtue of which Socrates is white from that

in virtue of which he is a man and his white is a colour. (It should be

noted that there is the same logical disparity between "white" and

"whiteness" as that noted between "man" and "manhood". We cancount using the sortal "white", but not using "whiteness". Indeed,it seems wrong to assert that whiteness is a colour.)

Thus we can see that there is the same relation between Socrates

and a man as between white and a colour, and that this relation is to

be distinguished from that between Socrates and his colour.

A consideration of counting, then, allows us to understand Aristotle's

postulation of non-substantial individuals and to approach his two

relations of'being present

in' and'being

said of' in such away

that

they too are intelligible and readily distinguishable. Since a consider-

ation of counting allows us to explain these two relations, it is clear

that "the things that are" which are grouped by means of them

cannot be such as to be incompatible with those conditions that have

to obtain if an act of enumeration is to be possible. There are two

conditions that are especially germane to our present inquiry.

Firstly, whenever we count we have to count under some descriptionor other, and the description must be such as to delimit preciselyfor any object whether or not it is an instance of the concept expressed

by the description." That is, of each instance enumerable under the


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concept 'o' it must be true that it is a Each man must be a man andeach colour a colour. The only alternative, if we attempt to count,is to miscount, and that is not a way of counting.

Secondly, whenever I count under the concept 0, for me to be able

to count a number of o's, there must exist 0's for me to count. As wehave seen, to count no O's is not to count at all. Frege puts this terselyand well: "Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of

the number nought".9 Sortal concepts are concepts which can have a

number of distinct instances, and any instances that there are must

be existent: a non-existent instance is self-contradictory. Therefore,whenever we have a case of counting it must be possible to frame the

result of the enumeration in an existential statement of the form

"There are n 0's".The 'things that are', then, must be things that exist. In that they

exist and are countable, they must be something other than simplyexistent. As Aristotle remarks elsewhere "existence is not part of the sub-

stance of anything; the existent is not a genus" (Apo., 92 b 13-14).There are no such things as things which are simply what there are

such things as. Everything that exists must be something other than

merely existent, and, if it is to exist in such a way that it is countable

or has countable instances, it must exist by being something, wherethe 'something' can be referred to by means of a sortal.

Now, if this is so, we can see that 'being in a subject' must be 'exis-

ting in a subject'. What is 'in' a subject - 7toxd[1.e:vov - is a general

property and it is only because what it is 'in' (or 'of') was somethingindividual that there was a non-substantial individual, such as

Socrates' colour. Now, it cannot be that what is 'in' the substantial

individual is both the general property and the non-substantial

individual; rather, it is because the general property is 'in' the sub-

stantial individual that the non-substantial individual 'the propertyin that substantial individual' exists. That is, if a property 0 exists,there exists some subject and 0 exists in that it is 'in' at least one

such subject. If a subject, s, exists and 0 is 'in' s, then 'the 0 in s'

(e.g. the white of Socrates) exists.

This contention that "is" in the expression "is in" be taken exis-

tentially can be supported on the following textual grounds. Firstly,the characterization of 'in a subject' (1 a 24-25) is patently existential.


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is presupposed by what is said there, to that extent our ability touse language is presupposed. Showing this will also enable us to makea start in seeing what 'secondary sbustances' are. That is, we shallbe able to see why Aristotle distinguished between 'primary' and

'secondary substance', and to see why there are not similarly 'primary'and 'secondary' qualities and quantities and the like. Finally, we

shall be able to understand how Aristotle came to claim that "if the

primary substances did not exist it would be impossible for any ofthe other things to exist" (2 b 5-6). This latter is problEmatic becausewe want to expostulate immediately: "But for a particular man to

exist it must be the case that a man exists, and hence that the 'secon-

dary substance' exists. After all, this 'secondary substance' is one of the

things that exist in being said of something, and if the appropriate'something', the particular man, exists this must, ipso facto, exist."

Discovering these things will, in their turn, bring us closer to under-

standing what the all important notion of a 'primary substance' is.As an example of the construal of the Categories as offering a

theory of predication, consider the following quotations from a paperby Moravscik called "Aristotle on Predication".1 He claims to be

"selecting one of the key nest of problems that Aristotle discusses in

these works", namely predication, and that Aristotle "discusses in theCategories... several interesting features of predication, and then

distinguished between at least two different types of configurationthat underlie predication,"11 'being in' and 'being said of', which

Moravscik refers to as "inherence and predication" respectively. He

begins by consideiing and endorsing the claim that "general terms andthe correlated abstract singular terms, whether in subject or pred-icate position, introduce the same entity."12 Here "a general term"

is used as the equivalent of "the predicate in a sentence of subject-predicate form".13 This claim is supported by the following two

arguments (and we shall see that neither argument is independent ofthe other) :

(i) The categories enumerated in chapter four are "what 'expressionsin no way combined' designate".

"Given this fact, and the heterogeneous way in which the examplesare specified, one must conclude that for Aristotle general terms


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and the related abstract singular terms introduce the same en-tities. "14

(ii) 'Inherence', 'being in', is "one of the configurations that underlie

predication". Aristotle says that:

" ... while the name of what inheres cannot be predicated of thesubject, the general term correlated to what inheres can be so pred-icated. This characterization makes sense only if one assumes that

underlying a sentence like 'Socrates is patient' is a configurationof patience inherent in Socrates, and what inheres can be intro-duced by either 'patient' or 'patience'. "15

However, it seems as though Moravscik understands by "the related/correlated abstract singular term" a word that can occupy the subject

position in a sentence of subject-predicate form. For he goes on toremark:

"It seems that Aristotle was strongly impressed by the fact thatwhat we use to describe and characterize in one context is thatwhich we specify as the subject in another context. Indeed, he

might have thought that unless an expression introduces an

entity that can be designated also by a subject expression, it

cannot be a genuine predicate". 16

Now, if we are to attempt to deny that there is a theory of predica-tion expounded or presupposed in the Categories, we have to show that

(i) and (ii) are inadequate. Specifically, we shall try to show that itis senseless to claim that the members of the categories are both

items designated by "expressions in no way combined" and what are

designated both by subject-expressions and by correlated predicate-

expressions, and that these two ways of referring to the membersof the categories are equivalent; and further show that "predicate"bears a different sense in the Aristotelian observation that while the

general term can be predicated of the subject the name cannot befrom the sense appropriate to "predication" and "predicate" as these

expressions are used by Moravscik in expressing his own claims.

We shall argue these matters on independent grounds and then show

how considerations of counting preclude the possibility that the

observations in the Categories can legitimately be taken as expressingor expounding a theory of predication.

At the beginning of chapter two Aristotle says:


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"Of things that are said, some involve combination while othersare said without combination. Examples of those involving com-

bination are 'man runs', 'man wins'; and of those without com-

bination 'man', 'ox', 'runs', 'wins"' (1 a 16-19 trans. Ackrill).

Now, this could mean a number of things, depending on whether onetakes the expression "of things that are said", as

involving a reference to things that are spoken of or as involving a

reference only to words that are spoken. That is, Aristotle could be

saying :

(a) When words are uttered, some are uttered alone and some are

uttered in such a way as to form part of a sentence ('in combina-

tion') ;

or else:(b) When things are spoken of, they are spoken of sometimes by means

of single words and sometimes by means of sentences.

Adoption of (b) here entails claiming that, once more, there is a con-

fusion of 'use' and 'mention'; that Aristotle means by "things spokenof" "the words used to speak of things when the things are spoken of".

However, whichever way we take this, it cannot be the case that the

items in the various categories enumerated in chapter four are intro-

duced by Aristotle as the referents of subject expressions in subject-predicate sentences; they must be introduced as the referents of words

uttered without being part of a sentence ; they are uttered or spokenof witlaout combination; if they are part of a sentence or what is referredto by part of one, they are uttered or spoken of in combination. Yet

Moravscik, as we have seen, equates the two. Rather, it would seem,Aristotle must have in mind the fact that we do not always use sen-

tences in speaking of or to signify things; sometimes we use singlewords

(and phrases:cf. "in the

Lyceum,""in the

market-place";2 a 1-2). Examples of this that come to mind are giving 'elliptical'answers to questions and calling someone. Both of these examplesare given a predominant place in the context of the enumeration of

the categories in the Topics, and this context also speaks in favour of

adopting (b) above.

Let us take the case of calling someone first since this is clear-cut.

There comes a point in the Topics when Aristotle wishes to maintain

that "the same" can be used in such a way as to suggest that an

accident is the same as a substance:" ... a third use is found when it is rendered in reference to what

is accidental, e.g. that-which-is-sitting or that-which-is-artistic


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(sc. is the same as) Socrates; for all these mean to signify whatis one in number. That what has just been said is true one wouldlearn especially from cases where people change the calling -

(7tpocr-ryopocc;);for often, when we give an order to call by name

one of the people who are sitting down, we change (sc. the calling)when the man to whom we gave the order happens not to under-

stand ; he will, we suppose, understand better from what is

accidental; and we bid him call to us 'the one who is sitting' or'the one who is talking' - Tdv 81Xcy6ycvov. Clearlywe suppose that we signify the same one according to the nameand according to what is accidental" (103 a 29-39, author's trans-

lation).

This speaks for itself and it shows that Aristotle was, at the least,aware of the activity of using an isolated expression ("the one sitting","the one talking", "the artistic one") to call someone and to refer to

someone.

In Topics, I, 9 Aristotle enumerates the categories and then turnsto make some observations about the use of the label "what it is"- Tt um - which can be used with reference to the members of each

of the categories. He supports this by means of the following examples:

"For when a man has been exposed - one says thatwhat-has-been-exposed - To XXd[1.EVO\l -is a man or an animal,and one says what it is and signifies the substance - when

a white colour has been exposed one says that what-has-been-

exposed is white or a colour, and one says what it is and signifies'of what quality' - Equally too if a six-foot length has been

exposed one says that what-has-been- exposed is a six-foot length;one says what it is and signifies 'how much' -noa6v." (103 b 29-35;

author's translation).Here one says of some object that has already been picked out, or

ex-posed, that it is such-and-such, and this is considered equivalentto giving an answer to the question "What is that?" or "What is it?"

(v. too 102 a 31-35). In answer one says "It is a

This type of case is then characterized as follows:

"Each of these signifies what it is if it is itself spoken of concerningitself and if the genus (sc. is spoken of) concerning this" (103 b

35-37; author'stranslation).To say of a o that it is a 0 is to say what it is and this is, in this type

of case, to call it (or speak of it as) the thing itself. It seems clear that

this type of situation is conceived by Aristotle as the uttering of a


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word or phrase which refers to the thing itself, rather than the utterance

of a sentence which makes an assertion about the thing. He concen-

trates on the word "man" and not on the sentence "It is a man".The use of the word that he has in mind is to refer to a particular

man, the one who has been exposed, or picked out, and not to a speciesor the like.

This seems sufficient to offer some support to the claim that "things

spoken of without combination" (or "things uttered without combi-

nation") are viewed as isolated words or phrases used to refer to a

particular object. This seems reasonable enough in itself. Otherwise

we would (as Moravscik does) have to view Aristotle as consideringwords and phrases uttered as part of a sentence with disregard of the

fact that they are part of a sentence, and this enterprise seems to mesomewhat incoherent.

It is worth concentrating a second on the last quotation given from

the Topics. An expression signifies what a thing there before one is

"if it itself is spoken concerning itself". What is spoken must be

the expression, one would think, since this is also what signifies. But

it is spoken "concerning itself" and this cannot be the expression but

the thing referred to. This particular conflation of 'use' and 'mention'

seems tosupport

thesuggestion

thatin

theCategories

Aristotle is not

concerned simply with the utterance of words but with the use of

words uttered to refer to things, or, better, to speak of things. Ac-

cordingly, it seems best to adopt something like (b) above.We have seen that it is a mistake to construe the items given as

examples of the categories in chapter four as introduced as what the

subject-expressions of subject-predicate sentences refer to. Rather,

they are the sorts of thing that can be referred to by words that are

not used in the form of sentences. This equation of "spoken without

combination" and "subject-expression" was essential to the attemptto represent the Categories as dealing with predication.

Let us turn to (ii), the argument built on Aristotle's denial that

the name of what is present in something can be 'predicated' of whatit is present in and assertion that "the general term correlated to what

inheres" can be predicated. This claim and this assertion is explainedin terms of 'predication'. However, it should now be obvious that

when Aristotle speaks of 'predication' here he need only have in mind

the use of an isolated expression to refer to something and not anykind of linguistic performance that we would describe philosophicallyas "predication" and, particularly, that it need not involve the utter-


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ance of a sentence of subject-predicate form. Thus, Aristotle does not

illustrate his claim and denial by saying that "we utter the sentence

'A body is white"' or "we say 'A body is white"' but by remarkingthat "a body is called white" (2 a 32).

Thus, the Categories cannot be itself treated as a contribution toan account of predication, since it takes its starting point, on the

linguistic plane, from utterances that are not the utterance of subject-

predicate sentences. Equally, it is tendentious to equate the word

translated "predicate" - with the concept ofpredicationthat is employed in connection with the analysis of subject-predicatesentences. This, however, is not necessarily to deny that Aristotle

does attempt to offer an account of what we would call "predication"

in other works and that he uses our ability to use words in isolationin order to explain the nature of a sentential utterance. If he does do

this, he is mistaken, but this does not suggest that he is equally mis-

taken in the Categories. He would only be mistaken there if he meant

his account to explain facts about sentential utterances, or, more

generally, facts about language. As it happens, his procedure is the

reverse of this. He takes what he considers obvious facts about lan-

guage and uses them to support his ontological theses (v. 2 a 19-34).

If counting forms one of the bases for the work this is only to beexpected. We can only count ifwe possess a language that is richer than

the mere seiies of numerals, or even than the series of numerals to-

gether with the sentence-form "That is n", where "n" is any numeral.

Since what is one is specified with reference to its being somethingother than merely one, to be able to point to something and say"That is one" entails having the ability to apply some countnoun,or sortal, to it. If it is one, then it is one something, one man or horse or

geranium.This is well

put by Frege:"If I give someone a stone with the words: Find the weight of

this, I have given him precisely the object he is to investigate.But if I place a pile of playing cards in his hands with the words:

Find the number of these, this does not tell him whether I wish

to know the number of cards, or of complete packs of cards, or

even say of honour cards at skat. To have given him the pile in

his hands is not yet to have given him completely the object he is

to investigate; I must add some further word - cards, or packs, or

honours. "1'


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Aristotle too is aware of this. "A unit is one such-and-such qua such"

(Meta., B, 1001 a 26-27). More specifically, he argues in Metaphysics, I

that

"what is one in every genus is clearly some nature and this itself,

the one, is not the nature of anything, but just as among coloursone colour must be sought as what is actually what is one, so

among substance too one substance must be sought as what is

actually what is one" (1054 a 9-13).Furthermore, for us to be able to count we must already be able to

recognize any object as either being or not being a case in point. If we

are counting men in the room, we must be able to distinguish men

from objects other than men, like chairs, tables, packs of cards and

pairs of shoes. This means that we must already be able to apply theword "man" to the men in the room correctly. As Aristotle supposes in

the passage about the categories in the Topics, the objects in questionare already 'exposed'.

Finally, it is worth observing that the two types of sentence most

readily associated with counting are, neither of them, probably of

subject-predicate form. We use sentences with demonstratives as the

grammatical subject (e.g. "That is one man") or existential sentences

("Thereare five of

them").Let us note an immediate consequence of this for the interpretationof the Categories. It has been suggested that the distinction between

'primary' and 'secondary substance' (2 a 11-19) is based on the sup-posed fact that a proper name cannot form a predicate expressionwhereas other expressions applicable to a substantial individual name-able by such a proper name (e.g. "a man") can be either the subject-or the predicate-expressions.l8 Since a distinction between subjectsand predicates is not, as such, to the point in considering the doctrines

of the Categories, this cannot be the basis for the distinction between

'primary' and 'secondary substance'.

5. The Priority of Primary Substances and the Ambiguity of Eidos :

In the first paragraph of the preceding section we formulated a

problem over Aristotle's claim that "if the primary substances did not

exist it would be impossible for any of the other things to exist"

(2 b 5-6). Since 'secondary substances' exist in that they are said of


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exist, and therefore the individuals must be prior to the eidos. This

priority of constituent individual over the aggregate constituted is

also maintained by Frege:"A class, in the sense in which we have so far used the word,

consists of objects' it is an aggregate, a collective unity of them;if so it must vanish when these objects vanish. If we burn down all

the trees of a wood, we thereby burn down the wood."19

This approach would seem to explain how Aristotle could have held

to the existential priority of individuals over aggregates. It would not,

however, show that these individuals here are prior to the existence of

the aggregate. Thus, it is not true that the wood in Frege's examplemust have ceased to exist when all the trees that compose it at any

one time have ceased to exist. New trees could have grown during thecourse of the destruction of the old. Equally, and fortunately, it is

not true that the existence of the species man was contingent solely

upon the existence of Aristotle and his contemporaries.However, when we come to examine the text of the Categories for

traces of the property- and the aggregate-treatments of eide, we find

that matters are not this straightforward. Something like the property-view is to be found there:

"Everysubstance seems to

signify'this

something'.As

regardsthe primary substances, it is indisputably true that each of them

signifies 'this something'; for the thing revealed is an individual

and one thing in number. But as regards the secondary substances,

though it appears from the form of calling TM

yop[ot4 - when one speaks of - a man or an animal - that a

secondary substance signifies 'this something', this is not reallytrue; rather it signifies what like something (poion ti) ; for the

subject is not, as the primary substance is, one thing, but man

and animal are said of many things... The species and the genusmark off what like concerning substance - for they signify what

like a substance 7tO?&.vTcva (3 b 10-16 and 20-21; author's

trans., after Ackrill).

It might be suggested that what is of concern here is the fact that

species- and genus-terms, such as "man" and "animal", are grammat-

ically singular. (This is suggested by Ackrill's rendering of rrp cx(y

1tP


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"We may ask... what is to be said of the objects denoted by'a man,' 'every man,' 'some man' and 'any man'. Grammar

treats them all as one. But, to this view, the natural objectionis, which one? Certainly not Socrates, not Plato, nor any particular

personsHowever, I feel that this grammatical singularity is not all that is to

the point here. For what Aristotle stresses is something to do with

'calling' - itpOG'Y)YOPLIX.Now, we certainly call each individual man "a

man". But what we do not do is call the 'collective unity' of all men

"a man". The human species is not a massive sprawling man, a homo

sapiens. Equally, in Greek, you cannot use anthropos of the whole

assemblage of men (which is not to deny that you can make general state-

ment about all men by saying "A man is...".) Accordingly, the pointwill be not that "a man" is used both of the individual man and of the

species 'man', but that this man here before me is not only 'this man' but

also a man. This, however, shows that we cannot find the existence

of the appropriate aggregate-view in the text. 21

For the remarks that, at first sight, look like statements of an

aggregative view can now be more satisfactorily explained otherwise.

I mean the following remarks:

"(sc. secondary substance) signifieswhat like

something;for

the subject is not, as the primary substance is, one thing, but

the man (or "a man") and the animal (or "an animal") are said

, of many things" (3 b 15-18),and

"One marks off more with the genus than with the species for

the one speaking of an animal takes in more than the one speakingof a man" (3 b 21).

For, given that "a man" cannot be applied to the species 'man', it

cannot be the case that "a man" is "said of many things" becauseit also refers to the species. Rather the point would seem to be that

made at the end of the last paragraph. Each particular man is 'this

man' but a man is not necessarily this man - there are other men, each

of which is equally (3 b 33-4 a 9) a man, and can just as well be called

"a man." However, this man is himself a man and can be called "a

man", and therefore, it might seem, says Aristotle, as though "a man"

signifies a 'this'.


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There is a further reason against a treatment of the eide of the

Categories in aggregative terms. We have seen in connection with

Frege's example of the wood and the trees that what such a treatment

would show is the existential priority of individuals in general over the

aggregate they compose - individuals in general and not any particularindividuals since these latter could all cease to exist without the

appropriate aggregate thereby ceasing to exist. However, Aristotle

must be making a stronger claim than this. If 'the certain man'

is 'one in number' and so is a unit in a possible enumeration, it cannot

be that 'the certain man' is any man - is simply an individual man.

For then we would not be able to enumerate a number of men. We

point to one man and say "That's one man". But if, to enumerate the

number, we simply have to point to one man, an individual man,each time and correlate what we point to with a different numeral,I could point to the same man a number of times, and say on the

first occasion "That's one man", on the second "That's two" and so on.

But then we could never reach an end to counting any number of men,however small the number. There is no limit to the number of times I

can point at anything. But then 'the certain man' would not be a.

possible unit in an enumeration. For no enumeration is possible. It

isobviously

essential that Ipoint

to each manonly

the once. Topointto the same man twice is to miscount. Therefore, if each man is 'one

in number' this entails that he is 'this one and not that one'. It is 'this

man and not that one' rather than 'this individual as opposed to the

type of thing it is'. 22

This consideration reinforces our earlier suggestion about the role

of the eidos-term "a man". In a room there is a man and a giraffe.How many animals are there there? Two - a man and a giraffe. But

for this to be the case there does not have to be this particular man

there; any man would do, so long as it is some man. Equally, there aretwo men in another room. But for this to be the case there do not have

to be these men in the room - any two would do. Accordingly, "a man

is said of many things". However, each 'thing' that it is said of must

be this one and not that.

Now it might look as though we have the makings of a defence for

Aristotle. For there is no man other than 'these' men, the ones actuallyhere. Any man there is to be found among them. But 'any man'

is not another one beside them, hiding among them like a spy in acrowd. He is any of them, and so each of them, and only because they


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are there is any man there. Even if there were only one man there,then a man would be there: the man that is there is a man. But if no

man were there, then there would not be a man not to be there. But,

surely, one exclaims, if there was not a man there then that man would

not be there. If there is not a man here, that man over there wouldnot be here, nor would you be and neither would I. So it is just as

much because there is a man here that any particular man is here as

that it is only because the ones that are here are here that a man is here.

And this is surely true.

However, we have in the discussion up to now frequently spokenabout "a man", - the word. "A man" is said of many things. We have

had frequently to disentangle 'use' and 'mention' in our interpretations.

Note especially our perplexities over whether "the things said / spokenof without combination" are words or not, whether they are thingsthat are said and uttered or things spoken about. Accordingly, it would

seem that these eide are the words we use in speaking of the thingswe do speak about. With this difference: Aristotle does not simply

present them as words. Although they are characterized as thingsthat exist in that they are said of what they are said of (1 a 20-22et they are equally presented, not as 'mere words', but as

indubitable realitiesalong

with suchhomely

existents as 'thepartic-ular man' (1 a 20-b 9). In chapter five of the work, Aristotle suggests,

as we have seen, that they "signify what like something" and "signifywhat like a substance" (3 b 10-21), where it seems they are treated as

words in that they are said to signify23 but what they signify is pre-sented as something other than what - T - the 'this something' - roSeTL - is.

If we adopt this suggestion, that Aristotle regards the words spokenof things as eide and 'hypostatizes' them, we can certainly explain

how he could have come to do this. For we have seen in section (4)above that it is necessary if things that are 'one in number' are to

exist that any enumerators there may be must be already far advanced

in linguistic competence, if they have any such competence.24 Further-


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more, it seems that things would only be, each one, enumerably one if

there were enumerators presupposed. In this way Aiistotle argues in

the Physics that there is such a thing as time only if there is such a

thing as a mind, a Psuchi. He has argued that : .

" ... time is not movement, but only movement in so far as it admitsof enumeration... Time then is a kind of number." (Phys., 219 b 2-5).On the basis of this he is able to make the following suggestion:"Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a questionthat may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there

cannot be anything that can be counted so that evidently there cannot

be number; for number is either what has been or what can be counted.

But if nothing but soul, or in soul reason, is qualified to count, there

would not be time unless there were soul..." (223 a 21-26; trans.Hardie and Gaye). Similarly, things can exist in such a way that theyare enumerably distinct only if there exist enumerators, and if there

exist enumerators and these have any linguistic ability they must have

sufficient ability to be able to speak of these objects in the appropriate

way. That is, things that are enumerably distinct must exist in such a

way that they can be spoken of. Aristotle then conceives this necessarycondition of the existence of such items as the existence of a further

class ofobjects

which are related to themby

the 'relation' of"speak-ing". It is as if he construed the verb "to say" by analogy with "to

compare". Just as we can compare one thing with another (and theyboth have to exist to be comparable), so we can say one thing of an-

other.

This account is very like that of Miss Anscombe, with the difference

that it is not, unlike hers, an independent observation but is embedded

into a general pattern of interpretation. This gives the fmther ad-

vantage that what seems somewhat arbitrary in her account can be

seen as reflecting an essential truth about the situation presupposed

by Aristotle. She writes:

"Locke said that if you take a proper name, 'A', you can onlydiscover whether A is, say, a man, or a cassiowary, by lookingto see if A has the properties of man or a cassiowary. This pre-

supposes that, having grasped the assignment of the proper name

'A', you can know when to use it again, without its being alreadydetermined whether 'A' is the proper name of, say, a man, or a

cassiowary: as if there were such a thing as being the same withoutbeing the same such-and-such. This is clearly false. Aristotle's

'second substance' is indicated by the predicate, whatever it is,


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say 'X', that is so associated with the proper name of an individualthat the proper name has the same reference when it is used torefer to the same X. "25

The arbitrary factor in this account is the one that A. C. Lloyd

points to.26 Why is there this demand for the possibility of 'referringto' ? How is it that the things existing brutishly there are so essentiallyintertwined with the referrings and identifications2' of human beings.However, embedding the account of 'secondary substances' in thecontext of enumerably discrete things forces on us considerations of

language and our linguistic activities.It is worth noting, though, that it is not just a case of confusing

the words we use to refer to the things with a special class of objects,

eide. For we can construe a man as a possible unit in an enumerationwithout there being any particular man that he had to be - in the

example of the room containing just the man and the giraffe, where we

wanted to discover how many animals there were there.A difference between the Categories and the passage in the Topics

dealing with the categories (A, 9) is worth noting. In the latter the

possibility is entertained that what is said of the man that is exposedis the thing itself. A man is said of the man over there and the man

that is said of him is the man over there, the same one. In the Categories,,by contrast, what is said of something is presented as always 'some-

thing else' (heteron) (1 b 10), and as a 'what like something' (poion ti)rather than the same thing that (ti) the thing exposed is, what (ti) it is.

We have reached the following stage. Aristotle draws a distinctionbetween 'primary' and 'secondary substances' because, while 'primarysubstances' are things that exist and not words, the latter are words

misrepresented as things. However, it is not open to Aristotle simplyto

identify 'secondary substances' with words; for he recognizes that aman can exist without there being any one particular man that exists.

However, this is not yet sufficient. For given that Aristotle cannot

identify them with words spoken, why cannot he simply identify themwith what a given substantial individual is? A 'secondary substance'then would be not the highly indirect 'what sort of what' (potion ti),but, simply, what the thing is. This, after all, is something that hecomes to maintain in the Metaphysics.


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kind of thing these must be - they must be 'one in number' - and

examples of the kind of thing meant - a particular man or horse.These things, then, cannot be pure occurrences, as it were; they must

be things that exist in such a way that they are enumerably one, and,

we have seen, enumerably one on the basis of their being what it isthat they are: the certain man is one man and that is what he is,whereas the certain colour is, for instance, Socrates' colour but that

is not what it is. In chapter two, these enumerably singular items are

characterized in terms of the modes of being 'being said of' and

'existing in'. Since it is in terms of these that 'primary substance'is identified, we are justified in taking 'primary substance' to be themode of being, or existence, of something that is enumerably singular,

and enumerably singular in virtue of itself.Accordingly, the examples of 'primary substance', the certain man

and the certain horse, will not be just particular objects that are

found, but modes of being of a certain class of objects found - viz.

enumerably singular ones. Before getting carried away on this line of

thought, let us pause to demonstrate that ousia, 'substance', can

mean 'being' in the Categoyies. This, of course, is what we would expectfrom a linguistic and grammatical point of view. Ousia is the verbal

noun of einai, "to be" or "to exist". Furthermore, it is obvious thatAristotle does recognize the common-place "existential" force of the

word. Having introduced primary ousia by means of the characteriza-

tion "the one which is neither said of a subject nor exists in a subject"

(2 a 12-13), he argues, in the course of chapter 5, that:

"It is reasonable that, after the primary ousiai, the species and

genera alone of the other things are spoken of as (secondary)ousiai" (2 b 29-3 a 6).

He alsoargues

in favor of each of the marks of'primary

ousia' men-

tioned at the start of chapter 5 (2 a 11-12). Its 'prominence' (2 b37-3 a 1), 'primacy' (2 a 19-2 b 6, v. esp. 2 b 5-6, with which cf.

Meta. A, 1019 a 1-14)28, and its 'most of all' (2 b 7-22). All this makes

it overwhelmingly unlikely that ousia is used without any considera-

tion of its common-place force and simply as a pure label for a

certain class of existents. There are, it seems to me, two indisputableoccurrences of the word in this sense in the work, and the second one


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shows that this is the sense it bears in the expressions "primary ousia"

and "secondary ousia".

When he introduces the notions of homonymy and synonymy in

chapter one, great use is made of "the definition of being which cor-

responds to the name" (1 a 1-2, 4, 7, 9-10). It is agreed that this,ho logos... tis ousias, is indeed the definition of being. It is not simplythe definition of being, being impossibly pure and simple, but the

definition corresponding to the name. The man and the ox haveidentical ways of being, where the being in question is that corre-

sponding to the name "an animal". The man and the man in the picture,on the other hand, have different ways of being corresponding to

the name "an animal". One exists by being a picture or portrait,

the other does not. Such a definition is correlated with "what beinga o is for each of them" (1 a 5, 11). The relevant ways of existing are

ways of being something, being 'whats'. A particular man exists bybeing a man (cf. 73 b 5-8, 83 a 24-32).

In chapter five, while discussing ousia, Aristotle remarks that

"it is a characteristic of... ousiai that all things that are called from

them are so called synonymously" (3 a 33-34). Now, it hardly seems

true that all things that are called the same name as any substance

are so called synonymously. The manand

the manin the

picture arehomonyms, not synonyms, and yet both are men. However, if we

recall the 'twist' that is given to the notions introduced in chapterone, it will be seen that what Aristotle is saying here is that anythingthat is called after its own ousia is so called synonymously, and this is

true. Thus, the man over there exists by being a certain man. Any-

thing that is said of him, e.g. 'a man', is said of him synonymously,if what is said of him is his way of being, and his way of being is that

of being a man. This remark about synonymy is made in connection

with primary and secondary ousiai. Therefore, we may feel justifiedin retaining the interpretation of ousia as 'being' or 'existence', an

interpretation reached hitherto on purely general grounds. This

primary mode of being is that of being a particular something. Ac-

cordingly, the role that we might expect the secondary modes of beingto perform, that of providing the 'something' that the thing is to

exist by being a particular one of, is already pre-empted by the primarymode of being of the thing. Thus, being a man, and the other secondary

modes of being, are squeezed into an ontological limbo, and mustremain so until either they are abandoned as fictions and figmentsor else the individual is no longer represented as existing by being


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itself. (I speak of "existing by being itself" for the descriptions of the

modes of being of these individuals is also a description of the individ-

uals themselves. The certain man exists by being the certain man.)The secondary mode of being of such a thing is that of being a man,

for example - a man as opposed to this man. There can, to repeat,be a man there without there necessarily being this particular man

there. It seems mistaken, however, to hold that being a man is some-

thing different from being this man; for any man that is there will be

one particular man and not another one.

We have analysed the distinction between 'primary' and 'secondarysubstance' into three factors. Firstly, the mode of being represented

by the 'secondary substances' is already pre-empted by the individuals.

Secondly, 'secondary substances' hover between being things spokenof and things spoken. Thirdly, Aristotle is unwilling to assimilate

'secondary substances' either to 'primary substances' or else to a

purely linguistic status because he recognizes that a man can exist

without any one particular man existing. It will readily be seen that

the motives operative in producing a distinction between 'primary'and 'secondary substances' cannot be operative in producing a

parallel distinction between 'primary' and 'secondary qualities',

or 'quantities',or the like. Aristotle does not feel the

temptation toassert that the existence of qualities is concerned with our abilityto use a certain class of words. Above all, whereas being this man is

already being a man, being 'the certain colour' is not similarly being a

colour; for something's colour is not, as such, a colour. Consequent-

ly, the colour that by being in something is that thing's colour canbe identified with the colour that it is; a move which was not readilyavailable in the case of substances.

(vii) Conclusion:

By following through the doctrines of the Categories (other than

the categories themselves) on the basis of the characterization of

individuals as what are 'one in number', we have been able to unite

these various doctrines in a coherent and intelligible way. The one

area that has proved impossible to untangle in a defensible way is

the distinction between 'primary' and 'secondary being'. We were

able to explicate this distinction in terms of a confusion of languageand things spoken of and the way in which what for Aristotle are

the fundamental class of 'things that are' are represented as existing

by being just exactly themselves.


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Following this route has produced an interesting picture. We have

seen how the existence of things is approached with a tacit framework

which already presupposes the existence of human beings able to

speak a language, and how this linguistic ability is worked into the

existential fabric of the things themselves. The other interesting resultis that this 'enumerative' approach to things has revealed Aristotle's

preoccupation with what we might call the 'radical' individuality of

the primary class of things that are. These are not simply individuals

and members of classes; they are, each one, not another one; they are,each one, this one and not that.

Of course questions now arise. In particular: What is so specialabout enumeration that this can be assumed as a privileged means of

access to what there is?2a

Princeton University

barrington, an introduction to the first five chapters of aristotle's categories, 1975

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