On Aristotle Categories 5-6 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Simplicius

Language: English

Pages: 177

ISBN: 2:00311327

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub

Chapters 5 and 6 of Aristotle's Categories describe his first two categories, Substance and Quantity. It is usually taken that Plotinus attacked Aristotle's Categories, but that Porphyry and Iamblichus restored it to the curriculum once and for all. Nonetheless, the introduction to this text stresses how much of the defence of Aristotle Porphyry was able to draw out of Plotinus' critical discussion. Simplicius' commentary is our most comprehensive account of the debate on the validity of Aristotle's Categories. One subject discussed by Simplicius in these chapters is where the differentia of a species (eg the rationality of humans) fits into the scheme of categories. Another is why Aristotle elevates the category of Quantity to second place, above the category of Quality. Further, de Haas shows how Simplicius distinguishes different kinds of universal order to solve some of the problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

subsequently the simple and universal , and because he says that the common substance, too, has its being in the individual.35 Therefore he calls the individual substance ‘primarily’ substance, and ‘most strictly’ because this is substance in virtue of itself, whereas the other are said of it as of a subject. It is ‘most of all’ substance, because substance is characterized by being a subject, and is subject both for the species and genera,

divided way: diêirêmenôs division: diairesis, tomê divisive, dividing: diairetikos elucidation: didaskalia embrace: perilambanein encompassing: periektikos encounter: epiballein, prosballein, entunkhanein endow: endidonai essence: ousia, to ti ên (einai) essence, to have an: ousiôsthai essential: ousiôdês example: paradeigma exist: huphistasthai exist prior to: proüparkhein existence: hupostasis existence, have subsidiary: parhuphistasthai explain: didaskein explanation: aition expression: lexis

joins them together; for sounds without signification like ‘blituri’45 can be measured in the same way, and they are not coherent. In this way speech in vocal expression is discrete, while that in mental conception is not even a quantity at all, but either an activity or an affection or a compound Translation 103 of the two, as Iamblichus says. But Porphyry46 says that it is quality.47 Therefore number and speech are species of discrete quantity, while of the continuous line is first; for in

respect of the change from potential to actual it can be viewed in all the categories,159 and can be interpreted variously according to its various natures. But perhaps even the white is not extended over the surface in an unqualified sense, but the white in a process of comingto-be has a particular extension which extends together with the surface which is something other than the white – just as movement was said to have a particular extension other than time and place. For qualities

variation, 146,4; 152,27 parallassein, to exceed, 146,12 parastatikos, indicative, 147,4 parathesis, juxtaposition, 127,21 paratithenai, to present for consideration, 147,25; 149,10 parenklinein, to derive, 155,11 parienai, to pass over, 143,17 parepesthai, to be consequent upon, 151,34 paruphistasthai, to subsist together with, 149,16 paskhein, to undergo, to suffer, to be acted on, 138,7 pathos, affection, 121,11; 124,20 pêlikos, magnitude, 127,31; 128,1 peponthêsis, affection, 130,1 peras,

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