Ante-Predicaments II: Said Of and In a Subject, Individual Substance, and the Ten Categories

Orientation #

He refers back to what he “mentioned before” on the two senses of whole and part and on names equivocal by reason (prev. lecture), and to Father Dulac’s despair over the two senses of “accident”. For next time: “the text we’re looking at from Thomas”, which will distinguish the highest genera by the ways something is said of individual substance, dividing first into three; Aristotle “is going to start exemplifying” the ten. Verified sources place the class in the handout “The Matter and Order of Wisdom”, p. 11, and DHB Vol. III, The School of Aristotle, p. 460.

The class, in order #

1. Things said with and without intertwining (“said without any intertwining of things”) #

Point: Categories ch. 2 opens with two divisions, tōn legomenōn (of the said; Greek has no word “thing”) and tōn ontōn (of beings); the first is a division into two.

• Some are said kata symplokēn (intertwined), as anthrōpos trechei, man runs, and anthrōpos nikai, man wins (“the V is like an N”). These are statements and belong to the second act; he stresses “statement” to separate the second act from what goes in the categories.
• Things in the categories (virtue, vice, man, dog, cat, horse) are said without symplokē: no intertwining of different things. In “man runs” the man and his running are not the same thing.
• Boundary case: white man cannot be put in one category; man is substance, white is quality, and by denomination you are called white. Even a single name like “whitey” or “Negro” (originally a black man) cannot be put in a category, because it intertwines two natures, a color and an animal. Likewise “tall man”, “short man”: the size is his quantity, how much of him there is.
• Aside (short men who “breathed authority”): the Monsignor rector at Laval who recognised him as “a Berquist” at a reception for non-Quebec students; Cardinal Wright at Assumption College spotting a Notre Dame man from his reaction to a joke; Paul VI weeping on landing in India, which the press twisted into remorse over population growth; John Paul II in tears at Denver ‘93 after the American bishops predicted failure.

2. The four beings and Aristotle’s method of division (“two distinctions of two”) #

Point: under tōn ontōn the division is into four, from two crisscrossing distinctions.

• A: exists in another as in a subject vs does not (accident vs substance). B: said of a subject vs not said of (universal vs singular). Hence universal substance, singular substance, universal accident, singular accident.
• Example of the universal/singular line: geometry is said of the knowledge in the minds of many men (and women); “the geometry in my head” is singular, mine, not equal to Euclid’s.
• Method, which he sees Aristotle use in more than one division: with two marks, affirmed and denied, begin with the pair where one is affirmed and the other denied, because then you see at once they are not the same.
• hypokeimenon: placed under; “subject” means thrown under: “those Latins are kind of sloppy.”
• Two senses of whole (recalled): the composed whole is put together from its parts but not said of them (the blade is not a knife, the seat and legs are not chairs: “how many chairs in this chair?”); the universal whole is said of its parts but not put together from them (animal is not a mixture of dog, cat, horse, elephant, else “a dog is an animal” would say a dog is that mixture). The parts a universal is said of are called subject parts, imagined as under what is said of them; the others composing parts.

3. The two extremes: universal substance and individual accident (“what is affirmed in one is denied in the other”) #

Point: Aristotle takes first the pairs in which one mark is affirmed and the other denied.

• (i) Said of a subject, in no subject: man is said of this man, that man, but exists in no subject: universal substance.
• (ii) In a subject, said of none: my knowledge of geometry is in my mind (my reason, “the knowledge of the before and after”) but is said of nothing: individual accident.
• Aristotle’s account of “in a subject”: not as a part, but belonging to something and unable to be apart from what it is in. His test: can I take my knowledge out of my head and put it on the table, or in your head? No; I can generate a like knowledge in your head, but not the same one. De Koninck, teaching since the 1930s and always seeing more, produced a knowledge like his in Berquist’s head, not his own knowledge. Against this, a part can exist apart: “you can pull the tooth out of my mouth.”
• Aristotle’s second example, sensible: a certain grammatikē is in the soul (he is “not being too precise”: in the mind), said of no subject; some white is in a body, for every color is in a body, and the white in my body is said of nothing: kath’ hypokeimenou oudenos, said of none.
• Conclusion he draws: since (i) is said-of but not in, and (ii) is in but not said-of, “to be said of” and “to be in a subject” cannot mean the same thing.
• Illustration of the method: “some human beings are male and young, some female and old” — not sexism: what is affirmed in one is denied in the other.

4. Both affirmed, both denied; the individuals (“individuals, one in number”) #

• (iii) Said of a subject and in a subject: epistēmē, which he translates “reasoned-out knowledge”, or science, is in the soul (more precisely the mind) and said of grammar, logic, geometry: universal accident. His own example: virtue is in the soul and said of courage and temperance.
• (iv) Neither: Duane Berquist, Father Michael, Patrick; Aristotle’s “this man”, “this horse”. You may exist in a room, but not as knowledge in the mind or health in the body: individual substance.
• Aristotle’s summing-up: haplōs, simply (or “speaking generally”), ta atoma, the individuals and things one in number, are said of no subject, but nothing prevents their being in a subject (your particular knowledge of grammar).
• atoma: a- + tomos, undivided, as “anatomy” is cutting up; an individual is not divided as a universal divides into particulars; Socrates is not divided into individuals. Democritus’s atoms were indivisible building blocks; our “atom” was misnamed because it could not be divided by ordinary chemical means, and stays “as a sign of our ignorance”, like the proton that turns out not to be first.

5. First use of the division: substance against the nine genera of accident (“accident doesn’t mean the same thing here and there”) #

Point: the division prepares for the categories, since the first category holds what does not exist in another as in a subject (universal or individual), the other nine hold accidents, universal or singular (geometry, or my geometry).

• Father Dulac, his undergraduate logic teacher, “despaired” of students seeing that accident opposed to substance differs from accident opposed to property among the predicables: an accident in the first sense (universal or individual) may be a property in the second. “You should hope that you understand that distinction.”
• Digression on equivocation, from the Sophistical Refutations: the most common mistaken thinking comes from equivocation of a word.
  • Know vs think: “I know no square is a circle” but “I think so-and-so will win the election”; “Will I live to be ninety? I think so; my mother did”, unless God reveals it. There knowing means being sure, thinking means opinion, not sure. Yet asked “Do you think a square cannot be a circle?” he must answer “I think that”: equivocation.
  • What kind? By reason, “something like genus and species” (a student). His earlier account (prev. lecture): a name goes equivocal by reason when one thing keeps the name and the one that adds something noteworthy gets a new name; unsure thinking keeps “thinking”, sure thinking is named “knowing”.
  • Like vs love: his daughter Maria, “I don’t like it, I love it”; say “I like you” to a girl but “I love her” of your wife; the philosopher is a lover, not a liker, of wisdom; loving is a strong liking. His maternal grandmother’s cookies (“I aim to please”) are the standard by which he judges all others; Pepperidge Farm approaches most closely.
  • Names equivocal by reason deceive more easily “because they’re closer.” Equivocation by chance: a student sharing a rock musician’s name reported dead; a novel by Winston Churchill in the library, not that Churchill.
• Size illustrates accident vs substance: your size exists in you, but if your size were you, you would have ceased to be yourself when you grew tall (he is checked at the doctor, “shrinking too much”).

6. Second use, “even more relevant”: everything is said of individual substance (“by the way something can be said of individual substances”) #

Point: in logic the ten genera will be distinguished by how something is said of something; among the four, everything else is said of individual substance.

• Of Berquist: man, animal, up to substance; five foot ten (or nine); white; geometer; father, son, teacher, student, gardener; in this room; sitting; clothed. Some said univocally, others denominatively.
• Thomas (next time) divides first into three: said of Berquist (1) by reason of what he is: man, animal, living body, substance, the first category; (2) by reason of something in him other than what he is: his size, and his qualities (healthy or sick, just or unjust, knowledgeable or ignorant); (3) by reason of something outside him: in this room, clothed. The clothing is not in him as in a subject; his house and car are not what he is. Ways 2 and 3 Thomas will subdivide.
• Father Michael: a man, animal, living body, body (what he is); healthy, tall or short, and son (something in him related to his father); clothed (outside him). His beard is part of him; contact lenses are not.
• “Clothes make the man” vs the proverb “the hood [cowl] doesn’t make the monk”; the Latin he cannot recall.
• Aside on professors: a colleague who burned his exams; the “nasty” French logician at Laval who let Nicole sit in silence at an oral and asked “Do you have anything to add?”; the ethics professor who opened the window for cold air.

7. Chapter 3: the order within a genus, and differences (“whatever is said of the predicate”) #

Point: when one thing is katēgoreitai, said as of a subject, of another, whatever is said of the predicate is said of the subject.

• Habit said of virtue, virtue of courage, so habit of courage. Man of me, animal of man, living body of animal, body of living body, substance of body: all “down the line”. Substance is said of body and spirit, but Aristotle does not give that distinction here, “because it’s for wisdom to know that there are bodies and spirits.”
• Resemblance to the syllogism, whose principle is the said of all and said of none [ed.: dictum de omni et nullo; ASR “set of all”]: if every B is A, whatever is B is A. This chapter gives the order of genus and species up to the genus that is not a species.
• Differences: of heterogenōn not ordered (tetagmenōn) under one another, the differences are other in species: of zōon, footed, two-footed, winged, aquatic; no epistēmē differs from another by being two-footed.
• Roman Kasurik [ed.: name garbled in ASR], “the wisest man at the College of St Thomas”, who said his mind beside Aristotle’s was an angleworm’s brain: “you can tell a man’s understanding of the matter by the examples he chooses”; bad philosophers choose examples that strike the imagination, moderns abstruse ones, but an example is meant to clarify. Aristotle’s animal/science example is “magnificent”.
• Genera under one another may share differences, since the higher come down: if good is a difference of virtue, justice is both a virtue and good; odd and even are differences of another genus not above or below quality.
• “The differences of the predicate (katēgoria)”: here category does not yet mean the ten; it comes from the law courts, accusation (“you’re a thief, a murderer”), and in the Gospels the word for accusing Christ is this word.

8. Chapter 4: the ten named, concretely (“of those said according to no intertwining”) #

Point: each thing said without symplokē signifies one of ten; the Greek names are concrete and the English translation (“How large… that is quantity”) loses this.

• ousia: “substance”, but not the same etymology; hypostasis has that etymology and the Greeks used it for individual substance, even person; Latin substantia can also mean what a thing is, so “three hypostases” rendered “three substances” sounds heretical.
• poson: how much / how many, concrete rather than “quantity” (Kasurik’s point). poion: “how”, as “how are you today?” rather than “what’s your quality today?”.
• pros ti: Albert renders ad aliquid, toward something. John’s Gospel: the Word was pros ton theon, toward God (the Father); the persons are distinguished by relations: the Son is Son toward the Father, not toward the Spirit; Father and Son “breathe” the Spirit, so that relation differs, and breath proceeds from the breather.
• pou, pote: where and when (ubi, quando); the translator’s “that is place… or time” is wrong: time itself is in quantity (number of the before and after in motion), and place as containing surface is a quantity; here it is the denominative when.
• keisthai: “attitude”, better “posture or position”: how you are laid out. echein: to have, e.g. clothing; Latin habitus.
• poiein, paschein: acting upon and undergoing. Warm is a quality; warming acting upon; being warmed by the fire, undergoing: “you got to be careful how you’re saying those things.”

His words #

• tōn legomenōn / tōn ontōn: of the said / of beings.
• symplokē: intertwining, “twisted together”; said “according to intertwining” vs “without intertwining”.
• second act: what a statement belongs to, as against the categories.
• said of a subject vs in a subject: universal vs singular; accident vs substance.
• hypokeimenon: placed under; “subject”, thrown under.
• composed whole vs universal whole; subject parts vs composing parts.
• in a subject: not as a part, belonging to something, impossible apart from it.
• “reasoned-out knowledge”: his rendering of epistēmē [ed.: science].
• haplōs: simply; ta atoma: individuals, undivided, one in number.
• accident (vs substance) vs accident (vs property).
• equivocal by reason vs by chance.
• said of all / said of none [ed.: dictum de omni et nullo].
• katēgoria: accusation, predicate; not yet “the ten categories”.
• ousia, hypostasis, substance; poson how much/how many; poion how; pros ti toward something (ad aliquid); pou where, pote when (ubi, quando); keisthai laid out, position; echein to have, habitus; poiein acting upon, paschein undergoing.

Texts #

Read in class:

• Aristotle, Categories ch. 2 (divisions of things said and of beings, definition of “in a subject”, the individuals)
• Aristotle, Categories ch. 3 (order of predication; differences of ordered and unordered genera)
• Aristotle, Categories ch. 4 (enumeration of the ten), against an English translation he criticises
• John 1:1, pros ton theon (quoted)

Mentioned:

• Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations (most common error from equivocation; locus not stated)
• Porphyry, Isagoge (difference as what the species has beyond the genus)
• Albert the Great’s rendering ad aliquid
• Thomas Aquinas, the text on the division of the predicaments, for next time (locus not stated)
• Democritus on atoms; the Gospels’ word for accusing Christ

His questions #

• Can a white man, or “whitey”, be put in a category? No: two natures intertwined, color and animal (substance and quality).
• Which does Aristotle take up first, and why? Universal substance and individual accident, where what is affirmed in one is denied in the other.
• Can I take my knowledge out of my head and put it in yours? No; I can generate a like knowledge, but not the same one: that is “in a subject”.
• What is the distinction between thinking and knowing in “I think he’ll win” and “I know a square isn’t a circle”? Knowing is being sure; thinking there is opinion; but “I think a square can’t be a circle” shows the name is equivocal by reason.
• Is your size you? No; else you would have ceased to be yourself when you grew tall.
• Which of the four is everything else said of? Individual substance, some univocally, some denominatively.
• Is one science different from another by being two-footed? No: differences of genera not ordered under one another are other in species.
• Is God the Son the Son toward the Holy Spirit? No; the Father and Son breathe the Spirit, a different relation.
• Is time itself in the category “when”? No; time is in quantity, as number of the before and after in motion; “when” is the denominative.