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115 Aristot. Metaphys. Z. p. 1033, b. 24; p. 1034, a. 8. Τὸ δ ἄπαν τόδε Καλλίας ἢ Σωκράτης ἐστὶν ὥσπερ ἡ σφαῖρα ἡ χαλκῆ ἡδί, ὁ δ ἄνθρωπος καὶ τὸ ζῷον ὥσπερ σφαῖρα χαλκῆ ὅλως. τὸ δ ἅπαν ἤδη τὸ τοιόνδε εἶδος ἐν ταῖσδε ταῖς σαρξὶ καὶ ὀστοῖς Καλλίας καὶ Σωκράτηςˇ καὶ ἕτερον μὲν διὰ τὴν ὕλην, ἕτερα γάρ, ταὐτὸ δὲ τῷ εἴδειˇ ἄτομον γὰρ τὸ εἶδος.

116 Categor. p. 2, b. 29, seq. εἰκότως δὲ μετὰ τὰς πρώτας οὐσίας μόνα τῶν ἄλλων τὰ εἴδη καὶ τὰ γένη δεύτεραι οὐσίαι λέγονταιˇ μόνα γὰρ δηλοῖ τὴν πρώτην οὐσίαν τῶν κατηγορουμένων. &c.

117 Analyt. Poster. i. p. 73, b. 6: οἷον τὸ βαδίζον ἕτερόν τι ὃν βαδίζον ἐστὶ καὶ λευκόν, ἡ δ οὐσία, καὶ ὅσα τόδε τι σημαίνει, οὐχ ἕτερόν τι ὄντα ὅπερ ἐστίν. Also p. 83, a. 31. καὶ μὴ εἶναί τι λευκόν, ὃ οὐχ ἕτερόν τι ὃν λευκόν ἐστιν: also p. 83, b. 22.

118 Categor. p. 2, b. 31: τὸν γάρ τινα ἄνθρωπον ἐὰν ἀποδιδῷ τις τί ἐστι, τὸ μὲν εἶδος ἢ τὸ γένος ἀποδιδοὺς οἰκείως ἀποδώσει τῶν δ ἄλλων ὅ τι ἂν ἀποδιδῷ τις, ἀλλοτρίως ἐσται ἀποδεδωκώς, &c.

It is thus that Aristotle has dealt with Ontology, in one of the four distinct aspects thereof, which he distinguishes from each other; that is, in the distribution of Entia according to their logical order, and the reciprocal interdependence, in predication. Ens is a multivocal word, neither strictly univocal nor altogether equivocal. It denotes (as has been stated above) not a generic aggregate, divisible into species, but an analogical aggregate, starting from one common terminus and ramifying into many derivatives, having no other community except that of relationship to the same terminus.119 The different modes of Ens are distinguished by the degree or variety of such relationship. The Ens Primum, Proprium, Completum, is (in Aristotles view) the concrete individual; with a defined essence or essential constituent attributes (τί ἥν εἶναι), and with unessential accessories or accidents also all embodied and implicated in the One Hoc Aliquid. In the Categorić Aristotle analyses this Ens Completum (not metaphysically, into Form and Matter, as we shall find him doing elsewhere, but) logically into Subject and Predicates. In this logical analysis, the Subject which can never be a Predicate stands first; next, come the near kinsmen, Genus and Species (expressed by substantive names, as the First Substance is), which are sometimes Predicates as applied to Substantia Prima, sometimes Subjects in regard to the extrinsic accompaniments or accidents;120 in the third rank, come the more remote kinsmen, Predicates pure and simple. These are the logical factors or constituents into which the Ens Completum may be analysed, and which together make it up as a logical sum-total. But no one of these logical constituents has an absolute or independent locus standi, apart from the others. Each is relative to the others; the Subject to its Predicates, not less than the Predicates to their Subject. It is a mistake to describe the Subject as having a real standing separately and alone, and the Predicates as something afterwards tacked on to it. The Subject per se is nothing but a general potentiality or receptivity for Predicates to come; a relative general conception, in which the two, Predicate and Subject, are jointly implicated as Relatum and Correlatum.121

119 Aristot. Metaphys. Δ. p. 1017, a. 22. καθ αὑτὰ δὲ εἶναι λέγεται ὅσαπερ σημαίνει τὰ σχήματα τῆς κατηγορίαςˇ ὀσαχῶς γὰρ λέγεται, τοσαυταχῶς τὸ εἶναι σημαίνει.

120 Categor. p. 3, a. 1: ὡς δέ γε αἱ πρῶται οὐσίαι πρὸς τὰ ἄλλα πάντα ἔχουσιν, οὕτω τὰ εἴδη καὶ τὰ γένη πρὸς τὰ λοιπὰ πάντα ἔχειˇ κατὰ τούτων γὰρ πάντα τὰ λοιπὰ κατηγορεῖται.

121 Bonitz has an instructive note upon Form and Matter, the metaphysical constituents of Prima Substantia, Hoc Aliquid, Sokrates, Kallias (see Aristot. Metaphys. Z. p. 1033, b. 24), which illustrates pertinently the relation between Predicate and Subject, the logical constituents of the same σύνολον. He observes (not. p. 327, ad Aristot. Metaph. Z. p. 1033, b. 19). Quoniam ex duabus substantiis, quć quidem actu sint, nunquam una existit substantia, si et formam et materiem utrumque per se esse poneremus, nunquam ex utroque existeret res definita ac sensibilis, τόδε τι. Ponendum potius, si recte assequor Aristotelis sententiam, utrumque (Form and Matter) ita ut alterum exspectet, materia ut formć definitionem, forma ut materiam definiendam, exspectet, neutra vero per se et absolute sit. What Bonitz says here about Matter and Form is no less true about Subject and Predicate: each is relative to the other neither of them is absolute or independent of the other. In fact, the explanation given by Aristotle of Materia (Metaph. Z. p. 1028, b. 36) coincides very much with the Prima Essentia of the Categories, if abstracted from the Secunda Essentia. Materia is called there by Aristotle τὸ ὑποκείμενον, καθ οὗ τὰ ἄλλα λέγεται. ἐκεῖνο δ αὐτὸ μηκέτι κατ ἄλλο λέγω δ ὕλην ἣ καθ αὑτὴν μήτε τὶ μήτε ποσὸν μήτε ἄλλο μηθὲν λέγεται οἷς ὥρισται τὸ ὄν (p. 1029, a. 20). ἔστι γάρ τι καθ οὗ κατηγορεῖται τούτων ἕκαστον, ᾧ τὸ εἶναι ἕτερον καὶ τῶν κατηγοριῶν ἑκάστῃˇ τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἄλλα τῆς οὐσίας κατηγορεῖται, αὕτη δὲ τῆς ὕλης.

Aristotle proceeds to say that this Subject the Subject for all Predicates, but never itself a Predicate cannot be the genuine οὐσία, which must essentially be χωριστὸν καὶ τὸ τόδε τι (p. 1029, a. 28), and which must have a τί ἦν εἶναι (1029, b. 2). The Subject is in fact not true οὐσία, but is one of the constituent elements thereof, being relative to the Predicates as Correlata: it is the potentiality for Predicates generally, as Materia is the potentiality for Forms.

The logical aspect of Ontology, analysing Ens into a common Subject with its various classes of Predicates, appears to begin with Aristotle. He was, as far as we can see, original, in taking as the point of departure for his theory, the individual man, horse, or other perceivable object; in laying down this Concrete Particular with all its outfit of details, as the type of Ens proper, complete and primary; and in arranging into classes the various secondary modes of Ens, according to their different relations to the primary type and the mode in which they contributed to make up its completeness. He thus stood opposed to the Pythagoreans and Platonists, who took their departure from the Universal, as the type of full and true Entity;122 while he also dissented from Demokritus, who recognized no true Ens except the underlying, imperceptible, eternal atoms and vacuum. Moreover Aristotle seems to have been the first to draw up a logical analysis of Entity in its widest sense, as distinguished from that metaphysical analysis which we read in his other works; the two not being contradictory, but distinct and tending to different purposes. Both in the one and in the other, his principal controversy seems to have been with the Platonists, who disregarded both individual objects and accidental attributes; dwelling upon Universals, Genera and Species, as the only real Entia capable of being known. With the Sophists, Aristotle contends on a different ground, accusing them of neglecting altogether the essential attributes, and confining themselves to the region of accidents, in which no certainty was to be found;123 in Plato, he points out the opposite mistake, of confining himself to the essentials, and ascribing undue importance to the process of generic and specific subdivision.124 His own logical analysis takes account both of the essential and accidental, and puts them in what he thinks their proper relation. The Accidental (συμβεβηκός, concomitant, i.e. of the essence) is per se not knowable at all (he contends), nor is ever the object of study pursued in any science; it is little better than a name, designating the lowest degree of Ens, bordering on Non-Ens.125 It is a term comprehending all that he includes under his nine last Categories; yet it is not a term connoting either generic communion, or even so much as analogical relation.126 In the treatise now before us, he does not recognize either that or any other general term as common to all those nine Categories; each of the nine is here treated as a Summum Genus, having its own mode of relationship, and clinging by its own separate thread to the Subject. He acknowledges the Accidents in his classification, not as a class by themselves, but as subordinated to the Essence, and, as so many threads of distinct, variable, and irregular accompaniments, attaching themselves to this constant root, without uniformity or steadiness.127

122 Simplikius ad Categ. p. 2, b. 5; Schol. p. 52, a. 1, Br: Ἀρχύτας ὁ Πυθαγορεῖος οὐ προσίεται τὴν νυνὶ προκειμένην τῶν οὐσίων διαίρεσιν, ἀλλ ἄλλην ἀντὶ ταύτης ἐκεῖνος ἐγκρίνει τῶν μέντοι Πυθαγορείων οὐδεὶς ἂν πρόσοιτο ταύτην τὴν διαίρεσιν τῶν πρώτων καὶ δευτέρων οὐσιῶν, ὅτι τοῖς καθόλου τὸ πρώτως ὑπάρχειν μαρτυροῦσι, τὸ δὲ ἔσχατον ἐν τοῖς μεριστοῖς ἀπολείπουσι, καὶ διότι ἐν τοῖς ἁπλουστάτοις τὴν πρώτην καὶ κυριωτάτην οὐσίαν ἀποτίθενται, ἀλλ οὐχ ὡς νῦν λέγεται ἐν τοῖς συνθέτοις καὶ αἰσθητοῖς, καὶ διότι τὰ γένη καὶ τὰ εἴδη ὄντα νομίζουσιν, ἀλλ οὐχὶ συγκεφαλαιούμενα ταῖς χωρισταῖς ἐπινοίαις.

123 Metaphys. E. p. 1026, b. 15: εἰσὶ γὰρ οἱ τῶν σοφιστῶν λόγοι περὶ τὸ συμβεβηκὸς ὡς εἰπεῖν μάλιστα πάντων, &c.; also K. p. 1061, b. 8; Analytic. Poster. i. p. 71, b. 10.

124 Analytic. Priora, i. p. 46, a. 31.

125 Aristot. Metaph. E. p. 1026, b. 13–21. ὥσπερ γὰρ ὀνόματι μόνον τὸ συμβεβηκός φαίνεται γὰρ τὸ συμβεβηκὸς ἐγγύς τι τοῦ μὴ ὄντος.

126 Physica, iii. 1, p. 200, b. 34. κοινὸν δ ἐπὶ τούτων οὐδέν ἐστι λαβεῖν, &c.

127 See the explanation given of τὸ ὂν κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς in Metaphys. E. pp. 1026 b., 1027 a. This is the sense in which Aristotle most frequently and usually talks of συμβεβηκός, though he sometimes uses it to include also a constant and inseparable accompaniment or Accident, if it be not included in the Essence (i.e. not connoted by the specific name); thus, to have the three angles equal to two right angles is a συμβεβηκὸς of the triangle, Metaph. Δ. p. 1025, a. 80. The proper sense in which he understands τὸ συμβεβηκὸς is as opposed to τὸ ἀεὶ ἐξ ἀνάγκης, as well as τὸ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ. See Metaphys. K. p. 1065, a. 2; Analyt. Poster. i. p. 74, b. 12, p. 75, a. 18.

It is that which is by its nature irregular and unpredictable. See the valuable chapter (ii) in Brentano, Von der Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles (pp. 8–21), in which the meaning of τὸ συμβεβηκὸς in Aristotle is clearly set forth.

In discriminating and arranging the Ten Categories, Trendelenburg supposes that Aristotle was guided, consciously or unconsciously, by grammatical considerations, or by a distinction among the parts of speech. It should be remembered that what are now familiarly known as the eight parts of speech, had not yet been distinguished or named in the time of Aristotle, nor did the distinction come into vogue before the time of the Stoic and Alexandrine grammarians, more than a century after him. Essentia or Substantia, the first Category, answers (so Trendelenburg thinks128) to the Substantive; Quantum and Quale represent the Adjective; Ad Aliquid, the comparative Adjective, of which Quantum and Quale are the positive degree; Ubi and Quando the Adverb; Jacere, Habere, Agere, Pati the Verb. Of the last four, Agere and Pati correspond to the active and passive voices of the Verb; Jacere to the neuter or intransitive Verb; and Habere to the peculiar meaning of the Greek perfect the present result of a past action.

128 Trendelenburg, Kategorienlehre, pp. 23, 211.

This general view, which Trendelenburg himself conceives as having been only guiding and not decisive or peremptory in the mind of Aristotle,129 appears to me likely and plausible, though Bonitz and others have strongly opposed it. We see from Aristotles own language, that the grammatical point of view had great effect upon his mind; that the form (e.g.) of a substantive implied in his view a mode of signification belonging to itself, which was to be taken into account in arranging and explaining the Categories.130 I apprehend that Aristotle was induced to distinguish and set out his Categories by analysing various complete sentences, which would of course include substantives, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. It is also remarkable that Aristotle should have designated his four last Categories by the indication of verbs, the two immediately preceding by adverbs, the second and third by adjectives, and the first by a substantive. There remains the important Category Ad Aliquid, which has no part of speech corresponding to it specially. Even this Category, though not represented by any part of speech, is nevertheless conceived and defined by Aristotle in a very narrow way, with close reference to the form of expression, and to the requirement of a noun immediately following, in the genitive or dative case. And thus, where there is no special part of speech, the mind of Aristotle still seems to receive its guidance from grammatical and syntactic forms.

129 Ibid. p. 209: Gesichtspunkte der Sprache leiteten den erfindenden Geist, um sie (die Kategorien) zu bestimmen. Aber die grammatischen Beziehungen leiten nur und entscheiden nicht. P. 216: der grammatische Leitfaden der Satzzergliederung wird anerkannt.

130 Categor. p. 3, b. 13: ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν δευτέρων οὐσιῶν φαίνεται μὲν ὁμοίως τῷ σχήματι τῆς προσηγορίας τόδε τι σημαίνειν, ὅταν εἴπῃ ἄνθρωπον ἢ ζῷον, οὐ μὴν ἀληθές γε, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ποιόν τι σημαίνει. &c.

We may illustrate the ten Categories of Aristotle by comparing them with the four Categories of the Stoics. During the century succeeding Aristotles death, the Stoics, Zeno and Chrysippus (principally the latter), having before them what he had done, proposed a new arrangement for the complete distribution of Subject and Predicates. Their distribution was quadruple instead of decuple. Their first Category was τί, Aliquid or Quiddam τὸ ὑποκείμενον, the Substratum or Subject. Their second was ποιόν, Quale or Quality. Their third was πὼς ἔχον, certo Modo se habens. Their fourth was, πρός τι πὼς ἔχον, Ad Aliquid certo Modo se habens.131

131 Plotinus, Ennead. vi. 1, 25; vi. 1, 30: τὰ πὼς ἔχοντα τρίτα τίθεσθαι. Simplikius ad Categor. f. 7, p. 48, a. 13, Brand. Schol.: Οἱ Στωϊκοὶ εἰς ἐλάττονα συστέλλειν ἀξιοῦσι τὸν τῶν πρώτων γενῶν ἀριθμόν καί τινα ἐν τοῖς ἀλάττοσιν ὑπηλλαγμένα παραλαμβάνουσι. ποιοῦνται γὰρ τὴν τομὴν εἰς τέσσαρα, εἰς ὑποκείμενα, καὶ ποιὰ, καὶ πὼς ἔχοντα, καὶ πρός τι πὼς ἔχοντα.

It would seem from the adverse criticisms of Plotinus, that the Stoics recognized one grand γένος comprehending all the above four as distinct species: see Plotinus, Ennead., vi. 2, 1; vi. 1, 25. He charges them with inconsistency and error for doing so. He admits, however, that Aristotle did not recognize any one supreme γένος comprehending all the ten Categories (vi. 1, 1), but treated all the ten as πρῶτα γένη, under an analogous aggregate. I cannot but think that the Stoics looked upon their four γένη in the same manner; for I do not see what they could find more comprehensive to rank generically above τί.

We do not possess the advantage (which we have in the case of Aristotle) of knowing this quadruple scheme as stated and enforced by its authors. We know it only through the abridgment of Diogenes Laertius, together with incidental remarks and criticisms, chiefly adverse, by Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, Plotinus, and some Aristotelian commentators. As far as we can make out upon this evidence, it appears that the first Stoic Category corresponded with the Πρώτη Οὐσία, First Essence or Substance of Aristotle. It was exclusively Subject, and could never become Predicate; but it was indispensable as Subject, to the three other Predicates. Its meaning was concrete and particular; for we are told that all general notions or conceptions were excluded by the Stoics from this Category,132 and were designated as Οὔτινα, Non-Individuals, or Non-Particulars. Homo was counted by them, not under the Category τί, Quid, but under the Category ποιόν, Quale; in its character of predicate determining the Subject τίς or τί. The Stoic Category Quale thus included the Aristotelian Second Essences or Substances, and also the Aristotelian differentia. Quale was a species-making Category (εἰδοποιός).133 It declared what was the Essence of the Subject τί the essential qualities or attributes, but also the derivative manifestations thereof, coinciding with what is called the proprium in Porphyrys Eisagoge. It therefore came next in order immediately after τί: since the Essence of the Subject must be declared, before you proceed to declare its Accidents.

132 Simpl. ad Categ., p. 54, a. 12, Schol. Brand.: συμπαραληπτέον δὲ καὶ τὴν συνήθειαν τῶν Στωϊκῶν περὶ τῶν γενικῶν ποιῶν, πῶς αἱ πτώσεις κατ αὐτοὺς προφέρονται, καὶ πῶς οὔτινα τὰ κοινὰ παρ αὐτοῖς λέγεται, καὶ ὅπως παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τοῦ μὴ πᾶσαν οὐσίαν τόδε τι σημαίνειν καὶ τὸ παρὰ τὸν οὔτινα σόφισμα γίνεται παρὰ τὸ σχῆμα τῆς λέξεωςˇ οἷον εἴ τίς ἐστιν ἐν Ἀθήναις, οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν Μεγάροιςˇ ὁ γὰρ ἄνθρωπος οὔτις ἐστίν, οὐ γάρ ἐστί τις ὁ κοινός, ὡς τινὰ δὲ αὐτὸν ἐλάβομεν ἐν τῷ λόγῳ, καὶ παρὰ τοῦτο τὸ ὄνομα τοῦτο ἔσχεν ὁ λόγος οὔτις κληθείς.

Compare Schol. p. 45, a. 7, where Porphyry says that the Stoics, as well as Aristotle, in arranging Categories, took as their point of departure τὸ δεύτερον ὑποκείμενον, not τὸ πρῶτον ὑποκείμενον ( = τὴν ἄποιον ὕλην).

133 Trendelenburg, Kategorienlehre p. 222; Plutarch, De Stoicor. Repugnantiis, p. 1054 a.; Simpl. ad Categor. Schol. p. 67. Br. Ποιὰ were distributed by the Stoics into three varieties; and the abstract word Ποιότης, in the Stoic sense, corresponded only to the highest and most complete of these three varieties, not to the second or third variety, so that ποιότης had a narrower extension than ποιόν: there were ποιὰ without any ποιοτὴς corresponding to them. To the third Category, Πὼς ἔχοντα, which was larger and more varied than the second, they had no abstract term corresponding; nor to the fourth Category, Πρός τι. Hence, we may see one reason why the Stoics, confining the abstract term ποιότητες to durable attributes, were disposed to maintain that the ποιότητες τῶν σωμάτων were themselves σώματα or σωματικά: which Galen takes much pains to refute (vol. xix. p. 463, seq. ed. Kuhn). The Stoics considered these qualities as ἀέρας τινάς, or πνεύματα, &c., spiritual or gaseous agents pervading and holding together the solid substance.

It is difficult to make out these Stoic theories clearly from the evidence before us. From the statements of Simplikius in Scholia, pp. 67–69, I cannot understand the line of distinction between ποιὰ and πὼς ἔχοντα. The Stoics considered ποιότης to be δύναμις πλείστων ἐποιστικὴ συμπτωμάτων, ὡς ἡ φρόνησις τοῦ τε φρονίμως περιπατεῖν καὶ τοῦ φρονίμως διαλέγεσθαι (p. 69, b. 2); and if all these συμπτώματα were included under ποιόν, so that ὁ φρονίμως περιπατῶν, ὁ πὺξ προτείνων and ὁ τρέχων, were ποιοί τινες (p. 67, b. 34). I hardly see what was left for the third Category πὼς ἔχοντα to comprehend; although, according to the indications of Plotinus, it would be the most comprehensive. The Stoic writers seem both to have differed among themselves and to have written inconsistently.

Neither Trendelenburg (Kategorienlehre, pp. 223–226), nor even Prantl, in his more elaborate account (Gesch. der Logik, pp. 429–437), clears up this obscurity.

The Third Stoic Category (πὼς ἔχον) comprised a portion of what Aristotle ranked under Quale, and all that he ranked under Quantum, Ubi, Quando, Agere, Pati, Jacere, Habere. The fourth Stoic Category coincided with the Aristotelian Ad Aliquid. The third was thus intended to cover what were understood as absolute or non-relative Accidents; the fourth included what were understood as Relative Accidents.

The order of arrangement among the four was considered as fixed and peremptory. They were not co-ordinate species under one and the same genus, but superordinate and subordinate,134 the second presupposing and attaching to the first; the third, presupposing and attaching to the first, plus the second; the fourth, presupposing and attaching to the first, plus the second and third. The first proposition to be made is, in answer to the question Quale Quid? You answer Tale Aliquid, declaring the essential attributes. Upon this, the next question is put, Quali Modo se habens? You answer by a term of the third Category, declaring one or more of the accidental attributes non-relative, Tale Aliquid, tali Modo se habens. Upon this, the fourth and last question follows, Quali Modo se habens ad alia? Answer is made by the predicate of the fourth Category, i.e. a Relative. Hic Aliquis homo (1), niger (2), servus (3).

134 Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, vol. i. pp. 428, 429; Simplikius ad Categor. fol. 43, A: κἀκεῖνο ἄτοπον τὸ σύνθετα ποιεῖν τὰ γένη ἐκ προτέρων τινῶν καὶ δευτέρων ὡς τὸ πρός τι ἐκ ποιοῦ καὶ πρός τι. Cf. Plotinus, Ennead. vi. 1, 25–29.

Porphyry appears to include all συμβεβηκότα under ποιὸν and πὼς ἔχον: he gives as examples of the latter, what Aristotle would have assigned to the Category κεῖσθαι (Eisagoge, cc. 2, 10; Schol. Br. p. 1, b. 32, p. 5, a. 30).

In comparing the ten Aristotelian with the four Stoic Categories we see that the first great difference is in the extent and comprehension of Quale, which Aristotle restricts on one side (by distinguishing from it Essentia Secunda), and enlarges on the other (by including in it many attributes accidental and foreign to the Essence). The second difference is, that the Stoics did not subdivide their third Category, but included therein all the matter of six Aristotelian Categories,135 and much of the matter of the Aristotelian Quale. Both schemes agree on two points: 1. In taking as the point of departure the concrete, particular, individual, Substance. 2. In the narrow, restricted, inadequate conception formed of the Relative Ad Aliquid.

135 Plotinus (Ennead. vi. 1. 80) disapproves greatly the number of disparates ranked under τὸ πὼς ἔχον, which has (he contends) no discoverable unity as a generic term. It is curious to see how he cites the Aristotelian Categories, as if the decuple distinction which they marked out were indefeasible.

Simplikius says that the Stoics distinguished between τὸ πρός τι and τὸ πρός τι πὼς ἔχον; and Trendelenburg, (pp. 228, 229) explains and illustrate this distinction, which, however, appears to be very obscure.

Plotinus himself recognizes five Summa or Prima Genera,136 (he does not call them Categories) Ens, Motus, Quies, Idem, Diversum; the same as those enumerated in the Platonic Sophistes. He does not admit Quantum, Quale, or Ad Aliquid, to be Prima Genera; still less the other Aristotelian Categories. Moreover, he insists emphatically on the distinction between the intelligible and the sensible world, which distinction he censures Aristotle for neglecting. His five Genera he applies directly and principally to the intelligible world. For the sensible world he admits ultimately five Catgories; Substantia or Essentia (though he conceives this as fluctuating between Form, Matter, and the Compound of the two), Ad Aliquid, Quantum, Quale, Motus. But he doubts whether Quantum, Quale, and Motus, are not comprehended in Ad Aliquid.137 He considers, moreover, that Sensible Substance is not Substance, properly speaking, but only an imitation thereof; a congeries of non-substantial elements, qualities and matter.138 Dexippus,139 in answering the objections of Plotinus, insists much on the difference between Aristotles point of view in the Categorić, in the Physica, and in the Metaphysica. In the Categorić, Aristotle dwells mainly on sensible substances (such as the vulgar understand) and the modes of naming and describing them.

Aristotle

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