See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/287881706

A note on the ontology of Aristotle's Categories, chapter 2

Chapter · January 2012

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199696482.003.0007

CITATIONS READS

0 69

1 author:

Gisela Striker
Harvard University
33 PUBLICATIONS   262 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Loeb edition of Aristotle's Rhetoric View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Gisela Striker on 15 November 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Page 139

Logic and Metaphysics

11:15:24:11:11 Page 139

 Page 140

11:15:24:11:11 Page 140

 Page 141

7
A note on the ontology of
Aristotle’s Categories, chapter 2
Gisela Striker

Let me begin with a few points about the Categories that seem to be agreed among
scholars. This fragmentary little treatise, which seems to be largely concerned with
ontology, nevertheless belongs to the Organon, the set of works that make up what one
might call Aristotle’s theory of argument—and the Organon (all of it, I am inclined
to think) was written while Aristotle was still in the Academy. The traditional title
Categories is probably late and the treatise is clearly not a finished work, but the alterna-
tive title ‘Introduction to the Topics’ (πρ# τν τ$πων) confirms that what we have is
associated with the Topics1—which in turn is pretty clearly an Academic production—
a manual for dialectical exercises focussed on definitions and their parts. But the Topics
also seems to have a thoroughly un-Platonic ontology, and so it would not be sur-
prising if Aristotle had provided a kind of metaphysical preface—preferably one in
which he offered some arguments for his departure from the Platonic scheme of Forms
versus particulars. In fact, the reason why many of us still find it convenient to begin a
lecture course on Aristotle’s metaphysics with the first five chapters of the Categories is
precisely that these chapters seem to present so clearly the contrast between Aristotle
and his teacher. Aristotle bestows the honorific label ο"σα—usually translated as
‘substance’ or ‘essence’ in his works, and ‘being’ or ‘what really is’ in Plato’s—on just
those things that Plato tended to treat as less real, less enduring, and so on, than his
Forms.
There is no explicit attack on Plato in the Categories, and chapter 5 begins with a
bold assertion announcing the reversal of priorities. Aristotle does, of course, then go
on to offer quite a series of arguments to defend his claim, using the terminology
he has introduced for this purpose in chapters 2–3. But this might be seen as
question-begging. The terminology seems to stack the cards in favor of particular
subjects as the only ‘independent’ kind of entities, and so one might be tempted to
think that the dispute about what counts as basic has no clear answer. Gail Fine, for
example, at the end of her meticulous examination of the arguments from Aristotle’s

1
For these points, see Frede (1987).

11:15:24:11:11 Page 141

 Page 142

  

lost treatise on the Platonic Forms (Περ* 2δεν)2, concludes that whether one should
side with Plato or with Aristotle may often be difficult to decide, and could be a matter
of different intuitions. This may be true in a way, though I would be inclined to say
that it is not so much because of different intuitions as because the question of priority
may itself be a little antiquated or odd: why insist on singling out precisely one class of
entities as basic when it makes most sense to start with (at least) two? So I will not try
to argue here that Aristotle should be regarded as the winner in this particular debate.
All I would like to point out is that while there is indeed no explicit polemic against
Plato, the somewhat self-serving terminology of Categories chapter 2 can be seen as
raising a legitimate question about Plato’s two-world ontology that justifies at least
another look at his enthusiasm for the ontological priority of the Forms. What
Aristotle points out in chapter 2, and what a fellow member of the Academy would
probably have recognized, is that the technical term ‘participation’ (µ3θεξι ), and some
of the others that Plato uses for the same purpose in his dialogues, actually covers two
distinct relations that do not coincide, so that he should in fact have recognized four
classes of entities instead of his customary two.
Aristotle introduces his fourfold classification of ‘things there are’ as follows
(2.1a20–b6):
• Some are said of a subject but are not in any subject: man, for example, is said of
a subject, the individual man, but is not in any subject.
• Some are in a subject but are not said of any subject: for example, the individual
grammatical knowledge is in a subject, the soul, but is not said of any subject.
• Some things are both said of a subject and in a subject: knowledge, for example,
is in a subject, the soul, and is also said of a subject, grammatical knowledge.
• Some things are neither in a subject nor said of a subject: for example, the
individual man or horse, for nothing of this sort is either in a subject or said of a
subject.
Both ‘being in a subject’ and ‘being said of a subject’ are defined more narrowly here
than in other contexts. Aristotle explains that something is said to be ‘in something as a
subject’ if it is ‘in something not as a part and cannot exist separately from what it is in’;
and something is ‘said of a subject’ in the sense assumed here if ‘all things said of what is
predicated will be said of the subject too’ (3.1b11–12). Commentators from ancient
times onward have been quick to translate the cumbersome and unusual terminology
of ‘in a subject’ and ‘said of a subject’ into Aristotle’s customary technical terms: the
first class comprises species and genera of substances; the second, individual attributes;
the third, universal attributes; and the fourth, individual substances. Ackrill3 points out
that the two phrases which Aristotle uses here hardly occur as technical terms except in
the Categories—and there, one might add, mainly in chapter 5, where he discusses
substance. Some ancient commentators noticed that Aristotle’s terminology was

2 3
See Fine (1993), pp. 28–29 and 241. Ackrill (1963), p. 74.

11:15:24:11:11 Page 142

 Page 143

      ’ CATEGORIES 

designed to focus on the two different relations, as shown by Simplicius’ comment

(In Cat. 45.19–23):
But why did Aristotle not use the customary expressions, speaking of ‘universal substance’ or
‘particular attribute’ and so on? Perhaps because he gave an outline of each in clearer words;
for ‘being in a subject’ conveys the essence of attribute, as ‘[said] of a subject’ conveys that of
universal.4

To be ‘in’ something as a subject is to be an attribute, and to be ‘said of something as a

subject’ is to be a universal. What Simplicius does not say, of course, is that this might
have anything to do with Platonic µ3θεξι —but then Simplicius was a neo-Platonist,
who presumably assumed that Plato and Aristotle agreed in their metaphysical
doctrines. If we focus on the two relations of being a universal and being an attribute,
we obtain the following descriptions of the four classes:
(1) Universals that are not attributes
(2) Attributes that are not universals
(3) Attributes that are universals
(4) Individuals that are neither attributes nor universals.
The technical terms ‘universal’ (καθ$λου) and ‘attribute’ (συµβεβηκ$ ) are also
Aristotle’s, not Plato’s, but restating his classification in this way brings out the point
that he is introducing two relations where Plato apparently saw only one. Both species-
terms and attribute-terms are predicated of subjects, and Plato used to describe the
underlying fact or state of affairs as a case of a thing participating in a Form. The order
in which Aristotle introduces his four classes highlights his criticism of the Platonic
story. The first class—natural kinds or species of Aristotelian primary substances—is
a class of universals that are not attributes. Now, the Phaedo seemed to introduce forms
precisely as attributes—see Phd. 74a9–c10, and note the comments at 103a4–22:
‘Then, my friend, we were talking about things that have the opposites, calling them by
the names they take from them; whereas now we are talking about the opposites
themselves from whose presence in them the things so called derive their names.’5
But if participation is the subject–attribute relation, where do Forms such as man
(αQνθρωπο ) go? And if Socrates is a man because he participates in humanness, what in
the world is Socrates, the subject, if not a man? In Plato’s Parmenides, Socrates confesses
that he is not sure whether he should assume that there are Forms of man, fire, water,
and so on (130c4–d8), but it is clear that Plato eventually decided that there must be
such Forms, given that Forms are supposed to be what is common to many things that

4
Τ δποτε δI µ9 κατὰ τ# σ/νηθε
χρσατο το7 σηµαινοµ3νοι D Xριστοτ3λη , καθ$λου ο"σαν
λ3γων κα* µερικ#ν συµβεβηκ# κα* τὰ λοιπά; ? (τι δι,
µφαντκωτ3ρων _νοµάτων <πογραφ9ν +κάστου
παρ3δωκεν: τ# γὰρ
ν <ποκειµ3νH εναι τ9ν ο"σαν το' συµβεβηκ$το παρστησιν, ^σπερ τ# καθ’
<ποκειµ3νου τ9ν το' καθ$λου.
5
τ$τε µIν γάρ, b φλε, περ* τν
χ$ντων τὰ
ναντα
λ3γοµεν,
πονοµάζοντε α"τὰ τ\
κενων

πωνυµc, ν'ν δI περ*
κενων α"τν >ν
ν$ντων &χει τ9ν
πωνυµαν τὰ _νοµαζ$µενα.

11:15:24:11:11 Page 143

 Page 144

  

are described by the same word6. Perhaps, then, one should say that Forms are primarily
universals—what many things called by the same name have in common and the
objects of definition; and perhaps µ3θεξι should be seen as the relation of particular to
universal, so that the class of Forms should comprise both attributes and kinds. Now
look at the description of Aristotle’s second class. There seem to be some attributes,
such as individual instances of literacy, that are not universals, so one cannot say that the
particular–universal relation is fundamental and attributes are a subclass of universals7.
In other words, the two distinctions which Plato uses to mark the contrast between
Forms and the things that participate in them do not yield only the two classes that
Plato seems to recognize; he should admit at least four. Aristotle’s last two classes—
universal attributes and particular subjects—are in effect those that Plato usually does
recognize, and hence, I suppose, they are placed at the end of the list, with some special
emphasis for the last item provided by the terminology which Aristotle has chosen to
use. This terminology is, as it were, a mirror image of Plato’s, with the accent on the
participants. Where Plato would say that particulars bear the names of the Forms in
which they participate or are ‘called after’ them (
πωνυµαν &χει), Aristotle prefers to
say that attributes and kinds are either ‘in’ or ‘said of’ subjects.
That Aristotle was thinking of Platonic ‘participation’ is confirmed by a definition of
the verb ‘to participate’ (µετ3χειν) that he uses several times in the Topics (4. 121a11–12;
cf. 5. 132b35–133a11; 4. 126a17–25). It shows, I think, that Aristotle was not the first
nor the only member of the Academy to point out the difference between attributes
and universals: µετ3χειν is defined as ‘admitting the definition of the thing in which
something participates’8, and that is exactly how Aristotle uses the phrase ‘to be said of
something as a subject’ (cf. Cat.5, 2a19–21: ‘It is clear from what has been said that if
something is said of a subject, it is necessary that both its name and its definition
be predicated of the subject.’9) This definition of participation should be Academic
rather than one introduced by Aristotle himself, since µετ3χειν is not one of his own
technical terms. But the definition rules out cases of participation such as Socrates’
participating in similarity (Prm. 129a) or in plurality (ibid. 129c), since the definitions
of similarity or plurality clearly cannot be predicated of a particular person. The
definition seems to show that Aristotle and some of his colleagues decided to opt for
the particular–universal relation rather than the subject–attribute relation in defining
participation, and this might, for example, be due to the emphasis on division of genera

6
See, for example, Rep. 10, 596A6–7: ‘For surely we usually posit one Form for each multitude of things
to which we apply the same name’ (εδο γάρ που τι dν Bκαστον ε2θαµεν τθεσθαι περ* Bκαστα τὰ πολλά,
οS τα"τ#ν Zνοµα
πιφ3ροµεν).
7
I realize that there is a dispute among scholars as to whether individual attributes should be taken to be
instances of attributes in individual subjects or maximally specific properties that can occur in several
subjects. If, as I suggest, these entities were introduced in the context of Platonic division, it would be most
plausible to take them as instances in individual subjects. For a detailed discussion of the controversy, see
Wedin (2000), pp. 38–66.
8
(ρο δI το' µετ3χειν τ#
πιδ3χεσθαι τ#ν το' µετεχοµ3νου λ$γον.
9
φανερ#ν δI
κ τν ε2ρηµ3νων (τι τν καθ’ <ποκειµ3νου λεγοµ3νων αναγκα7ον κα* τοeνοµα κα*
τ#ν λ$γον κατηγορε7σθαι το' <ποκειµ3νου.

11:15:24:11:11 Page 144

 Page 145

      ’ CATEGORIES 

into species (διαρεσι ) evident in Plato’s late dialogues. Aristotle’s class of individual
attributes would offer a plausible answer to a question that naturally arises from Plato’s
insistence in the Philebus (16c5–e2) that Forms or genera are both one and indefinitely
many. What, one might ask, are the many that participate, say, in color—things that
have color, or the instances of color ‘in’ those things? If one is thinking of division, it
might be plausible to opt for individual instances of color rather than the things that
have the color, given that neither Plato nor Aristotle seem to make a clear distinction
between the relations of individuals to their species and species to their genus. Plato
himself, on the other hand, had spoken of tallness and the like being ‘in’ persons in the
Phaedo, so that it would have appeared plausible to use the ‘in’-locution for attributes.
But if one settles for a definition of µετ3χειν that excludes the attribute-relation, then
Socrates’ ‘participating’ in similarity becomes more complicated, and we would now
have to say that he has in himself an item that participates in similarity. Now, a Platonist
might conceivably be willing to recognize a new class of particulars, but the puzzles
raised about participation in the Parmenides would no doubt have been exacerbated by
recognizing two different kinds of participation.
To return to the chapter of Aristotle’s Categories from which we began: the
Aristotelian twist, as it were, comes with Aristotle’s insistence that Socrates’ relation to
the kind humanity cannot be explained by saying that he has an instance of humanness
in himself—presumably for the good reason that Socrates already is a man. In other
words, things being what they are cannot be explained in the same way as their having
certain distinguishable features, and they must already be something determinate and
identifiable in order to admit of the kind of explanation that Plato offers in the Phaedo
for ‘coming-to-be-and-passing-away and being’. Attributes appear to be dependent on
determinate subjects, and the relation between these subjects and the species to which
they belong cannot be understood on the model of the subject–attribute relation.
This, I would like to suggest, is the point where a question of ontological priority
could legitimately be raised—and we know, of course, that Aristotle wanted to decide
it in favor of particular subjects. Let me now turn briefly to chapter 5 of the Categories
to see how far he advances.
Aristotle’s first and most general argument, from 2a34 to 2b6, ends with the
triumphant conclusion that ‘ . . . all the other things are either said of the primary
substances as subjects or are in them as subjects. So in the absence of primary substances
it is impossible for any of the other things to be.’10 This conclusion is notoriously
overstated. If we take it to mean, as one naturally would at first sight, that all other
things depend on primary substances (particular subjects) because they cannot exist
without them, but particular subjects can exist without the rest, the argument seems to fail
dismally. For not only would we have subjects without attributes—‘bare particulars’, as
they were called by some brave philosophers in the last century—but since the species

10
τὰ αQλλα πάντα Gτοι καθ’ <ποκειµ3νων τν πρτων ο"σιν λ3γεται ?
ν <ποκειµ3ναι α"τα7
στιν.
µ9 ο"σν οUν τν πρτων ο"σιν αδ/νατον τν αQλλων τι εναι.

11:15:24:11:11 Page 145

 Page 146

  

and genera of substances are included in ‘all the others’, we would be left with what
Locke aptly calls ‘something we know not what’, since whatever it is that is ‘bare’ could
not even be described as a particular11. This cannot be what Aristotle had in mind,
since his primary substances, as we can see from his examples, are particulars of
determinate kinds, such as individual persons or horses, and those will necessarily have
some attributes, though not necessarily a fixed set. If Aristotle wanted to maintain that
in some sense everything else depends upon particular subjects that are neither attrib-
utes nor universals, he had to be more specific about the relations which he had in
mind. As far as existence goes, the dependence appears to be mutual.
Since we know that he continued to hold on to the primacy of his individual
substances, I propose that we look at other parts of this chapter to see whether there
might be some better grounds for his priority claim. It seems to me that once again the
distinction between attributes and kinds (genera and species) had a role to play. I would
suggest that Aristotle’s main reason for counting all attributes as dependent entities
shows up in the section about the proprium of substance, at 4a10–22, which is said to be
the fact that only a (primary) substance is such that it may ‘receive contraries’ while
remaining one and the same thing12. This is not presented as an argument for the
primacy of particular subjects, but it points to a fact that was crucial in Plato’s own first
introduction of the distinction between things and their attributes: that the same
particular thing may appear to be characterized by opposite attributes. Plato con-
cluded—rightly—that the attributes must be distinct from the things that have them,
but then he went on to elevate the attributes over their subjects, on the grounds
that attributes (taken as universals) are changeless and eternal (timeless), while subjects
can and do change: when we paint the green fence black, we do not thereby destroy
the color green. Aristotle, on the other hand, seems to say that when we have painted
the fence, the green color is gone but the fence is still there, and for any color to come
to be, there has to be some body in which it can be instantiated. Now, this will
not establish the dependent status of all attributes, since some of them—notably, the
differentiae of a species, the characteristics that distinguish them from all other species
of the same genus—are such that a subject cannot persist while losing them. But
Aristotle’s discussion of attributes seems to be concerned mainly with contingent
ones—and he notes that there is a difficulty with differentiae and decides that they are
not ‘in’ a subject (Cat.5, 3a21–29). This is not a plausible move, since it works only
because he uses the adjectives ‘two-footed (sc. animal)’ (δπουν) and ‘(animal) living
on land’ (πεζ$ν), which make it possible to predicate the definition of the subject as
well. But it would seem natural to say, for example, that rationality (λ$γο ) rather than

11
Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book II ch. 23, s. 2. Compare Aristotle’s own thought
experiment in Met. Z.3, 1029a9–30: if we took away all attributes from a substance, we would be left with
nothing, except perhaps a matter that has no determinate properties of its own.
12
Μάλιστα δI @διον τ- ο"σα δοκε7 εναι τ# τα"τ#ν κα* Bν αριθµ= fν τν
ναντων εναι δεκτικ$ν.
The phrase Bν αριθµ= (one in number) shows that he is speaking of primary substances only.

11:15:24:11:11 Page 146

 Page 147

      ’ CATEGORIES 

‘being rational’ (λ$γον &χον) is the differentia of humans,13 and clearly the definition of
rationality cannot be predicated of people. However the difficulty with differentiae or
essential attributes is to be solved, we might agree that particular contingent attributes
do depend on their subjects for their existence, since it is possible for a subject to exist
without having them, but not vice versa. So while it is not possible for a thing to have
no attributes at all, it is possible for a subject to change its attributes while remaining
the same, but not for a particular attribute to change subject. If one thinks of attributes
in the context of change, as Aristotle evidently does in this passage, one can at least
understand his view about their dependent status. So much, then, for the status of
attributes.
But what about natural kinds and their genera? Here I would be inclined to say that
the dependence is indeed mutual, in that you cannot have a thing that is one without
being one of a kind. Aristotle seems to recognize this to some extent. He grants the
status of substance to the species and genera of individual subjects, but he also relegates
them to the status of secondary substances, no doubt because though they may be seen
as (generic) subjects of (generic) attributes, they are still universals—that is, such as to
be said of something as of a subject, and thus not ultimate subjects. And this means that
they fail to be ‘a this’ (τ$δε τι), as Aristotle argues at 3b10–21.
This criterion for substancehood remains constant throughout Aristotle’s works, but
it is interesting to see that it is here introduced as a commonly held view (δοκε7, 3b10).
Perhaps it also arose first in discussions in the Academy. For example, in the Sophistici
Elenchi (178b36–179a10) Aristotle claims that the Third Man puzzle arises because
one has erroneously admitted that ‘what is predicated of all [sc. men] in common’ is a
this.14 Aristotle paraphrases the expression τ$δε τι by ‘individual (αQτοµον) and one in
number’. Species and genera—at least in this treatise—are not one in number.15 Words
such as ‘man’ or ‘horse’ cannot be used by themselves to pick out an individual subject
without some demonstrative, and it is presumably true that you cannot point to a
universal. Also, one might say that while sensible particulars can be identified
independently of their species (saying, for example, ‘the white thing there’, cp. Top. A7,
103a30), it would be difficult even to explain what a species is supposed to be without
reference to its members. However, Aristotle’s subsequent attempt to assimilate these
species and genera to the category of quality (or some other; see the Soph.El. passage)
sounds hesitant and half-hearted, and would surely be a bad idea, since it would
obliterate the distinction between attributes and species that seemed to be at the basis
of his revision of Platonic ontology.
What does not seem to occur to Aristotle, either here or elsewhere, is that species
and genera might be seen as classes or sets, although one should think that this is

13
For this point, see An. Pr. A 34, 47b40–48a15.
14
Κα* (τι &στι τι τρτο αQνθρωπο παρ’ α"τ#ν κα* τοg καθ’ Bκαστον· τ# γὰρ αQνθρωπο κα* α0παν
τ# κοιν#ν ο" τ$δε τι αλλὰ τοι$νδε τι ? ποσ$ν ? πρ$ τι ? τν τοιο/των τι σµαινει.
15
But see Top. A7, 103a23–31, where Aristotle cites the cases of coat and cloak, two-footed terrestrial
animal, and man as examples of unity in number.

11:15:24:11:11 Page 147

 Page 148

  

actually suggested at least by the word γ3νο . But in the chapter on γ3νο in Met. ∆,
Aristotle explicitly distinguishes between the use of the word for a family or group of
animals of the same species, such as mankind, and its use as a generic term that is the
subject of the differentiae (Met. ∆ 28, 1024a29–b9). And of course, so long as one
assumes that the genus can be predicated of the species, this interpretation is ruled out.
Mankind is not an animal, nor would Aristotle have thought so.
So, the status of species and genera of substances remains unclear in this chapter,16
and their demotion to secondary status may simply be an early indication of Aristotle’s
reluctance to accept any kind of universals as entities in their own right.
This is as far as Aristotle gets in the Categories. If I am right about the Platonic
inspiration of chapter 2, then the ontology of this treatise is thoroughly Academic
indeed; the sort of thing one could hope for from a critical Platonist who sees the point
of Plato’s theory, but who thinks it might need some modifications—which only goes
to show that Aristotle was surely the best Platonist ever.
As for the dispute about priorities, I would be inclined to agree about the dependent
status of attributes: even if not all of them are accidental, one could invoke the—
admittedly epistemological—argument from conceptual priority that Aristotle himself
uses in Met. Z.1 (roughly: in order to define ‘walking’ or ‘healthy’ or indeed ‘two-
footed’, you have to mention animals, but not vice versa; Z.1, 1028a34–36) to argue for
some kind of secondary status, but this does not happen in the Categories. Not so for
natural kinds, though—and one might suspect that the reason for the disappearance
of the terminology of secondary substances from Aristotle’s vocabulary was that he
was not satisfied with the arguments of Cat. 5. However, the ontology of chapter 2
is exactly what he uses in the Topics, where species and genera have a much more
important role than concrete individuals. In fact, the distinction between primary and
secondary substances is not even mentioned there.
The question of ontological priority is reopened only in the central books of the
Metaphysics. At this point, it has become much more complicated due to the intro-
duction of the correlative concepts of matter and form, of which there is no trace in
the Categories. Without wishing to delve into the labyrinth of interpretations of the
‘substance books’, I would like to draw attention to a statement that appears in
the ‘summary’ of chapters 1–2 of book H and also at De Anima 2.1 (412a6–9), and
that seems to be a result, however reached, of those tortuous investigations. Aristotle
repeatedly declares that sensible substance is ‘in one sense matter, in another form, and
in a third, the thing that is constituted by these (τ#
κ το/των)’. Matter is substance as
underlying subject, though only potentially a ‘this’; form is a ‘this’, but separable only
in thought; the third is the only thing that comes to be and passes away, and that
is separable without qualification (H1, 1042a26–31). Aristotle does not rank these—
presumably for the good reason that they exist, if and when they do, only together.

16
For the ambiguous status of ‘secondary substances’ in the Categories, see, most recently, Perin (2007).

11:15:24:11:11 Page 148

 Page 149

      ’ CATEGORIES 

It seems to me that this line could in a way be read as a vindication of the basic
status of the concrete individuals designated as primary substances in Cat. 2. Once
matter and form have been identified as the ‘principles’ of natural substances, they
count as substances as well insofar as they are principles of the generally recognized
substances.17 And the relation between the form of a concrete particular and the
particular itself is not the same as that between a concrete particular and its attributes:
it is either identity (if the form is seen as the actuality of the thing), or that of a
constituent inseparable from the individual itself. Separability or independent existence
did not arise explicitly in the Categories (implicitly perhaps in the first argument for the
primacy of primary substances), but in Met. Z it is listed as one of the features of
substance (Z1, 1028a33–34), and in H1 it seems to confirm the basic status of concrete
individuals. But while the form–matter analysis offers a clear distinction between the
relations of subject to attribute on the one hand, particular to form on the other,
the individual forms of Met. Z and H can no longer be identified with the species-
universals of the Categories. In Z.13, Aristotle argues at length that no universal can
count as a substance. What members of the same species have in common, it seems, is
not a metaphysical entity in which they might be said to participate, but simply the fact
that the same definition holds for all of them—a form of words that is synonymous
with the general term that signifies the form and is therefore truly predicable of all
corresponding individuals. We might say that these individuals are all tokens of the
same type—but the type itself is no longer seen as a metaphysical entity in its own
right. The genus, in turn, is no longer considered as a whole of which the species
are parts (as originally suggested by the word καθ$λου); rather, it is now described as
(analogous to) matter that underlies the differentiae (see, for example, Μet. ∆ 28, cited
above). The analogy is perhaps understandable,18 but is not very helpful, since it does
not leave room for the relations of inclusion, overlap, or exclusion between classes that
are so obviously represented in the divisions of a genus into species—not to mention
the four term-relations that underlie Aristotle’s syllogistic.19 At this point, then, the
Platonic–Academic conception of ‘participation’ has completely disappeared from
Aristotle’s ontology, and it seems that he never became interested in the ontology of
classes. Whether or not this is to be regretted, I think we still have reason to be grateful
to the medieval philosophers who bequeathed to us the distinctions between substance
and essence, form and species.

17
This may not be a plausible assumption from a modern point of view, since matter and form are
theoretical entities, but it seems to follow from Aristotle’s view that the ‘principles’ of a thing must be ‘prior’
to it. At least that is how I would understand a line such as Met. Z.3, 1029a30–32.
18
For this point, and the difference between the relations of form to matter and attributes to subjects, see
the classic article by Brunschwig (1979).
19
Interpreters tend to assume that the schematic letters in the syllogistic stand for class-terms. But
Aristotle might have considered them as names of kinds: thus P. Thom, for example, assumes that Aristotelian
kinds (ε@δη) are a special sort of sets (namely, such that all their members fall necessarily or essentially
under the kind term); and terms such as ‘white’ or ‘walking’ he calls quasi-Kind terms. See Thom (1996),
pp. 316–17.

11:15:24:11:11 Page 149

 Page 150

  

References
Ackrill, J. L. (). Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Brunschwig, J. (). ‘La forme prédicat de la matiere’, in P. Aubenque (ed.), Etudes sur la
Metaphysique d’Aristote. Paris: Vrin, pp. –.
Fine, G. (). On Ideas. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Frede, M. (). ‘The Title, Unity, and Authenticity of the Aristotelian Categories’, in M. Frede
(ed.), Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. –.
Perin, C. (). ‘Substantial Universals in Aristotle’s Categories’, Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy, : –.
Thom, P. (). The Logic of Essentialism. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Wedin, M. (). Aristotle’s Theory of Substance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

11:15:24:11:11
View publication stats Page 150