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    Categories

    By Aristotle

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    About this ebook

    Aristotle's "Categories" is a short but influential work in philosophy that explores the nature of language and the relationship between words and concepts. In this treatise, Aristotle sets out to identify the various types of concepts and categories that underlie human thought and communication. The work is structured around ten categories, or groups of concepts, that Aristotle sees as fundamental to human understanding. These categories include substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and affection. Aristotle argues that all objects and ideas can be understood in terms of these categories, and that they form the basic building blocks of human thought and language.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInteractive Media
    Release dateJun 21, 2016
    ISBN9781911495000
    Author

    Aristotle

    Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher whose works spanned multiple disciplines including math, science and the arts. He spent his formative years in Athens, where he studied under Plato at his famed academy. Once an established scholar, he wrote more than 200 works detailing his views on physics, biology, logic, ethics and more. Due to his undeniable influence, particularly on Western thought, Aristotle, along with Plato and Socrates, is considered one of the great Greek philosophers.

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    • 4/5
      Aristotle here defines a lot of the basic concepts and terms. It's simple, straightforward and at the same time an apparent leap beyond what must have existed previously. The concepts include: predicate, simple, composite (parts of speech), relative terms, that a number has no contrary but a comparative term does, contraries, simultaneous, prior, movement (types - generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, change of place), and rest as contrary of motion.
    • 4/5
       To most, Aristotle's logical works will seem superfluous at best, or needlessly complex at worst. The reality is that they're neither. His style is unusual to us, but the subject matter is extremely simple but crucial the development of rational thought.

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    Categories - Aristotle

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    Aristotle

    Categories

    Published by The Big Nest

    This edition first published in 2016

    Copyright © 2016 The Big Nest

    All Rights Reserve

    ISBN: 9781911495000

    Contents

    SECTION 1

    SECTION 2

    SECTION 3

    SECTION 1

    Part 1

    Things are said to be named ‘equivocally’ when, though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name differs for each. Thus, a real man and a figure in a picture can both lay claim to the name ‘animal’; yet these are equivocally so named, for, though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name differs for each. For should any one define in what sense each is an animal, his definition in the one case will be appropriate to that case only.

    On the other hand, things are said to be named ‘univocally’ which have both the name and the definition answering to the name in common. A man and an ox are both ‘animal’, and these are univocally so named, inasmuch as not only the name, but also the definition, is the same in both cases: for if a man should state in what sense each is an animal, the statement in the one case would be identical with that in the other.

    Things are said to be named ‘derivatively’, which derive their name from some other name, but differ from it in termination. Thus the grammarian derives his name from the word ‘grammar’, and the courageous man from the word ‘courage’.

    Part 2

    Forms of speech are either simple or composite. Examples of the latter are such expressions as ‘the man runs’, ‘the man wins’; of the former ‘man’, ‘ox’, ‘runs’, ‘wins’.

    Of things themselves some are predicable of a subject, and are never present in a subject. Thus ‘man’ is predicable of the individual man, and is never present in a subject.

    By being ‘present in a subject’ I do not mean present as parts are present in a whole, but being incapable of existence apart from the said subject.

    Some things, again, are present in a subject, but are never predicable of a subject. For instance, a certain point of grammatical knowledge is present in the mind, but is not predicable of any subject; or again, a certain whiteness may be present in the body (for colour requires a material basis), yet it is never predicable of anything.

    Other things, again, are both predicable of a subject and present in a subject. Thus while knowledge is present in the human mind, it is predicable of grammar.

    There is, lastly, a class of things which are neither present in a subject nor predicable of a subject, such as the individual man or the individual horse. But, to speak more generally, that which is individual and has the character of a unit is never predicable of a subject. Yet in some cases there is nothing to prevent such being present in a subject. Thus a certain point of grammatical knowledge is present in a subject.

    Part 3

    When one thing is predicated of another, all that which is predicable of the predicate will be predicable also of the subject. Thus, ‘man’ is predicated of the individual man; but ‘animal’ is predicated of ‘man’; it will, therefore, be predicable of the individual man also: for the individual man is both ‘man’ and ‘animal’.

    If genera are different and co-ordinate, their differentiae are themselves different in kind. Take as an instance the genus ‘animal’ and the genus ‘knowledge’. ‘With feet’, ‘two-footed’, ‘winged’, ‘aquatic’, are differentiae of ‘animal’; the species of knowledge are not distinguished by the same differentiae. One species of knowledge does not differ from another in being ‘two-footed’.

    But where one genus is subordinate to another, there is nothing to prevent their having the same differentiae: for the greater class is predicated of the lesser, so that all the differentiae of the predicate will be differentiae also of the subject.

    Part 4

    Expressions which are in no way composite signify substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, or affection. To sketch my meaning roughly, examples of substance are ‘man’ or ‘the horse’, of quantity, such terms as ‘two cubits long’ or

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