57 ideas
1695 | Without extensive examination firm statements are hard, but studying the difficulties is profitable [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is hard to make firm statements on these questions without having examined them many times, but to have gone through the various difficulties is not unprofitable. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 08b23) | |
A reaction: Suggesting that philosophy is more like drawing the map than completing the journey. |
1697 | The contrary of good is bad, but the contrary of bad is either good or another evil [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: What is contrary to a good thing is necessarily bad, as we see with health and sickness. But the contrary of bad is sometimes good, sometimes not, as we see with excess, opposed by both deficiency and moderation. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 13b36) |
1698 | Both sides of contraries need not exist (as health without sickness, white without black) [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: With contraries it is not necessary if one exists for the other to exist too, for if everyone were well health would exist but not sickness, and if everything were white whiteness would exist but not black. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14a06) |
11034 | The differentiae of genera which are different are themselves different in kind [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The differentiae of genera which are different and not subordinate one to the other are themselves different in kind. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01b16) | |
A reaction: This seems to be indicating a category mistake, as he warns us not to attribute the wrong kind of differentiae to something we are picking out. |
18367 | A true existence statement has its truth caused by the existence of the thing [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Whereas the true statement [that there is a man] is in no way the cause of the actual thing's existence, the actual thing does seem in some way the cause of the statement's being true. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14b18) | |
A reaction: Armstrong offers this as the earliest statement of the truthmaker principle. Notice the cautious qualification 'seem in some way'. The truthmaker dependence seems even clearer in falsemaking, where the death of the man falsifies the statement. |
11033 | Predications of predicates are predications of their subjects [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Whenever one thing is predicated of another as of a subject, all things said of what is predicated will be said of the subject also. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01b10) |
13134 | We negate predicates but do not negate names [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: We negate predicates but do not negate names. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §88) | |
A reaction: This is a point for anyone like Ramsey who wants to collapse the distinction between particulars and universals, or singular terms and their predicates. |
11044 | One is prior to two, because its existence is implied by two [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: One is prior to two because if there are two it follows at once that there is one, whereas if there is one there is not necessarily two. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14a29) | |
A reaction: The axiomatic introduction of a 'successor' to a number does not seem to introduce this notion of priority, based on inclusiveness. Introducing order by '>' also does not seem to indicate any logical priority. |
11042 | Parts of a line join at a point, so it is continuous [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A line is a continuous quantity. For it is possible to find a common boundary at which its parts join together, a point. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 04b33) | |
A reaction: This appears to be the essential concept of a Dedekind cut. It seems to be an open question whether a cut defines a unique number, but a boundary seems to be intrinsically unique. Aristotle wins again. |
11041 | Some quantities are discrete, like number, and others continuous, like lines, time and space [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Of quantities, some are discrete, others continuous. ...Discrete are number and language; continuous are lines, surfaces, bodies, and also, besides these, time and place. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 04b20) | |
A reaction: This distinction seems to me to be extremely illuminating, when comparing natural numbers with real numbers, and it is the foundation of the Greek view of mathematics. |
11286 | Primary being must be more than mere indeterminate ultimate subject of predication [Politis on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: He criticises his 'Categories' view, because if primary being is simply the ultimate subject of predication the primary being is, in virtue of itself, something indeterminate; it would be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for primary being. | |
From: comment on Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 | |
A reaction: Thus, Politis argues, primary being is essence in the later work. The words 'substance' and 'ousia' cause confusion here, and must be watched closely. Wedin argues that Aristotle merely develops his 'Categories' view, but most disagree. |
1700 | There are six kinds of change: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, change of place [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: There are six kinds of change: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, change of place. A change in our affections would be an example of alteration. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 15a13) |
1699 | A thing is prior to another if it implies its existence [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: That from which the implication of existence does not hold reciprocally is thought to be prior. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14a32) | |
A reaction: shadows and objects |
18366 | Of interdependent things, the prior one causes the other's existence [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: For of things which reciprocate as to implication of existence, that which is in some way the cause of the other's existence might reasonably by called prior by nature. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14b12) | |
A reaction: Not so clear when you seek examples. The bus is prior to its redness, but you can't have a colourless bus, so being coloured is prior to being a bus. Aristotle's example is a man being prior to the truths about him. |
13124 | Categories can be ordered by both containment and generality [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: Categories are usually not assumed to be ordered by containment, but also be generality. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §02) | |
A reaction: I much prefer generality, which is responsive to the full picture, whereas containment seems to appeal too much to the orderly and formalised mind. Containments overlap, so we can't dream of a perfectly neat system. |
13117 | How far down before we are too specialised to have a category? [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: How far down are we allowed to go before the categories become too special to qualify as ontological categories? | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
A reaction: A very nice question, because we can't deny a category to a set with only one member, otherwise the last surviving dodo would not have been a dodo. |
13116 | Maybe objects in the same category have the same criteria of identity [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: There is an idea that objects belonging to the same category have the same criteria of identity. This view was first explicitly endorsed by Frege (1884), and was later systematized by Dummett (1981). | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
A reaction: This approach is based on identity between equivalence classes. Westerhoff says it means, implausibly, that the resulting categories cannot share properties. |
13118 | Categories are base-sets which are used to construct states of affairs [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: My fundamental idea is that 'form-sets' are intersubstitutable constituents of states of affairs with the same form, and 'base-sets' are special form-sets which can be used to construct other form-sets. Ontological categories are the base-sets. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
A reaction: The spirit of this is, of course, to try to achieve the kind of rigour that is expected in contemporary professional philosophy, by aiming for some sort of axiom-system that is related to a well established precise discipline like set theory. Maybe. |
13125 | Categories are held to explain why some substitutions give falsehood, and others meaninglessness [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: It is usually assumed of ontological categories that they can explain why certain substitutions make a statement false ('prime' for 'odd'), while others make it meaningless ('sweet' for 'odd', of numbers). | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §05) | |
A reaction: So there is a strong link between big ontological questions, and Ryle's famous identification of the 'category mistake'. The phenomenon of the category mistake is undeniable, and should make us sympathetic to the idea of categories. |
13126 | Categories systematize our intuitions about generality, substitutability, and identity [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: Systems of ontological categories are systematizations of our intuitions about generality, intersubstitutability, and identity. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §23) | |
A reaction: I think we might be able to concede this without conceding the relativism about categories which Westerhoff espouses. I would claim that our 'intuitions' are pretty accurate about the joints of nature, and hence accurate about these criteria. |
13130 | Categories as generalities don't give a criterion for a low-level cut-off point [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: Categories in terms of generality, dependence and containment are unsatisfactory because of the 'cut-off point problem': they don't give an account of how far down the order we can go and be sure we are still dealing with categories. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §27) | |
A reaction: I don't see why this should be a devastating objection to any theory. I have a very clear notion of a human being, but a very hazy notion of how far back towards its conception a human being extends. |
13131 | The aim is that everything should belong in some ontological category or other [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: It seems to be one of the central points of constructing systems of ontological categories that everything can be placed in some category or other. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §49) | |
A reaction: After initial resistance to this, I suppose I have to give in. The phoenix (a unique mythological bird) is called a 'phoenix', though it might just be called 'John' (cf. God). If there were another phoenix, we would know how to categorise it. |
13123 | All systems have properties and relations, and most have individuals, abstracta, sets and events [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: Surveyed ontological systems show overlaps: properties and relations turn up in every system; individuals form part of five systems; abstracta, collections/sets and events are in four; facts are in two. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §02) | |
A reaction: Westerhoff is a hero for doing such a useful survey. Of course, Quine challenges properties, and relations are commonly given a reductive analysis. Individuals can be challenged, and abstracta reduced. Sets are fictions. Events or facts? Etc. |
13121 | Substance,Quantity,Quality,Relation,Place,Time,Being-in-a-position,Having,Doing,Being affected [Aristotle, by Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's list of ten categories proved to be the most influential scheme found in his works: Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Place, Time, Being-in-a-position, Having, Doing, Being affected. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §01 |
3311 | The categories (substance, quality, quantity, relation, action, passion, place, time) peter out inconsequentially [Benardete,JA on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The Aristotelian schedule of categories - substance, quality, quantity, relation, action, passion, place, time, and so forth - appears to peter out inconsequentially. | |
From: comment on Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.7 | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 5544 for Kant's attempt to classify categories. Personally I like the way Aristotle's 'peter out'. That seems to me a more plausible character for good metaphysics. |
11035 | There are ten basic categories for thinking about things [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance or quantity or qualification or a relative or where or when or being-in-a-position or having or doing or being-affected. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01b25) | |
A reaction: This sums up the earlier of Aristotle's two metaphysical view, and each of this categories is discussed in the present text. |
16116 | Aristotle derived categories as answers to basic questions about nature, size, quality, location etc. [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
Full Idea: Aristotle seems to have worked out his list of categories by considering various questions that one might ask about a particular object, such as What is it? How big is it? How is it qualified? And Where is it? | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance | |
A reaction: Of course, to think of his questions, Aristotle already had categories in his mind. How would he approach a proposal to recategorise reality more efficiently? |
13115 | Ontological categories are like formal axioms, not unique and with necessary membership [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: I deny the absolutism of a unique system of ontological categories and the essentialist view of membership in ontological categories as necessary features. ...I regard ontological categories as similar to axioms of formalized theories. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
A reaction: The point is that modern axioms are not fundamental self-evident truths, but an economic set of basic statements from which some system can be derived. There may be no unique set of axioms for a formal system. |
13119 | Categories merely systematise, and are not intrinsic to objects [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: My conclusion is that categories are relativistic, used for systematization, and that it is not an intrinsic feature of an object to belong to a category, and that there is no fundamental distinction between individuals and properties. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
A reaction: [compressed] He calls his second conclusion 'anti-essentialist', but I think we can still get an account of (explanatory) essence while agreeing with his relativised view of categories. Wiggins might be his main opponent. |
13135 | A thing's ontological category depends on what else exists, so it is contingent [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: What ontological category a thing belongs to is not dependent on its inner nature, but dependent on what other things there are in the world, and this is a contingent matter. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §89) | |
A reaction: This is aimed at those, like Wiggins, who claim that category is essential to a thing, and there is no possible world in which that things could belong to another category. Sounds good, till you try to come up with examples. |
21345 | Aristotle said relations are not substances, so (if they exist) they must be accidents [Aristotle, by Heil] |
Full Idea: Aristotle categorised relations as accidents - Socrates's whiteness, the sphericity of this ball - entities dependent on substances. Relations are not substances, so they must be, if anything at all, accidents. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], §7) by John Heil - Relations 'Historical' | |
A reaction: Heil says this thought encouraged anti-realist views of relations, which became the norm until Russell. |
16155 | Aristotle promoted the importance of properties and objects (rather than general and particular) [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: In 'Categories' Aristotle is taking a first step in making the distinction between objects and properties central to ontology. This plays virtually no role in Plato, and was overshadowed by the distinction between general and particular. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Individuals in Aristotle I | |
A reaction: Frede says he gets in a tangle because he mixes the earlier and the new views. Because we are nowadays in a total muddle about properties, I'm thinking we should go back to the earlier view! Modern commentators make him a trope theorist. |
11032 | Some things said 'of' a subject are not 'in' the subject [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Of things there are, some are said of a subject, but are not in any subject. For example, man is said of a subject, the individual man, but is not in any subject. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01a20) | |
A reaction: See? 'Being a man' is not a property of a man! Only the properties which are 'in' the man are properties of the man. The rest are things which are said 'of' men, usually as classifications. A classification is not a property. |
11038 | We call them secondary 'substances' because they reveal the primary substances [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is reasonable that, after the primary substances, their species and genera should be the only other things called (secondary) substances. For only they, of things predicated, reveal the primary substance. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02b29) | |
A reaction: This is the key passage in all of Aristotle for sortal essentialists like Wiggins, especially the word 'only'. I take it that this observation is superseded by the Metaphysics. Definition is the route to substance (which involves general terms). |
16739 | Four species of quality: states, capacities, affects, and forms [Aristotle, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: In Categories 8 there are four species of qualities: States and conditions, Natural capacities and incapacities, Affective qualities or affections, and Shape and external form. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], Ch.8) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.5 |
11037 | Colour must be in an individual body, or it is not embodied [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Colour is in body and therefore also in an individual body; for were it not in some individual body it would not be in body at all. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02b02) | |
A reaction: This may be just a truism, or it may be the Aristotelian commitment to universals only existing if they are instantiated. |
8499 | Nominalists cannot translate 'red resembles pink more than blue' into particulars [Jackson] |
Full Idea: It is not always possible for nominalists to translate all statements putatively about universals as statements about particulars. It is not possible for 'red is a colour' and 'red resembles pink more than blue' | |
From: Frank Jackson (Statements about Universals [1977], p.89) | |
A reaction: His second example strikes me as the biggest challenge facing nominalism. I wish they wouldn't use secondary qualities as examples. I am unconvinced that the existence of universals will improve the explanation. It's a mystery. |
8500 | Colour resemblance isn't just resemblance between things; 'colour' must be mentioned [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Some red things resemble some blue things more than some pink things because of factors other than colour. Nominalists must offer 'anything red colour-resembles anything pink', but that may contain a universal in disguise. | |
From: Frank Jackson (Statements about Universals [1977], p.90) | |
A reaction: Hume and Quine are probably right that we spot resemblances instantly, and only articulate the respect of the resemblance at a later stage. |
16154 | Aristotle gave up his earlier notion of individuals, because it relied on universals [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Aristotle abandons the notion of an individual which he had relied on in the 'Categories', since it presupposes that there are general things, that there are universals. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Individuals in Aristotle Intro | |
A reaction: Ah, very illuminating. So all the way through we have a concept of individuals, first relying on universals, and then relying on hylomorphism? I suppose a bundle theory of individuals would need universals. |
12351 | Genus and species are substances, because only they reveal the primary substance [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
Full Idea: The reason Aristotle gives for calling species and genera substances is that of what is predicated only they reveal what the primary substance is. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02b29-37) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance III.6 | |
A reaction: Thus we should not be misled into thinking that the genus and species ARE the essence. We edge our way towards the essence of an individual by subdividing its categories. |
1694 | Substances have no opposites, and don't come in degrees (including if the substance is a man) [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: There is nothing contrary to substances,…. and a substance does not admit of a more and a less. If this substance is a man, it will not be more a man or less a man either than itself or than another man. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03b33) |
16091 | Is primary substance just an ultimate subject, or some aspect of a complex body? [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
Full Idea: 'Categories' treats something's being an ultimate subject as a test for being a primary substance, but it does not treat its primary objects as complex bodies consisting of matter and form. In that case, is the composite or a feature the ultimate subject? | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.1 | |
A reaction: Gill is trying to throw light on the difference between 'Categories' and 'Metaphysics'. Once you have hylomorphism (form-plus-matter) you have a new difficulty in explaining unity. The answer is revealed once we understand 'form'. |
11280 | Primary being is 'that which lies under', or 'particular substance' [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: In 'Categories' Aristotle argues the primary being (proté ousia) is the ultimate subject of predication (to hupokeimenon, meaning 'that which lies under'), nowadays referred to as the 'particular substance' view. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 4.4 | |
A reaction: Politis says that Aristotle shifts to the quite different view in 'Metaphysics', that primary being is essence, rather than mere subject of predication. |
11040 | A single substance can receive contrary properties [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It seems distinctive of substance that what is numerically one and the same is able to receive contraries. ...For example, an individual man - one and the same - becomes pale at one time and dark at another. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 04a10/20) |
16140 | Secondary substances do have subjects, so they are not ultimate in the ontology [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: The concept of substance applies to secondary substances only with some deletions; ..it is not true that they have no subjects, and hence they are not ultimate subjects for all other elements of the ontology. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
A reaction: It increasingly strikes that to treat secondary substance (roughly, species) as essence is a shocking misreading of Aristotle. Frede says they are substances, because they do indeed 'underlie'. |
10965 | In earlier Aristotle the substances were particulars, not kinds [Aristotle, by Lawson-Tancred] |
Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Aristotle changed his view, as in 'Categories' the substances, the basic realities, were particular items, notably individual men, horses, cabbages etc. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Introductions to 'Metaphysics' p.178 | |
A reaction: The charge is that having successfully rebelled against Plato, Aristotle gradually succumbed to his teacher's influence, and ended up with a more platonist view. For anti-platonists like myself, the 'Categories' seems to be the key text. |
11036 | A 'primary' substance is in each subject, with species or genera as 'secondary' substances [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A substance, in its most primary sense, is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject, e.g. the individual man or horse. The species in which things primarily called substances are, are called secondary substances, as are the genera. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02a11) | |
A reaction: This distinction between 'primary' and 'secondary' substances is characteristic of Aristotle's earlier metaphysical view, with the later view (more unified and Platonic) in the 'Metaphysics'. |
8287 | Earlier Aristotle had objects as primary substances, but later he switched to substantial form [Aristotle, by Lowe] |
Full Idea: In 'Categories' primary substances are individual concrete objects, such as a particular horse, whereas in 'Metaphysics' such things are combinations of matter and substantial form, with the latter being the primary substances. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 9.1 | |
A reaction: Lowe claims there is no real difference. Aristotle came to think that matter was not part of primary substance, so the shift seems to be that substance was concrete, but then he decided it was abstract. Physicists will prefer 'Metaphysics'. |
12350 | Things are called 'substances' because they are subjects for everything else [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is because the primary substances are subjects for everything else that they are called substances [ousiai] most strictly. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03a04) | |
A reaction: This points to a rather minimal account of substance, as possibly the 'bare particular' which has no other role than to have properties. This expands in 'Metaphysics' to be matter which has form, making properties possible. |
11039 | A primary substance reveals a 'this', which is an individual unit [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Every substance seems to signify a certain 'this'. As regards the primary substances, it is indisputably true that each of them signifies a certain 'this'; for the thing revealed is individual and numerically one. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03b10) | |
A reaction: The notion of 'primary' substance is confined to this earlier metaphysics of Aristotle. |
13129 | Essential kinds may be too specific to provide ontological categories [Westerhoff] |
Full Idea: Essential kinds can be very specific, and arguably too specific for the purposes of ontological categories. | |
From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §27) | |
A reaction: Interesting. There doesn't seem to be any precise guideline as to how specific an essential kind might be. In scientific essentialism, each of the isotopes of tin has a distinct essence, but why should they not be categories |
12361 | Primary substances are ontological in 'Categories', and explanatory in 'Metaphysics' [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
Full Idea: The primacy of 'Categories' primary substances is a kind of ontological primacy, whereas the primacy of form is a kind of structural or explanatory primacy. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance X.9 | |
A reaction: 'Structural' and 'explanatory' sound very different, since the former sounds ontological and the latter epistemological (and more subjective). |
3315 | Aristotle denigrates the category of relation, but for modern absolutists self-relation is basic [Benardete,JA on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Aristotle denigrates the whole category of relations, but modern logical absolutists single out self-relation (in the mode of identity) as metaphysically privileged. | |
From: comment on Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.8 | |
A reaction: I think this refers to Plantinga and Merrihew Adams, who make identity-with-itself the basic component of individual existences. |
12349 | Only what can be said of many things is a predicable [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
Full Idea: Aristotle reminds us that nothing is to count as predicable that cannot be said-of many things. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance III.1 | |
A reaction: Thus there wouldn't be any predicates if there were not universals. Could we have proper names for individual qualities (tropes), in the way that we have them for individual objects? |
11837 | Some predicates signify qualification of a substance, others the substance itself [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: 'White' signifies nothing but a qualification, whereas the species ('man') and the genus ('animal') mark off the qualification of substance - they signify substance of a certain qualification. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03b18) | |
A reaction: This is making a fundamental distinction between two different types of predication. I would describe them as one attributing a real property, and the other attributing a category (as a result of the properties). I don't think 'substance' helps here. |
11043 | It is not possible for fire to be cold or snow black [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not possible for fire to be cold or snow black. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 12b01) |
1696 | Change goes from possession to loss (as in baldness), but not the other way round [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Change occurs from possession to privation, but from privation to possession is impossible; one who has gone blind does not recover sight nor does a bald man regain his hair nor does a toothless man grow new ones. | |
From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 13a35) | |
A reaction: Although this seems like an insight into entropy, it isn't an accurate observation, since trees lose their leaves, and then regain them in spring. Maybe somewhere men regrow their hair each spring. |