Aristotle's "Categories" Chapter 1
waveletter
Within the "Organon" (tool, instrument) of the sciences--Aristotle's
logical works--there are three that stand out as a statement of his
foundational principles: (i) the "Categories," for which I've only
listed some of the basic source texts; (ii) "On Interpretation," which
I haven't had occasion to discuss so far; and (iii) the "Topics," in
which we've read through two chapters of the first book. But it seems
to me that all three of these should be read at one time. So, now I
want to recapitulate, correct, and augment some of the comments that I
made on the "Categories" over on the Yahoo list
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aristotle-organon). For those of you
that were reading the Yahoo list this may be a bit repetitive; I've
made a number of corrections and simplifications in the thread, though,
and, if you're a careful reader, it should still be worthwhile.
The "Topics" and "Categories" weave in and out through each other,
especially in their first few sections. For example, the list of the
fundamental categories of being in the "Categories" is almost identical
to the list in the "Topics," Book I, Chapter 9. And, in fact, these are
the only two places where Aristotle identified ten categories of being
in his entire written corpus. This alone suggests a strong affinity
between the two works. But there is more. The concepts of "homonym",
and so on, that abruptly begin the discussion of the "Categories,"
reappear in the "Topics." Let's take a look at the "Categories" to see
how it begins and trace its development in conjuction with the
"Topics."
Chapter 1 of the "Categories" comprises but a few paragraphs. I have a
few points to quibble about with some of the standard translations,
however. Harold Cooke's outline of the "Categories," on p. 9 of the
first Loeb Classical Library volume of Aristotle's works, says
"Ch. 1. The meaning of univocal, equivocal and derivative terms."
It would appear from Cooke's outline that Chapter 1 of the "Categories"
concerns itself with different kinds of words, with the various terms
we use. And, indeed, Cooke's translation begins,
(HPC) "Things are equivocally named, when they have the name only in
common, the definition (or statement of essence) corresponding with the
name being different. For instance, while a man and a portrait can
properly both be called 'animals,' these are equivocally named."
It seems to me that the translation differs a bit from the chapter
outline in emphasis; there is a slightly greater tilt in the
translation of Aristotle toward the thing and away from the term.
Let me try to translate the passage:
(RLA) "Things are called homonymous, of which the name alone is common
and the account of the essence according to the name is different, as
both the man and what has been drawn are figures."
(I've corrected this translation a little bit from the version that I
provided on the Yahoo aristotle-organon list.)
Again, the introduction to the "Categories" starts off abruptly with a
discussion of "homonymous" things, not "categories." There does not
seem to be any mention of the main purpose of the treatise, such as we
enjoyed at the beginning to the "Topics," and such as we might come to
expect from reading Aristotle's other works. The "Categories" begins
*in media res*, in the middle of the story, as do the works of
Homer--the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey." Perhaps some of the dialogues of
Plato use this literary technique as well, such as the "Meno." Whether
Aristotle was following this Greek literary tradition is not clear.
However, Aristotle's terse language may be be due to the fact that that
few, if any, of his extant works are actually his own. Rather, they are
widely believed to be notes taken by his students or standard texts
that he followed in lectures. Possibly, they were composed by later
philosophical disciples of his in the Peripatetic School.
A few things to note:
(1) Aristotle's term 'homonuma' is the root of our word 'homonym', but
the meaning has shifted toward the linguistic. Interesting. For us,
homonyms are words that happen to have the same sound, but signify
different things. Example: a "page" can be in a book, a courier-type
person in the king's court, or it can be a summons over a public
address system. The sound is the same, but the words are different.
Another pair is "right" (inalienable, for example) and "wright"
(maintenance worker).
(2) Aristotle's meaning pertains to the thing, not the word. "Things
are called homonymous...." Cooke's translation tends to put the
emphasis on the terminology, "Things are equivocally named...." Also,
Cooke uses "definition". The Greek is "logos tês ousias", or "account
of the
essence". To his credit, Cooke puts "statement of essence" in
parenthetically, but it still sounds like a remark, not the "proof" or
"rationalization" or "account" that the word "logos" connotes.
(3) Observe that the Greek word 'zôon,' roughly pronouced "zdoh-own,"
(zeta, omega, omicron, and nu) can mean two different things in Attic
Greek: an animal (from which our English word 'zoo' comes) and a
portrait, a drawn figure. The drawn figure itself does not necessarily
need to be of an animal. But, it does seem plausible that the
prevalence of drawn animal figures in some early stage of art gave rise
to the dual referents for the word 'zôon': bona fide animals and
pictures drawn by human beings. So I use the word 'figure' as I would
to say that "Cesar Chavez was a prominent figure in the U.S. farm labor
movement" and "That figure illustrates the idea in the text quite
well."
As with the text of the "Topics," I'll continue this comparison of
translations later in the "Categories" thread. For now, I'd like to
just remark that Cooke's translation, compared to the original Greek,
tends to impart a flavor of modern "linguistic philosophy" into
Aristotle's treatise. Linguistic, or ordinary language philsophy, seeks
the solution to philosophical problems by way of an analysis of our
grammatical apparatus. When we get to the actual Categories for which
the "Categories" is named, Cooke uses the term "predicate" (noun) for
"category" and "predicate" (verb) for "categorize". I guess it means
about the same thing, but it has the ring of voluntary linguistic
description, rather than account of essence, something distinct from
language, and it is the latter that Aristotle intends.
Among Aristotle's later commentators, Ammonius in particular, was very
adamant about reading the Aristotelian "onymies" as referring to
things, not words. I have some comments about Ammonius, and I'll submit
them to the aristotle-logic list in a later post.
--Ron Allen