41 On the Distinction of the Categories
On the Distinction of the Categories to mean 'that which is not in the soul', then the division of being into the ten categories is not a division of a general notion into its logical inferiors.
On the contrary it is to be construed along the following lines: some real being outside the soul is designated by this category and some by that, and so on. Or it would be like the following: every real being outside the soul is in some category or other. But while we may interpret the categories in this way, we must grant that many things which are not objects outside the mind are subsumed under the categories.
41: On the Distinction of the Categories The next thing to be considered is the number of the categories. All writers agree that there are ten categories; nevertheless, it seems to me that many recent writers are in disagreement with the ancients on the question of the structure of the categories. For many writers say that in every category there are terms ordered according to greater and lesser generality in such a way that the more general is predicated in the nominative case and in the first mode of perseity of every item less general than it by a predication of the form 'Every
A is B'. To preserve such forms of predication in the case of adverbs, they invent abstract names. From 'where', which is an adverb, they form an abstract term like 'whereness'; and from 'when' the name 'wheness'; and similarly in the case of other such terms.
But the ancients, it seems to me, did not postulate this sort of structure in each category. They used the name 'category' and terms like 'genus' and 'species' more broadly than many recent writers. When the ancient writers said that the more general is always predicable of the less general and that every category has under it species, they were extending the use of the term 'predicate' in such a way that it applies to verbs. They were using the term as we do when we say that 'walks' is predicated of 'man' in 'Man walks' and when we speak of the predicates in the propositions 'He is wearing shoes' and 'He is armed'.
They also extended the notion of predication to include the predication of adverbs and prepositions along with their objects, just as we do in propositions like 'This is today', 'That was yesterday', 'He is at home', and 'He is in the city'.
In each category we can find some of the relevant predications, but it is not necessary that there always be proper predication involving only terms in the nominative case. Thus, not every series of terms is so ordered that the more
On the Distinction of the Categories general can be predicated of the less general in the strict sense of 'predicate'; some series can be said to be ordered in this way only when we take the term 'predicate' in the broader sense.
Since the view of the ancients seems more plausible to me, I shall try to outline that view in what follows.
The truth of the view can be shown if we look at the way Aristotle ennumerates the categories. He says "Expressions which involve no combination signify substance or quality or quantity or relation or where or when or to be situated or to wear or to do or to suffer."! Afterwards, by way of example, he says, "Where, as 'in this place'; when, as 'yesterday'; to be situated, as 'sits' and 'lies'; to wear, as 'wearing shoes' and 'armed'; to do, as 'to cut' and 'to burn'; and to suffer, as 'to be cut' and 'to be burnt'."? He makes the same point again in the chapter on doing and suffering.
Likewise, in chapter 32 of his Logic, Damascene says "It is necessary to know that there are ten categories, that is, ten most general genera under which every simple term is subsumed. The categories are: substance, as 'stone'; quantity, as 'two' and 'three'; relation, as 'father' and 'son'; quality, as 'white' and 'black'; where, which incorporates terms which express place, as 'in Tyre' and 'in Damascene'; when, which incorporates terms expressing time, as 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow'; to wear, as 'to put on clothes'; to be situated, as 'to stand' and 'to sit'; to do, as 'to burn'; and to suffer, as 'to be burnt'."> These passages from these two writers, one a saint and the other a philosopher, are sufficient to show that neither construes the categories as anything other than certain simple terms containing under them different words or intentions of the soul, of which, nonetheless, they are not always predicable by proper predication in the nominative case.
To see this one should note that in the view of the ancients the items in the categories are just certain simple terms, out of which affirmations and negations (i.e. affirmative and negative propositions) are capable of being composed. To bring this out Aristotle comments, "None of these terms by themselves involves an affirmation. It is, on the contrary, by combining these terms with each other that affirmations are produced."* Damascene says that under the ten categories "is subsumed every simple term," that is, every categorical word which is neither an affirmation nor a negation. Both writers intend that the terms subsumed under the categories are simple terms out of which propositions can be composed. This holds for simple
3 Dialectica, chapter 32, 7-14.
5 Dialectica, chapter 32, 8-9.
On the Distinction of the Categories terms of both the mental and the vocal sort; nevertheless, mental terms are prior as I shall show later.
As the Commentator indicates in the seventh book of the Metaphysics, the distinction among the categories is taken from the distinction among interrogatives appropriate to substance or an individual substance.® The different questions which can be asked about a substance can be answered by different simple terms, and a simple term falls under a category accordingly as it can be used to answer this or that question about substance. Thus, all such simple terms as can be used to answer the question 'What is it?' (asked of some individual substance) fall under the category of substance. Expres-sions like 'man', 'animal', 'stone', 'body', 'earth?
'fire', 'sun', and 'moon' are examples. Those which are used to answer the question 'Of what quality is it?" (asked of some substance) fall in the genus of quality. Examples are
'white', 'warm', 'knowing', 'square', 'long', and 'wide'. Those, on the other hand, which can be used to answer the question 'How much?" (again, as posed of a substance) are contained in the genus of quantity such as 'two cubits', 'three cubits', etc. But those which can be used to answer the question 'Of whom?' or some similar question (for here we have no one general interrogative word) are in the category of relation. Those which can be used to answer the question 'Where?' are in the category of where. However, one cannot answer this question except by means of adverbs and prepositions with their objects. Thus, if it is asked, "Where is Socrates?", the appropriate response is "Here" or "There" or "In Tyre" or "In Damascus" or "At sea" or "On land." All of these simple terms (I call them such since none of them such since none of them involves an affirmation or a negation) are in the category of where. Likewise, one can respond to the question 'When?' only by means of adverbs and prepositions with their objects. Thus, if it is asked, "When was Socrates?", one should respond by saying, "Yesterday" or "On such an such a day." It is precisely such terms which belong in the genus of when. Likewise, to the question raised by asking "What does Socrates do?", one can respond by way of verbs saying, "Warms" or "Walks".
Such parts of speech, then, belong in the category of action. The same sort of account holds for the remaining categories, although there are not general interrogatives appropriate to all the categories because of the poverty of our language.
It follows from this account that concrete terms like 'white', 'black', 'warm', and 'bitter' fall more directly under the category of quality than their abstract forms. It is for this reason that the Philosopher, when giving examples in the Categories, says "Quality as 'white'." Nevertheless, if we take the category of quality as something which universally excludes substance, then only abstract forms belong in the category, not the concrete.
6 Aristotelis Opera, 164, recto, B.