56 On Quality According to the Opinion of Others
On Quality According to the Opinion of Others Since I have dealt with Aristotle's view on quality at some length in my commentary on the Categories, these remarks on his account suffice. Whenever
| comment on the Philosopher I express not my view, but Aristotle's as I understand it.
56: On Quality According to the Opinion of Others Others however claim that every quality is a thing really distinct from subStance, quantity, and relative things. They list four species of quality, and they construe the items contained under each of these species as things distinct from each other. Thus, they say that habit and disposition constitute the first species of quality. These are distinguished in that a habit is something firmly established; whereas, a disposition is something easily changed.
They say that the second species includes natural capacity and incapacity, and they hold that these are things different from habit and disposition.
They say that the third species incorporates affections and affective qualities; that is, all sensible qualities.
They claim that the fourth species includes form and shape, and they hold that these are both really distinct from substance and from qualities of the other species. Thus they say that whena straight body becomes curved, it teally loses one absolute entity and acquires a new one.
They attribute to quality the same properties that Aristotle does.
57: On Action Aristotle discusses the remaining six categories briefly. To benefit those who are less advanced in the study of philosophy I shall discuss these categories in greater detail.
The fifth category is action. When the philosopher enumerates the categories or deals with this category in isolation, he docs not refer to it by a name but by the verb, 'to do'. Likewise, Damascene refers to the category by On Action a verb rather than a name. Thus, it seems to me that for Aristotle this category is simply an ordered series of verbs designating that someone acts or does something. The verbs are so ordered that one can be predicated of another with the addition of the pronoun 'whoever'. Thus, 'Whoever heats, acts or does something' and 'Whoever moves, acts or does something'. It is in this sense that this category is a highest genus. And if we always had at our disposal, corresponding to verbs, not only participles but also names suppositing for the same things as participles, there would be few problems with regard to this category. For then it could simply be said that the relevant name (e.g., 'action') is suppositing for the same thing as the relevant participle (e.g. 'acting'), and it would be clear that action was an absolute thing like the thing acting. But since the thing acting is a substance, action itself would be a substance. Nonetheless, substance would only contingently be an action just as substance is only contingently the thing acting; and thus, the verb would be in one category and the noun in another. For as we have already proved, in Aristotle's view 'the thing acting' is in the category of relation (since 'the thing acting' can always admit the addition of an oblique form), but 'to act' is not in that category. Thus, the category of action would not designate anything different from what is in the category of substance and quality. It would simply designate things from those two categories. Thus, in the proposition 'Fire heats the wood', the verb designates the heat, although not nominally but verbally. Consequently, it cannot be predicated of the heat.
In the same way 'white' designates whiteness, but it cannot be predicated of whiteness.
In defense of this view and regardless of whether it is true, one can adduce convincing reasons. To take an instance, it can be argued that when one says, "Fire acts or heats", nothing over and above substance and quality is designated.
First, suppose that some other thing is designated. Where is that thing?
Either it subsists per se or it inheres in another. If it subsists per se, then it is a substance and the point intended is established. If it inheres in another, it either inheres in the fire that does the heating or in the wood that is heated. If the first be granted, then every agent and every mover would truly receive some new entity into itself whenever it acts or moves. Thus, the heavenly bodies and the intelligences would be continually receiving new entities as they act.
Likewise, in acting and creating things God would receive a new entity in Himself. One might say that things are different with God and creatures.
But the response is that if God without receiving any new entity can really and truly act (so that in His case there is simply action without any additional thing), it is pointless to posit such an entity in any agent; for each of them can really and truly be an agent without the addition of any such thing.
On Action One might claim that the relevant entity inheres in the thing heated. The difficulty here is that the heated thing should not be called agent, but would be; and the fire should be called agent, but would not be.
Likewise, the heated thing would receive into itself a number of things— the heat, that entity which is called the action, and another entity entitled the passion. It seems absurd, however, to posit such a plurality of objects without necessity and for no good reason.
Again, one can argue: the object in question is either caused or not caused.
If it is not caused it is God. If it is caused I ask "By whom?" It will be caused by some agent; therefore, some agent produced it. But if this is granted I ask the same question about the act of production by which the thing was produced. Thus, we will have a regress into infinity, or it will be held that one thing can be produced without any production. But for the same reason one should have claimed this in the first case above: one should have admitted that the heat is produced in the wood without any new entity in the thing producing the heat.
Again, one can argue theologically as follows: every thing which God produces by the mediation of some second cause He can produce immediately of and by Himself. Therefore, He can produce the thing which is claimed to be the action in the case where the fire acts immediately and without the fire actually acting. Suppose that this is done. Then, either the fire acts or it does not. If it does we must say both that it acts and that only God acts.
Against the claim that the fire does not act one can argue: the action is formally present in the fire, but then the fire is actually denominated by that action. Consequently, the fire acts, so that it both acts and does not act which is impossible.
For these and many other reasons one can claim that action is not something distinct from the agent, the thing effected, or the thing produced. And whether correct or incorrect, this is the view I think Aristotle holds. He claims that the name 'action' supposits for the agent so that the following are true: 'Action is an agent' and 'To act is an agent'; or he holds that propositions of this form should be analyzed in terms of propositions in which the verb takes the place of the relevant noun. Thus, 'The action of the agent exists', is equivalent to The agent acts'. Likewise, 'Heating is an act' is equivalent to 'What heats acts', and so on.
It should be noted that in Aristotle's view, 'to act' and 'to do' have a number of uses. Sometimes they are used in cases where something produces, causes, or destroys something else; and sometimes they are used where somthing destroys something or makes something into something else; finally, they are sometimes used very broadly and generally to cover the two cases listed above and the case of motion as well. It is in this broad use that they mark off a category.