60 On Where
On Where that if an object can truly exist tomorrow and at other future times without the relevant entity, then in the same way a thing can truly have existed in the past and in the present as well without entities of the sort in question. It is pointless then to posit such things.
Further, if in the man who existed yesterday there is an entity in terms of which he is said to have existed yesterday (as the wood is hot by heat), then it is impossible that 'The man existed yesterday' be true without the relevant entity (just as it is impossible that the wood be hot without heat).
But this seems false. For there is nothing contradictory in the assumption that God conserves the man without the entity, for by His absolute power
He can conserve the man and destroy the entity. Suppose that this happens.
Either the man existed yesterday or he did not. If he did, he existed yesterday without the relevant entity. But, then, it is not in terms of the postulated entity that he is said to have existed yesterday, and that is what we set out to prove. Against the claim that he did not exist yesterday, one can point out that a proposition referring to the past is necessary in a way that if it is true not even God can make it false.
For these and many other reasons which in the interest of brevity I omit, both believers and non-believers can grant that when is not an entity of the kind described. It seems to me this was Aristotle's view, and it is for this reason that he never refers to this category by a name, but always by an adverb.
Others, however, say that when or whenness is a respect in the temporal thing which derives from the different times and on account of which a thing is said to exist in the past, present, or future.
60: On Where The eighth category is where, and what I have said in the case of the preceding category applies here. It seems that according to Aristotle's teaching, where is not a thing distinct from place and the other absolute things. On the contrary the Philosopher always refers to this category by the interrogative adverb expressive of place. Thus, all those expressions by which one
© can appropriately answer the question posed by the adverb 'where' are subsumed under this category. If, for example, an appropriate response to the