61 On Position
question 'Where is Socrates?' is that he is in the city or at home, then these prepositions with their objects are in Aristotle's view subsumed under the category of where.
In defense of this view one can argue: Suppose that there is such an entity. There scems to be no contradiction in the assumption that God destroys that entity but neither destroys the relevant place nor the thing occupying it nor moves the place or the thing occupying it from one location to another.
Lee us suppose that this actually happens. Then, either that body is in the relevant place or it is not. If it is in the relevant place and lacks the entity in question, it is located in a place without that entity; but then it is pointless to postulate such an entity. If it is not in the place where it was before, and if nothing has been corrupted, then something underwent local motion; but this runs counter to the hypothesis.
Others, on the other hand, say that where or whereness is a certain respect which is grounded in the thing occupying place and which derives from the limits of the place in which the thing is. Thus, the thing occupying place grounds the respect in question and the place where the thing is bounds it.
61: On Position The ninth category is position. In Aristotle's view this category does not signify anything different from absolute things. It signifies, on the contrary, that the parts of a thing are arranged, ordered, and situated in such and such a way. Thus, from the fact that a thing is erect (i.e., that its parts—its legs— are not curved and that its extreme parts lie at a maximum distance from each other), the thing is said to stand, or if the reverse happens, it is said to sit.
Terms like 'to sit', 'to stand', 'to recline', and 'to lie' belong in this category. None of the terms in this category can apply to a thing unless the thing is a quantum, the parts of which can approach cach other in different ways. Because of the different ways these parts can approach each other, different or contrary and incompatible predicates can successively apply to one and the same thing.
But because of the poverty of our language, we do not have an interrogative corresponding to this category.