The Categories - Aristotle (reading eggs books .TXT) 📗
- Author: Aristotle
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Thus individual branches of knowledge are not relative. And it is
because we possess these individual branches of knowledge that we
are said to be such and such. It is these that we actually
possess: we are called experts because we possess knowledge in
some particular branch. Those particular branches, therefore, of
knowledge, in virtue of which we are sometimes said to be such
and such, are themselves qualities, and are not relative.
Further, if anything should happen to fall within both the
category of quality and that of relation, there would be nothing
extraordinary in classing it under both these heads.
Section 3
Action and affection both admit of contraries and also of
variation of degree. Heating is the contrary of cooling, being
heated of being cooled, being glad of being vexed. Thus they
admit of contraries. They also admit of variation of degree: for
it is possible to heat in a greater or less degree; also to be
heated in a greater or less degree. Thus action and affection
also admit of variation of degree. So much, then, is stated with
regard to these categories.
We spoke, moreover, of the category of position when we were
dealing with that of relation, and stated that such terms derived
their names from those of the corresponding attitudes.
As for the rest, time, place, state, since they are easily
intelligible, I say no more about them than was said at the
beginning, that in the category of state are included such states
as ‘shod’, ‘armed’, in that of place ‘in the Lyceum’ and so on,
as was explained before.
The proposed categories have, then, been adequately dealt with.
We must next explain the various senses in which the term
‘opposite’ is used. Things are said to be opposed in four senses:
(i) as correlatives to one another, (ii) as contraries to one
another, (iii) as privatives to positives, (iv) as affirmatives
to negatives.
Let me sketch my meaning in outline. An instance of the use of
the word ‘opposite’ with reference to correlatives is afforded by
the expressions ‘double’ and ‘half’; with reference to contraries
by ‘bad’ and ‘good’. Opposites in the sense of ‘privatives’ and
‘positives’ are’ blindness’ and ‘sight’; in the sense of
affirmatives and negatives, the propositions ‘he sits’, ‘he does
not sit’.
(i) Pairs of opposites which fall under the category of relation
are explained by a reference of the one to the other, the
reference being indicated by the preposition ‘of’ or by some
other preposition. Thus, double is a relative term, for that
which is double is explained as the double of something.
Knowledge, again, is the opposite of the thing known, in the same
sense; and the thing known also is explained by its relation to
its opposite, knowledge. For the thing known is explained as that
which is known by something, that is, by knowledge. Such things,
then, as are opposite the one to the other in the sense of being
correlatives are explained by a reference of the one to the
other.
(ii) Pairs of opposites which are contraries are not in any way
interdependent, but are contrary the one to the other. The good
is not spoken of as the good of the bad, but as the contrary of
the bad, nor is white spoken of as the white of the black, but as
the contrary of the black. These two types of opposition are
therefore distinct. Those contraries which are such that the
subjects in which they are naturally present, or of which they
are predicated, must necessarily contain either the one or the
other of them, have no intermediate, but those in the case of
which no such necessity obtains, always have an intermediate.
Thus disease and health are naturally present in the body of an
animal, and it is necessary that either the one or the other
should be present in the body of an animal. Odd and even, again,
are predicated of number, and it is necessary that the one or the
other should be present in numbers. Now there is no intermediate
between the terms of either of these two pairs. On the other
hand, in those contraries with regard to which no such necessity
obtains, we find an intermediate. Blackness and whiteness are
naturally present in the body, but it is not necessary that
either the one or the other should be present in the body,
inasmuch as it is not true to say that everybody must be white or
black. Badness and goodness, again, are predicated of man, and of
many other things, but it is not necessary that either the one
quality or the other should be present in that of which they are
predicated: it is not true to say that everything that may be
good or bad must be either good or bad. These pairs of contraries
have intermediates: the intermediates between white and black are
grey, sallow, and all the other colours that come between; the
intermediate between good and bad is that which is neither the
one nor the other.
Some intermediate qualities have names, such as grey and sallow
and all the other colours that come between white and black; in
other cases, however, it is not easy to name the intermediate,
but we must define it as that which is not either extreme, as in
the case of that which is neither good nor bad, neither just nor
unjust.
(iii) ‘privatives’ and ‘Positives’ have reference to the same
subject. Thus, sight and blindness have reference to the eye. It
is a universal rule that each of a pair of opposites of this type
has reference to that to which the particular ‘positive’ is
natural. We say that that is capable of some particular faculty
or possession has suffered privation when the faculty or
possession in question is in no way present in that in which, and
at the time at which, it should naturally be present. We do not
call that toothless which has not teeth, or that blind which has
not sight, but rather that which has not teeth or sight at the
time when by nature it should. For there are some creatures which
from birth are without sight, or without teeth, but these are not
called toothless or blind.
To be without some faculty or to possess it is not the same as
the corresponding ‘privative’ or ‘positive’. ‘Sight’ is a
‘positive’, ‘blindness’ a ‘privative’, but ‘to possess sight’ is
not equivalent to ‘sight’, ‘to be blind’ is not equivalent to
‘blindness’. Blindness is a ‘privative’, to be blind is to be in
a state of privation, but is not a ‘privative’. Moreover, if
‘blindness’ were equivalent to ‘being blind’, both would be
predicated of the same subject; but though a man is said to be
blind, he is by no means said to be blindness.
To be in a state of ‘possession’ is, it appears, the opposite of
being in a state of ‘privation’, just as ‘positives’ and
‘privatives’ themselves are opposite. There is the same type of
antithesis in both cases; for just as blindness is opposed to
sight, so is being blind opposed to having sight.
That which is affirmed or denied is not itself affirmation or
denial. By ‘affirmation’ we mean an affirmative proposition, by
‘denial’ a negative. Now, those facts which form the matter of
the affirmation or denial are not propositions; yet these two are
said to be opposed in the same sense as the affirmation and
denial, for in this case also the type of antithesis is the same.
For as the affirmation is opposed to the denial, as in the two
propositions ‘he sits’, ‘he does not sit’, so also the fact which
constitutes the matter of the proposition in one case is opposed
to that in the other, his sitting, that is to say, to his not
sitting.
It is evident that ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’ are not opposed
each to each in the same sense as relatives. The one is not
explained by reference to the other; sight is not sight of
blindness, nor is any other preposition used to indicate the
relation. Similarly blindness is not said to be blindness of
sight, but rather, privation of sight. Relatives, moreover,
reciprocate; if blindness, therefore, were a relative, there
would be a reciprocity of relation between it and that with which
it was correlative. But this is not the case. Sight is not called
the sight of blindness.
That those terms which fall under the heads of ‘positives’ and
‘privatives’ are not opposed each to each as contraries, either,
is plain from the following facts: Of a pair of contraries such
that they have no intermediate, one or the other must needs be
present in the subject in which they naturally subsist, or of
which they are predicated; for it is those, as we proved,’ in the
case of which this necessity obtains, that have no intermediate.
Moreover, we cited health and disease, odd and even, as
instances. But those contraries which have an intermediate are
not subject to any such necessity. It is not necessary that every
substance, receptive of such qualities, should be either black or
white, cold or hot, for something intermediate between these
contraries may very well be present in the subject. We proved,
moreover, that those contraries have an intermediate in the case
of which the said necessity does not obtain. Yet when one of the
two contraries is a constitutive property of the subject, as it
is a constitutive property of fire to be hot, of snow to be
white, it is necessary determinately that one of the two
contraries, not one or the other, should be present in the
subject; for fire cannot be cold, or snow black. Thus, it is not
the case here that one of the two must needs be present in every
subject receptive of these qualities, but only in that subject of
which the one forms a constitutive property. Moreover, in such
cases it is one member of the pair determinately, and not either
the one or the other, which must be present.
In the case of ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’, on the other hand,
neither of the aforesaid statements holds good. For it is not
necessary that a subject receptive of the qualities should always
have either the one or the other; that which has not yet advanced
to the state when sight is natural is not said either to be blind
or to see. Thus ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’ do not belong to
that class of contraries which consists of those which have no
intermediate. On the other hand, they do not belong either to
that class which consists of contraries which have an
intermediate. For under certain conditions it is necessary that
either the one or the other should form part of the constitution
of every appropriate subject. For when a thing has reached the
stage when it is by nature capable of sight, it will be said
either to see or to be blind, and that in an indeterminate sense,
signifying that the capacity may be either present or absent; for
it is not necessary either that it should see or that it should
be blind, but that it should be either in the one state or in the
other. Yet in the case of those contraries which have an
intermediate we found that it was never necessary that either the
one or the other should be present in every appropriate subject,
but only that in certain subjects one of the pair should be
present, and that in a determinate sense. It is, therefore, plain
that ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’ are not opposed each to each in
either of the senses in which contraries are opposed.
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