Aristotle
philosophi/a]. Brentano, after remarking that no place in this
distribution is expressly provided for Logic, explains the omission
as follows: "Diese auffallende Erscheinung erklärt sich daraus, dass
diese [the three above-named theoretical sciences] allein das reelle
Sein betrachten, und nach den drei Graden der Abstraktion in ihrer
Betrachtungsweise verschieden, geschieden werden; während die Logik
das bloss rationelle Sein, das [Greek: o(\n ô(s a)lêthe/s],
behandelt." (Ueber die Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles, p.
39.)--Investigations [Greek: peri\ tê=s a)lêthei/as, o(\n tro/pon
dei= a)pode/chesthai] are considered by Aristotle as belonging to
[Greek: ta\ A)naluktika]; enquiries into method in the first
instance, and into doctrine chiefly with a view to method (Metaphys.
[Greek: G]. p. 1005, b. 2. In Metaphys. ]Greek: G]. 1005, b. 7, he
declares that these enquiries into method, or analysis of the
_principia_ of syllogistic reasoning, belong to the Philosophia Prima
(compare Metaphys. Z. 12, p. 1037, b. 8). Schwegler in his Commentary
(p. 161) remarks that this is one of the few passages in which
Aristotle indicates the relation in which Logic stands to
Metaphysics, or First Philosophy. The question has been started among
his [Greek: A)pori/ai] Metaph. B. 2, p. 999, b. 30.]
[Footnote 3: Respecting the title of Organon which was sometimes
applied to the Analytica Posteriora only, see Waitz ad Organ, ii. p.
294.]
These treatises are six in number:--1. Categoriæ;[4] 2. De
Interpretatione, or De Enunciatione; 3. Analytica Priora; 4.
Analytica Posteriora; 5. Topica; 6. De Sophisticis Elenchis. This
last short treatise--De Sophisticis Elenchis--belongs naturally to
the Topica which precedes it, and of which it ought to be ranked as
the ninth or concluding book. Waitz has printed it as such in his
edition of the Organon; but as it has been generally known with a
separate place and title, I shall not depart from the received
understanding.
[Footnote 4: Some eminent critics, Prantl and Bonitz among them,
consider the treatise Categoriæ not to be the work of Aristotle. The
arguments on which this opinion rests are not convincing to me; and
even if they were, the treatise could not be left out of
consideration, since the _doctrine_ of the Ten Categories is
indisputably Aristotelian. See Zeller, Die Phil. der Griech. ii. 2,
pp. 50, 51, 2nd ed.]
Aristotle himself does not announce these six treatises as forming a
distinct aggregate, nor as belonging to one and the same department,
nor as bearing one comprehensive name. We find indeed in the Topica
references to the Analytica, and in the Analytica references to the
Topica. In both of them, the ten Categories are assumed and
presupposed, though the treatise describing them is not expressly
mentioned: to both also, the contents of the treatise De
Interpretatione or Enunciatione, though it is not named, are
indispensable. The affinity and interdependence of the six is
evident, and justifies the practice of the commentators in treating
them as belonging to one and the same department. To that department
there belonged also several other treatises of Aristotle, not now
preserved, but specified in the catalogue of his lost works; and
these his disciple Theophrastus, Eudemus, and Phanias, had before
them. As all these three disciples composed treatises of their own on
the same or similar topics,[5] amplifying, elucidating, or
controverting the views of their master, the Peripatetics immediately
succeeding them must have possessed a copious logical literature, in
which the six treatises now constituting the Organon appeared as
portions, but not as a special aggregate in themselves.
[Footnote 5: Ammonius ap. Schol. p. 28, a. 41; p. 33, b. 27, Br.]
Of the two treatises which stand first in the Aristotelian
Organon--the Categoriæ and the De Interpretatione--each forms in a
certain sense the complement of the other. The treatise De
Interpretatione handles Propositions (combinations of terms in the
way of Subject and Predicate), with prominent reference to the
specific attribute of a Proposition--the being true or false, the
object of belief or disbelief; the treatise Categoriæ deals with
these same Terms (to use Aristotle's own phrase) pronounced without
or apart from such combination. In his definition of the simple
Term, the Proposition is at the same time assumed to be foreknown
as the correlate or antithesis to it.[6]
[Footnote 6: [Greek: Ta\ a)/neu sumplokê=s lego/mena--tô=n kata\
mêdemi/an sumplokê\n legome/nôna] Categ. p. 1, a. 16, b. 25). See
Schol. ad Aristot. Physica, p. 323, b. 25, Br.; and Bonitz ad
Aristotel. Metaph. (A. p. 987) p. 90.
The Categories of Aristotle appear to formed one of the most
prominent topics of the teaching of Themistius: rebutting the charge,
advanced both against himself, and, in earlier days, against Sokrates
and the Sophists, of rendering his pupils presumptuous and conceited,
he asks, [Greek: ê)kou/sate de\ au)= tinos tô=n e)mô=n e)pitêdei/ôn
u(psêlogoume/nou kai\ brenthuome/nou _e)pi\ toi=s sunônu/mois ê)\
o(mônu/moi=s ê)\ parônu/mois_]; (Orat. xxiii. p. 351.)
Reference is made (in the Scholia on the Categoriæ, p. 43, b. 19) to
a classification of names made by Speusippus, which must have been at
least as early as that of Aristotle; perhaps earlier, since
Speusippus died in 339 B.C. We do not hear enough of this to
understand clearly what it was. Boêthus remarked that Aristotle had
omitted to notice some distinctions drawn by Speusippus on this
matter, Schol. p. 43, a. 29. Compare a remark in Aristot. De Coelo,
i. p. 280, b. 2.]
The first distinction pointed out by Aristotle among simple,
uncombined Terms, or the things denoted thereby, is the Homonymous,
the Synonymous, and the Paronymous. _Homonymous_ are those which are
called by the same name, used in a different sense or with a
different definition or rational explanation. _Synonymous_ are those
called by the same name in the same sense. _Paronymous_ are those
called by two names, of which the one is derived from the other by
varying the inflexion or termination.[7]
[Footnote 7: Aristot. Categor. p. 1, a. 1-15.]
We can hardly doubt that it was Aristotle who first gave this
peculiar distinctive meaning to the two words Homonymous and
Synonymous, rendered in modern phraseology (through the Latin)
_Equivocal_ and _Univocal_. Before his time this important
distinction between different terms had no technical name to
designate it. The service rendered to Logic by introducing such a
technical term, and by calling attention to the lax mode of speaking
which it indicated, was great. In every branch of his writings
Aristotle perpetually reverts to it, applying it to new cases, and
especially to those familiar universal words uttered most freely and
frequently, under the common persuasion that their meaning is not
only thoroughly known but constant and uniform. As a general fact,
students are now well acquainted with this source of error, though
the stream of particular errors flowing from it is still abundant,
ever renewed and diversified. But in the time of Aristotle the source
itself had never yet been pointed out emphatically to notice, nor
signalized by any characteristic term as by a beacon. The natural
bias which lead us to suppose that one term always carries one and
the same meaning, was not counteracted by any systematic warning or
generalized expression. Sokrates and Plato did indeed expose many
particular examples of undefined and equivocal phraseology. No part
of the Platonic writings is more valuable than the dialogues in which
this operation is performed, forcing the respondent to feel how
imperfectly he understands the phrases constantly in use. But it is
rarely Plato's practice to furnish generalized positive warnings or
systematic distinctions. He has no general term corresponding to
homonymous or equivocal; and there are even passages where (under the
name of Prodikus) he derides or disparages a careful distinctive
analysis of different significations of the same name. To recognize a
class of equivocal terms and assign thereto a special class-name, was
an important step in logical procedure; and that step, among so many
others, was made by Aristotle.[8]
[Footnote 8: In the instructive commentary of Dexippus on the
Categoriæ (contained in a supposed dialogue between Dexippus and his
pupil Seleukus, of which all that remains has been recently published
by Spengel, Munich, 1859), that commentator defends Aristotle against
some critics who wondered why he began with these Ante-predicaments
([Greek: o(mô/numa, sunô/numa], &c.), instead of proceeding at once
to the Predicaments or Categories themselves. Dexippus remarks that
without understanding this distinction between _equivoca_ and
_univoca_, the Categories themselves could not be properly
appreciated; for Ens--[Greek: to\ o)\n]--is homonymous in reference
to all the Categories, and not a Summum Genus, comprehending the
Categories as distinct species under it; while each Category is a
Genus in reference to its particulars. Moreover, Dexippus observes
that this distinction of homonyms and synonyms was altogether unknown
and never self-suggested to the ordinary mind ([Greek: o(/sôn ga\r
e)/nnoian ou)k e)/chomen, tou/tôn pro/lêpsin ou)k e)/chomen], p. 20),
and therefore required to be brought out first of all at the
beginning; whereas the Post-predicaments (to which we shall come
later on) were postponed to the end, because they were cases of
familiar terms loosely employed, (See Spengel, Dexipp. pp. 19, 20,
21.)]
Though Aristotle has professed to distinguish between terms
implicated in predication, and terms not so implicated,[9] yet when
he comes to explain the functions of the latter class, he considers
them in reference to their functions as constituent members of
propositions. He immediately begins by distinguishing four sorts of
matters (_Entia_): That which is affirmable of a Subject, but is not
in a Subject; That which is in a Subject, but is not affirmable of a
Subject; That which is both in a Subject, and affirmable of a
Subject; That which is neither in a Subject, nor affirmable of a
Subject.[10]
[Footnote 9: Aristot. Categor. p. 1, a. 16. [Greek: tô=n legome/nôn
ta\ me\n kata\ sumplokê\n le/getai, ta\ d' a)/neu sumplokê=s; ta\
me\n ou)=n kata\ sumplokê\n oi(=on a)/nthrôpos tre/chei, a)/nthrôpos
nika=|; ta\ d' a)/neu sumplokê=s oi)=on a)/nthrôpos, bou=s, tre/chei,
nika=|.]
It will be seen that the meaning and function of the single word can
only explained relatively to the complete proposition, which must be
assumed as foreknown. That which Aristotle discriminates in this
treatise, in the phrases--[Greek: le/gesthai kata\ sumplokê\n] and
[Greek: le/gesthai a)/neu sumplokê=s] is equivalent to what we read
in the De Interpretatione (p. 16, b. 27, p. 17, a. 17) differently
expressed, [Greek: phônê\ sêmantikê\ ô(s kata/phasis] and [Greek:
phônê\ sêmantikê\ ô(s pha/sis].]
[Footnote 10: Aristot. Categor. p. 1, a. 20.]
This fundamental quadruple distinction of _Entia_, which serves as an
introduction to the ten Categories or Predicaments, belongs to words
altogether according to their relative places or functions in the
proposition; the meanings of the words being classified accordingly.
That the learner may understand it, he ought properly to be master of
the first part of the treatise De Interpretatione, wherein the
constituent elements of a proposition are explained: so intimate is
the connection between that treatise and this.
The classification applies to _Entia_ (Things or Matters)
universally, and is thus a first step in Ontology. He here looks at
Ontology in one of its several diverse aspects--as it enters into