Aristotle
frequent in the dialectic schools of Aristotle's day as well as
debates, [Greek: Peri\ Tau)tou= kai\ E(te/rou, Peri\ O(moi/ou kai\
A)nomoi/ou, Peri\ Tau)to/têtos kai\ E)nantio/têtos] (Arist. Metaph.
B. p. 995, b. 20).]
[Footnote 147: Aristot. Categ. p. 14, b. 10.]
This is a sort of article in a Philosophical Dictionary, tracing the
various derivative senses of two very usual correlative phrases; and
there is another article in the fourth book of the Metaphysica, where
the derivations of the same terms are again traced out, though by
roads considerably different.[148] The two terms are relatives;
_Prius_ implies a _Posterius_, as _Simul_ implies another _Simul_;
and it is an useful process to discriminate clearly the various
meanings assigned to each. Aristotle has done this, not indeed
clearly nor consistently with himself, but with an earnest desire to
elucidate what he felt to be confused and perplexing. Yet there are
few terms in his philosophy which are more misleading. Though he sets
out, plainly and repeatedly the primary and literal sense of
Priority, (the temporal or real), as discriminated from the various
secondary and metaphorical senses, nevertheless when he comes to
employ the term _Prius_ in the course of his reasonings, he often
does so without specifying in which sense he intends it to be
understood. And as the literal sense (temporal or real priority) is
the most present and familial to every man's mind, so the term is
often construed in this sense when it properly bears only the
metaphorical sense. The confusion of logical or emotional priority
(priority either in logical order of conception, or in esteem and
respect) with priority in the order of time, involving separability
of existence, is a frequent source of misunderstanding in the
Aristotelian Physics and Metaphysics. The order of logical
antecedence and sequence, or the fact of logical coexistence, is of
great importance to be understood, with a view to the proof of truth,
to the disproof of error, or to the systematization of our processes
of thought; but we must keep in mind that what is prior in the
logical order is not for that reason prior in temporal order, orf
separable in real existence, or fit to be appealed to as a real Cause
or Agent.[149]
[Footnote 148: Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. p. 1018, b. 11-p. 1019,
a. 12. The article in the Metaphysica is better and fuller than that
in the Categoriæ. In this last, _Order in Place_ receives no special
recognition, while we find such recognition in the Metaphysica, and
we find also fuller development of the varieties of the logical or
intellectual _Prius_.]
[Footnote 149: In the language of Porphyry, [Greek: prou+phe/stêke]
(priority in real existence) means nothing more than [Greek:
proe+pinoei=tai] (priority in the order of conception), Eisagoge, cc.
xv., xvi.; Schol. Br. p. 6, a. 7-21.]
CHAPTER IV.
DE INTERPRETATIONE.
In the preceding chapter I enumerated and discussed what Aristotle
calls the Categories. We shall now proceed to the work which stands
second in the aggregate called the Organon--the treatise De
Interpretatione.
We have already seen that the Aristotelian Ontology distinguishes one
group of varieties of _Ens_ (or different meanings of the term _Ens_)
as corresponding to the diversity of the ten Categories; while
recognizing also another variety of _Ens_ as _Truth_, with its
antithesis _Non-Ens_ as _Falsehood_.[1] The former group was dealt
with in the preceding chapter; the latter will form the subject of
the present chapter. In both, indeed, Ontology is looked at as
implicated with Logic; that is, _Ens_ is considered as distributed
under significant names, fit to be coupled in propositions. This is
the common basis both of the Categoriæ and of the treatise De
Interpretatione. The whole classification of the Categories rests on
the assumption of the proposition with its constituent parts, and on
the different relation borne by each of the nine _genera_ of
predicates towards their common Subject. But in the Categoriæ no
account was taken of the distinction between truth and falsehood, in
the application of these predicates to the Subject. If we say of
Sokrates, that he is fair, pug-nosed, brave, wise, &c., we shall
predicate truly; if we say that he is black, high-nosed, cowardly,
stupid, &c., we shall predicate falsely; but in each case our
predicates will belong to the same Category--that of _Quale_. Whether
we describe him as he now is, standing, talking, in the market-place
at Athens; or whether we describe him as he is not, sitting down,
singing, in Egypt--in both speeches, our predicates rank under the
same Categories, _Jacere_, _Agere_, _Ubi_. No account is taken in the
Categoriæ of the distinction between true and false application of
predicates; we are only informed under what number of general heads
all our predicates must be included, whether our propositions be true
or false in each particular case.
[Footnote 1: See above in the preceding chapter, p. 60.]
But this distinction between _true_ and _false_, which remained
unnoticed in the Categoriæ, comes into the foreground in the treatise
De Interpretatione. The Proposition, or enunciative speech,[2] is
distinguished from other varieties of speech (interrogative,
precative, imperative) by its communicating what is true or what is
false. It is defined to be a complex significant speech, composed of
two terms at least, each in itself significant, yet neither of them,
separately taken, communicating truth or falsehood. The terms
constituting the Proposition are declared to be a Noun in the
nominative case, as Subject, and a Verb, as Predicate; this latter
essentially connoting time, in order that the synthesis of the two
may become the enunciation of a fact or quasi-fact, susceptible of
being believed or disbelieved. All this mode of analysing a
proposition, different from the analysis thereof given or implied in
the Categoriæ, is conducted with a view to bring out prominently its
function of imparting true or false information. The treatise called
the Categoriæ is a theory of significant names subjicible and
predicable, fit to serve as elements of propositions, but not yet
looked at as put together into actual propositions; while in the
treatise De Interpretatione they are assumed to be put together, and
a theory is given of Propositions thus completed.
[Footnote 2: Aristot. De Interpret. p. 17, a. 1: [Greek: lo/gos
a)pophantiko/s].]
Words spoken are marks significant of mental impressions associated
with them both by speaker and hearer; words written are symbols of
those thus uttered. Both speech and writing differ in different
nations, having no natural connection with the things signified. But
these last, the affections or modifications of the mind, and the
facts or objects of which they are representations or likenesses, are
the same to all. Words are marks primarily and directly of the first,
secondarily and indirectly of the second.[3] Aristotle thus
recognizes these two aspects--first, the subjective, next the
objective, as belonging, both of them conjointly, to significant
language, yet as logically distinguishable; the former looking to the
proximate _correlatum_, the latter to the ultimate.
[Footnote 3: Ibid. p. 16, a. 3, seq. [Greek: ô(\n me/ntoi tau=ta
sêmei=a prô/tôs, tau)ta\ pa=si pathê/mata tê=s psuchê=s, kai\ ô(=n
tau=ta o(moiô/mata, pra/gmata ê)/dê tau)ta/.]]
For this doctrine, that the mental affections of mankind, and the
things or facts which they represent, are the same everywhere, though
the marks whereby they are signified differ, Aristotle refers us to
his treatise De Animâ, to which he says that it properly belongs.[4]
He thus recognizes the legitimate dependence of Logic on Psychology
or Mental Philosophy.
[Footnote 4: Aristot. De Interpret. p. 16, a. 8: [Greek: peri\ me\n
ou)=n tau/tôn ei)/rêtai e)n toi=s peri\ psuchê=s; a)/llês ga\r
pragmatei/as.] It was upon this reference, mainly, that Andronikus
the Rhodian rested his opinion, that the treatise De Interpretatione
was not the work of Aristotle. Andronikus contended that there was
nothing in the De Animâ to justify the reference. But Ammonius in his
Scholia (p. 97, Brand.) makes a sufficient reply to the objection of
Andronikus. The third book De Animâ (pp. 430, 431) lays down the
doctrine here alluded to. Compare Torstrick's Commentary, p. 210.]
That which is signified by words (either single or in combination) is
some variety of these mental affections or of the facts which they
represent. But the signification of a single Term is distinguished,
in an important point, from the signification of that conjunction of
terms which we call a Proposition. A noun, or a verb, belonging to
the aggregate called a language, is associated with one and the same
phantasm[5] or notion, without any conscious act of conjunction or
disjunction, in the minds of speakers and hearers: when pronounced,
it arrests for a certain time the flow of associated ideas, and
determines the mind to dwell upon that particular group which is
called its meaning.[6] But neither the noun nor the verb, singly
taken, does more than this; neither one of them affirms, or denies,
or communicates any information true or false. For this last purpose,
we must conjoin the two together in a certain way, and make a
Proposition. The signification of the Proposition is thus
specifically distinct from that of either of its two component
elements. It communicates what purports to be matter of fact, which
may be either true or false; in other words, it implies in the
speaker, and raises in the hearer, the state of belief or disbelief,
which does not attach either to the noun or to the verb separately.
Herein the Proposition is discriminated from other significant
arrangements of words (precative, interrogative, which convey no
truth or falsehood), as well as from its own component parts. Each of
these parts, noun and verb, has a significance of its own; but these
are the ultimate elements of speech, for the parts of the noun or of
the verb have no significance at all. The Verb is distinguished from
the Noun by connoting time, and also by always serving as predicate
to some noun as subject.[7]
[Footnote 5: Ibid. p. 16, a. 13: [Greek: ta\ me\n ou)=n o)no/mata
au)ta\ kai\ ta\ r(ê/mata e)/oike tô=| a)/neu diaire/seôs kai\
sunthe/seôs noê/mati, oi(=on to\ a)/nthrôpos kai\ to\ leuko/n, o(/tan
mê\ proste/thê| ti; ou)/te ga\r pseu=dos ou)/te a)lêthe/s pô.]]
[Footnote 6: Ibid. p. 16, b. 19: [Greek: au)ta\ me\n kath' e(auta\
lego/mena ta\ r(ê/mata o)no/mata/ e)sti kai\ sêmai/nei ti (_i(/stêsi
ga\r o( le/gôn tê\n dia/noian_, kai\ _o( a)kou/sas ê)re/mêsen_) a)ll'
ei) e)sti\n ê)\ mê/, ou)/pô sêmai/nei], &c.
Compare Analyt. Poster. II. xix. pp. 99, 100, where the same doctrine
occurs: the movement of association is stopped, and the mind is
determined to dwell upon a certain idea; one among an aggregate of
runaways being arrested in flight, another halts also, and so the
rest in succession, until at length the Universal, or the sum total,
is detained, or "stands still" as an object of attention. Also
Aristot. Problem. p. 956, b. 39.]
[Footnote 7: Aristot. De Interpr. p. 16, b. 2, seq.]
Aristotle intimates his opinion, distinctly and even repeatedly, upon
the main question debated by Plato in the Kratylus. He lays it down
that all significant speech is significant by convention only, and
not by nature or as a natural instrument.[8] He tells us also that,
in this treatise, he does not mean to treat of all significant
speech, but only of that variety which is known as _enunciative_.
This last, as declaring truth or falsehood, is the only part
belonging to Logic as he conceives it; other modes of speech, the