Book V (Book .i) Chapter 7

things that have been mentioned. For we say of both one who is capable of seeing and one who is fully at work seeing that he sees, and similarly of both one who is capable of using knowledge and one who is using it that he knows, and also both of that to which rest already belongs and that which is capable of being at rest that it rests. And it is similar in the case of independent things, for we say that Hermes is in the block of stone, and that the half belongs to a line, and that what is not yet ripe is grain. When something is potential and when it is not yet so must be distinguished in other places.l2

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Chapter

8

Thinghood

is attributed to the simple bodies, such as earth, fire, water, and whatever is of this sort, and also to bodies in general and the things composed of them, both living things and heav­

enly bodies as well as their parts; and all these are called independent things because they are not attributed to anything underlying them, but other things are attributed to them. But in another way, thinghood means that which is responsible for the being of a thing, and is a con­

stituent in whatever things are of such a kind as not to be attributed to an underlying thing; an example is the soul of an animal. Further, thinghood refers to whatever parts are present in such things that mark them off and indicate a

this,

the removal of which does away with the whole; as a body is annihilated by the removal of its surface, as some 1 01 7b 20 say, or a surface by the removal of its boundary line; and in general, number seems to some people to be this sort of thing (since nothing would be if it were removed, and it marks off all things). But it also means what it is for something to be, the articulation of which is a definition, and this is called the thinghood of each thing.

It turns out, then, that thinghood is meant in two ways, both as the ultimate underlying thing, which is no longer attributed to anything else, and also of whatever is a

this

and separate, and of this sort is the form or "look" of each thing.13

1 2 See Book IX, Ch. 7.

1 3 Commentators are quick to deny what Aristotle says here, citing other places where he says that the form is not separate except in thought. But this comes from a failure to understand the dialectical structure of Aristotle's writings, which follow the order of inquiry. For instance, it is said in this chapter and again at the beginning of Bk.

VII, Ch. 2, that the parts of animals are independent things because, at first glance, their organs and systems seem isolable. But at the beginning of Bk. VII, Ch. 1 6, as the inquiry into thing hood nears its conclusion, Aristotle rejects that preliminary opinion,

Book V (Book .1.) Chapter

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Chapter 9

Things are said to be the

same

in some instances inci­

dentally, as what is white and what is educated are the same because they are incidental to the same thing, or a human being and educated because one of them is incidental to the other, and the educated thing is human because it is incidental to a human being. And this combina­

tion is the same as either part, and either of them is the same as it, for both the human being and the educated one are said to be the same as the educated human being, and it to be the same as they. (And for this reason all these statements are made nonuniversally, since it is not true to say that every human being is the same as the educated; for things that are universal belong to things in their own right, while incidental things belong to them not in their own right. But they are predicated of particulars simply; for Socrates and educated Socrates seem to be the same thing, but "Socrates" is not applied to many things, on which account "every Socrates" is not said in the way that "every human being" is.)

But while some things are said to be the same in this way, others are said to be so in their own right, and in exactly as many ways as they are said to be one; for those things of which the material is one, either in kind or in number, are also said to be the same, as well as those of which the thinghood is one, so it is evident that sameness is a kind of oneness of the being of things that are either more than one, or that are being used as more than one, such as when one says that a thing itself is the same as itself, since one is using it as two. But things are called

other

of which either the forms, the material, or the articulation of the thinghood is more than one, and in general other is meant in ways opposite to same.

All those things are called

different

that are other but are the same in some respect, only not in number but in either species or genus or by analogy. Also called different are those things of which the genus is other, and contraries, and as many things as have otherness in their thinghood.

and explains why. In the same way, it must seem to begin with that forms have a separate being only in our thinking, and Aristotle says this at various places, but at 1 072a 25-28, the culmination of the Metaphysics and of all Aristotle's philosophizing, he deduces the existence of separate forms. The present sentence is an anticipation of that inquiry, and means exactly what it says.

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Alike

is used of things that have the same attributes in every respect, as well as of things that have more attributes the same than different, and of which the quality is one; and in the case of contrary attributes which are capable of altering, a thing is like that one which shares either the most or most important of these. And

unlike

is meant is ways opposite to like.

Chapter 10

Things said to be opposites are contradictories, con­

traries, relative terms, lacking and having, and the extremes from which things come into being and into which they pass away; and whatever things do not admit of being present at the same time in something that is receptive of both of them are said to be opposed, either themselves or what they are made of. For gray and white do not belong to the same thing at the same time because what they are made of is opposed.

Contraries

mean things not capable of being present in the same thing at the same time, which differ in genus, or things in the same genus that differ most, or things in the same recipient that differ most, or things that come under the same capacity that differ most, or things whose difference is greatest either simply, or in a genus or species. The other things that are called contraries are so called either because of having such things, or because of being receptive of them, or because of being productive of or affected by them, or being losses or gains or states of having or lacking them. And since one and being are meant in more than one way, all those other things that are meant in ways corresponding to these must follow along with them, so that also same, other, and contrary are different according to each of the ways of predicating being.

Different in species are all those things which are of the same genus and are not subordinated one to the other, and all those things which are in the same genus and have a difference, and all those things that have a contrariness in their thinghood; contraries are also different from one another in species, either all of them or the ones called so in the primary sense, as are all those things in the ultimate species of a genus that have different articulations (as human being and horse are undivided in genus, but have different articulations), as well as all those things which, though present in the same independent thing, have a difference. The same in species are those things that are meant in ways opposite to these.

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Chapter 11

Things are said to be

preceding

and

following

in some cases, if there is some first thing or beginning in each class, because of being nearer to some beginning determined either simply and by nature, or else relatively or somewhere or by some people, as some things precede others in place by being nearer either to some definite natural place (such as a middle or an end), or to some random thing, while what is farther from it is following. Other things are preceding in time (some by being farther from the present, in the case of past things, for the Trojan wars precede the Persian ones because they stand farther away from the present, but others by being nearer to the present, in the case of future things, for the Nemean games precede the Pythian ones because they are nearer, when one uses the present as a beginning and first time). Other things have precedence in motion (for what is nearer to its first mover precedes the rest, as a boy precedes a man, while an origin of motion takes precedence simply). Other things have precedence in power (for what exceeds in power takes precedence and is more powerful; and of this sort is the person whose choice someone else must go along with and follow, so that the latter does not move when the former does not set him in motion, and does move when he does, the choice being the origin). Other things precede in an ordering (and these are all those things that are placed at intervals in relation to one definite thing in accordance with some pattern, as the second member of a chorus precedes the third, or the middle note of a chord precedes the highest, for there the beginning is the choral leader, and here it is the tonal center).

In this sense, then, these things are called preceding, but in an­

other sense what precedes in knowledge take precedence simply. And among these, that which has precedence according to reason does so in a different way from that which does so according to sense percep­

tion, for according to reason it is the universal that takes precedence, but according to sense perception it is the particular; and according to reason the attribute precedes the whole, as the educated precedes the educated human being, since there could not be the whole articulation without the part, and yet it is not possible for the educated to be if there is not something that is educated. Also, the attributes of things that have precedence are said to have precedence, such as straightness over smoothness, since the former is an attribute of a line on its own, but the latter of a surface.

Now some things are called preceding and following in that way,

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but others in accordance with nature and thinghood, namely those things that are capable of

being

without other things, while those others are not capable of being without them, which is a distinction that Plato used. (But since being is of more than one kind, first of all the underlying subject takes precedence, on account of which the independent thing precedes, but secondly precedence varies in accordance with potency or being-at-work; for some things precede in potency but others in being-at-work. ^In potency the half line precedes the whole one, the part precedes the whole, and material precedes the independent thing, but in being-at-work they follow them, for only when the thing is broken apart will they be fully at work.) So in a certain way all the things that are said to precede and follow are meant in accordance with this distinction; for some things are capable of being without others as a result of coming into being, such as the whole without the parts, but others as a result of destruction, such as the part without the whole. And it is similar with the rest.

Chapter 12 Potency

means a source of motion or of change, either in something else or in something

as

something else; for example, housebuilding is a potency that is not present in the thing that is built, but medical skill is a potency which could be in the one who is healed, but not insofar as he is healed. So the source of change or of motion in something else or as something else is called a potency; but so is the source of being moved or changed by something else or as something else. For in virtue of that by which something passive is acted upon, we say that it is capable of being acted upon, sometimes in any way whatever, but sometimes not with respect to every affection but only for the better. It also means the power of carrying this out well or in accordance with choice; for sometimes of those who just travel or speak, but not well or not in the way they intend, we say that they are not capable of speaking or walking, and similarly in the case of being passive. Also,

all

those states in virtue of which things are completely unaffected or unchangeable, or else not easily altered for the worse, are called potencies; for things are broken and crushed and bent and in general destroyed not by being capable but by being incapable and falling short of something; while among such things, those ^are unaffected which hardly and barely can be acted upon because of a potency and by being capable and holding on in some state.

And since potency is meant in so many ways, also what is capable

Book V (Book �) Chapter

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will mean in one way what has a source of motion or change (for even what can bring something to a stop is something capable) in something else or as something else, and in one way even if some other thing has such a power over it, and in one way even if it has a power to change in any direction whatever, whether for the worse or for the better. (For even what is destroyed seems to be capable of being destroyed, since it would not be destroyed if it were incapable of it;

but as things are it has some disposition and cause and source of such an affection, and sometimes it seems to be by having something, but other times by lacking something that it is such. But if a deprivation is somehow a condition it has, then in all cases it would be by having something, though if it is not, this would be so only ambiguously, so that it is capable by having some condition or by having the lack of it, if it is possible to "have" a lack.) And in one sense a thing is capable by virtue of something else's (or its, as something else) not having a destructive power over it, or source of such a thing, Again, in all these ways a thing is capable either because of something's just happening to come about or not come about, or because of its doing so well. For this sort of potency is present even in things without souls,14 such as in instruments, for people say that one lyre is capable of sounding but another is not, if it doesn't sound good.

And incapacity is a lack of potency and of the sort of source that has been mentioned, either completely or in what would naturally have it, or even at the time when it would naturally already have it; for it is not in the same way that we would say a boy, a man, and a eunuch were incapable of begetting. Also, for each power there is an opposite incapacity, both to the one that can only set something in motion, and to that which can do so well.

And while some things are said to be incapable in this sense of in­

capacity, others are said in another way to be possible and impossible:

impossible that of which the contrary is necessarily true (in the way

1 4 This striking qualification shows that the potencies described so far are found primarily in living things. They are innate strivings which will emerge so long as nothing prevents them, described in the Physics as inherently yearning for and stretching out toward form (1 92a 1 8). Though the weaker sense of mere possibility is described later in the chapter, the stronger sense of dunamis should always be presumed in Aristotle's writings.

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that it would be impossible for a diagonal to be commensurable be­

cause such a thing is false and the contrary of it is not only true but also necessary; so that its commensurability is not only false but nec­

essarily false), while, contrary to this, something is said to be possible whenever it is not necessary that its contrary be false, in the way that it is possible for a human being to sit, since it is not by necessity that his not sitting is false. So in one sense, as has been said, the possible means that which is not necessarily false, in one sense it means what is true, and in one sense it means that which admits of being true. But it is in an altered sense that a power is spoken of in geometry.15 So these things are possible not as a result of a potency; but other things that are spoken of as resulting from a potency are all meant in relation to the one primary sense of the word, that is, a source of change in some­

thing else or as something else. For other things are said to be capable either because something has such a power over them, or because it does not have it, or because it has it in such-and-such a way. And it is similar with things that are incapable. Therefore the authoritative definition of the primary kind of potency would be a source of change

thing else or as something else. For other things are said to be capable either because something has such a power over them, or because it does not have it, or because it has it in such-and-such a way. And it is similar with things that are incapable. Therefore the authoritative definition of the primary kind of potency would be a source of change

In document Aristotle - Metaphysics I - XI [Sachs] (Page 108-116)