Τὰ λεγόμενα, as here used by Aristotle, coincides in meaning with what the Stoics afterwards called Τὰ λεκτά â€” of two classes: 1. λεκτὰ αὐτοτελῆ, one branch of which, τὰ ἀξιώματα, are equivalent to the Aristotelian τὰ κατὰ συμπλοκὴν λεγόμενα. 2. λεκτὰ ἐλλιπῆ, equivalent to τὰ ἄνευ συμπλοκῆς λεγόμενα (Diogen. Laert. vii. 43, 44, 63, 64; Sext. Emp. adv. Mathemat. viii. 69, 70, 74): equivalent also, seemingly, to τὰ διανοητὰ in Aristotle: ὁ διανοητὸς Ἀριστομένης (Anal. Pr. I. p. 47, b. 22).
Hobbes observes (Computation or Logic, part i. 2, 5): “Nor is it at all necessary that every name should be the name of something. For as these, a man, a tree, a stone, are the names of the things themselves, so the images of a man, of a tree, of a stone, which are represented to men sleeping, have their names also, though they be not things, but only fictions and phantasms of things. For we can remember these; and therefore it is no less necessary that they have names to mark and signify them, than the things themselves. Also this word future is a name; but no future thing has yet any being. Moreover, that which neither is, nor has been, nor ever shall or ever can be, has a name — impossible. To conclude, this word nothing is a name, which yet cannot be name of any thing; for when we subtract two and three from five, and, so nothing remaining, we would call that subtraction to mind, this speech nothing remains, and in it the word nothing, is not unuseful. And for the same reason we say truly, less than nothing remains, when we subtract more from less; for the mind feigns such remains as these for doctrine’s sake, and desires, as often as is necessary, to call the same to memory. But seeing every name has some relation to that which is named, though that which we name be not always a thing that has a being in nature, yet it is lawful for doctrine’s sake to apply the word thing to whatsoever we name; as it were all one whether that thing truly existent, or be only feigned.�
The Greek neuter gender (τὸ λεγόμενον or τὸ λεκτόν, τὰ λεγόμενα or τὰ λεκτά) covers all that Hobbes here includes under the word thing. — Scholia ad Aristot. Physic. I. i. p. 323, a. 21, Brand.: ὀνομάζονται μὲν καὶ τὰ μὴ ὄντα, ὁρίζονται δὲ μόνα τὰ ὄντα.
Of this mixed character, partly logical, partly ontological, is the first distinction set forth in the Categoriæ — the distinction between matters predicated of a Subject, and matters which are in a Subject — the Subject itself being assumed as the fundamentum correlative to both of them. The definition given of that which is in a Subject is ontological: viz., “In a Subject, I call that which is in anything, not as a part, yet so that it cannot exist separately from that in which it is.�[18] By these two negative characteristics, without any mark positive, does Aristotle define what is meant by being in a Subject. Modern logicians, and Hobbes among them, can find no better definition for an Accident; though Hobbes remarks truly, that Accident cannot be properly defined, but must be elucidated by examples.[19]
[18] Aristot. Categ. p. 1, a. 24.
[19] Hobbes, Computation or Logic, part i. 3, 3, i. 6, 2, ii. 8, 2-3.
The distinction here drawn by Aristotle between being predicated of a Subject, and being in a Subject, coincides with that between essential and non-essential predication: all the predicates (including the differentia) which belong to the essence, fall under the first division;[20] all those which do not belong to the essence, under the latter. The Subjects — what Aristotle calls the First Essences or Substances, those which are essences or substances in the fullest and strictest meaning of the word — are concrete individual things or persons; such as Sokrates, this man, that horse or tree. These are never employed as predicates at all (except by a distorted and unnatural structure of the proposition, which Aristotle indicates as possible, but declines to take into account); they are always Subjects of different predicates, and are, in the last analysis, the Subjects of all predicates. But besides these First Essences, there are also Second Essences — Species and Genus, which stand to the first Essence in the relation of predicates to a Subject, and to the other Categories in the relation of Subjects to predicates.[21] These Second Essences are less of Essences than the First, which alone is an Essence in the fullest and most appropriate sense. Among the Second Essences, Species is more of an Essence than Genus, because it belongs more closely and specially to the First Essence; while Genus is farther removed from it. Aristotle thus recognizes a graduation of more or less in Essence; the individual is more Essence, or more complete as an Essence, than the Species, the Species more than the Genus. As he recognizes a First Essence, i.e. an individual object (such as Sokrates, this horse, &c.), so he also recognizes an individual accident (this particular white colour, that particular grammatical knowledge) which is in a Subject, but is not predicated of a Subject; this particular white colour exists in some given body, but is not predicable of any body.[22]
[20] Aristot. Categ. p. 3, a. 20. It appears that Andronikus did not draw the line between these two classes of predicates in same manner as Aristotle: he included many non-essential predicates in τὰ καθ’ ὑποκειμένου. See Simplikius, ad Categorias, Basil. 1551, fol. 13, 21, B. Nor was either Alexander or Porphyry careful to observe the distinction between the two classes. See Schol. ad Metaphys. p. 701, b. 23, Br.; Schol. ad De Interpret. p. 106, a. 29, Br. And when Aristotle says, Analyt. Prior. i. p. 24, b. 26, τὸ δὲ ἐν ὅλῳ εἰναι ἕτερον ἑτέρῳ, καὶ τὸ κατὰ παντὸς κατηγορεῖσθαι θατέρου θάτερον, ταὐτόν ἐστιν, he seems himself to forget the distinction entirely.
[21] Categor. p. 2, a. 15, seq. In Aristotle phraseology it is not said that Second Essences are contained in First Essences, but that First Essences are contained in Second Essences, i.e. in the species which Second Essences signify. See the Scholion to p. 3, a. 9, in Waitz, vol. i. p. 32.
[22] Arist. Categ. p. 1, a. 26; b. 7: Ἁπλῶς δὲ τὰ ἄτομα καὶ ἓν ἀριθμῷ κατ’ οὐδενὸς ὑποκειμένου λέγεται, ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ δὲ ἕνια οὐδὲν κωλύει εἶναι· ἡ γάρ τις γραμματικὴ τῶν ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ ἐστίν. Aristotle here recognizes an attribute as “individual and as numerically one;â€� and various other logicians have followed him. But is it correct to say, that an attribute, when it cannot be farther divided specifically, and is thus the lowest in its own predicamental series, is Unum Numero? The attribute may belong to an indefinite number of different objects; and can we count it as One, in the same sense in which we count each of these objects as One? I doubt whether Unum Numero be applicable to attributes. Aristotle declares that the δευτέρα οὐσία is not Unum Numero like the πρώτη οὐσία — οὐ γὰρ ἐν ἐστι τὸ ὑποκείμενον ὥσπερ ἡ πρώτη οὐσία, ἀλλὰ κατὰ πολλῶν ὁ ἄνθρωπος λέγεται καὶ τὸ ζῷον (Categ. p. 3, b. 16). Upon the same principle, I think, he ought to declare that the attribute is not Unum Numero; for though it is not (in his language) predicable of many Subjects, yet it is in many Subjects. It cannot correctly be called Unum Numero, according to the explanation which he gives of that phrase in two passages of the Metaphysica, B. p. 999, b. 33; Δ. p. 1016, b. 32: ἀριθμῷ μὲν ὧν ἡ ὕλη μία, &c.