Waitz, ad Categor. p. 284. “In Categoriis, non de ipsâ rerum naturâ et veritate exponit, sed res tales capit, quales apparent in communi vitâ homini philosophiâ non imbuto.�
We may add, that Aristotle applies the metaphysical analysis — Form and Matter — not only to the Category οὐσία but also to that of ποιὸν and ποσόν. (De CÅ“lo, iv. 312, a. 14.)
[71] Aristot. Metaph. Δ. 1017, a. 23. ὁσαχῶς γὰρ λέγεται, τοσαυταχῶς τὸ εἶναι σημαίνει.
Confining ourselves (as I have already observed that Aristotle does in the Categories) to those perceptible or physical subjects which every one admits,[72] and keeping clear of metaphysical entities, we shall see that respecting any one of these subjects the nine questions here put may all be put and answered; that the two last are most likely to be put in regard to some living being; and that the last can seldom be put in regard to any other subject except a person (including man, woman, or child). Every individual person falls necessarily under each of the ten Categories; belongs to the Genus animal, Species man; he is of a certain height and bulk; has certain qualities; stands in certain relations to other persons or things; is doing something and suffering something; is in a certain place; must be described with reference to a certain moment of time; is in a certain attitude or posture; is clothed or equipped in a certain manner. Information of some kind may always be given respecting him under each of these heads; he is always by necessity quantus, but not always of any particular quantity. Until such information is given, the concrete individual is not known under conditions thoroughly determined.[73] Moreover each head is separate and independent, not resolvable into any of the rest, with a reservation, presently to be noticed, of Relation in its most comprehensive meaning. When I say of a man, that he is at home, lying down, clothed with a tunic, &c., I do not predicate of him any quality, action, or passion. The information which I give belongs to three other heads distinct from these last, and distinct also from each other. If you suppress the two last of the ten Categories and leave only the preceding eight, under which of these eight are you to rank the predicates, Sokrates is lying down, Sokrates is clothed with a tunic, &c.? The necessity for admitting the ninth and tenth Categories (Jacere and Habere) as separate general heads in the list, is as great as the necessity for admitting most of the Categories which precede. The ninth and tenth are of narrower comprehension,[74] and include a smaller number of distinguishable varieties, than the preceding; but they are not the less separate heads of information. So, among the chemical elements enumerated by modern science, some are very rarely found; yet they are not for that reason the less entitled to a place in the list.
[72] Ibid. Z. p. 1028, b. 8, seq.: p. 1042, a. 25. αἱ αἰσθηταὶ οὐσίαι — αἱ ὁμολογούμεναι οὐσίαι.
[73] Prantl observes, Geschichte der Logik, p. 208:— “Fragen wir, wie Aristoteles überhaupt dazu gekommen sei, von Kategorien zu sprechen, und welche Geltung dieselben bei ihm haben, so ist unsere Antwort hierauf folgende: Aristoteles geht, im Gegensatze gegen Platon, davon aus, dass die Allgemeinheit in der Concretion des Seienden sich verwirkliche und in dieser Realität von dem menschlichen Denken und Sprechen ergriffen werde; der Verwirklichungsprocess des concret Seienden ist der Uebergang vom Unbestimmten, jeder Bestimmung aber fähigen, zum allseitig Bestimmten, welchem demnach die Bestimmtheit überhaupt als eine selbst concret gewordene einwohnt und ebenso in des Menschen Rede von ihm ausgesagt wird. Das grundwesentliche Ergebniss der Verwirklichung ist sonach: die zeitlich-räumlich concret auftretende und hiemit individuell gewordene Substanzialität, in einer dem Zustande der Concretion entsprechenden Erscheinungsweise; diese letztere umfasst das ganze habituelle Dasein und Wirken der concreten Substanz, welche in der Welt der räumlichen Ausdehnung numerären Vielheit erscheint. Die ontologische Basis demnach der Kategorien ist der in die Concretion führende Verwirklichungsprocess der Bestimmtheit überhaupt.�
[74] Plotinus, among his various grounds of exception to the ten Aristotelian Categories, objects to the ninth and tenth on the ground of their narrow comprehension (Ennead. vi. 1, 23, 24).
Boêthus expressly vindicated the title of ἔχειν to be recognized as a separate Category, against the Stoic objectors. — Schol. ad Categ. p. 81, a. 5.
If we seek not to appreciate the value of the Ten Categories as a philosophical classification, but to understand what was in the mind of Aristotle when he framed it, we shall attend, not so much to the greater features, which it presents in common with every other scheme of classification, as to the minor features which constitute its peculiarity. In this point of view the two last Categories are more significant than the first four, and the tenth is the most significant of all; for every one is astonished when he finds Habere enrolled as a tenth Summum Genus, co-ordinate with Quantum and Quale. Now what is remarkable about the ninth and tenth Categories is, that individual persons or animals are the only Subjects respecting whom they are ever predicated, and are at the same time Subjects respecting whom they are constantly (or at least frequently) predicated. An individual person is habitually clothed in some particular way in all or part of his body; he (and perhaps his horse also) are the only Subjects that are ever so clothed. Moreover animals are the only Subjects, and among them man is the principal Subject, whose changes of posture are frequent, various, determined by internal impulses, and at the same time interesting to others to know. Hence we may infer that when Aristotle lays down the Ten Categories, as Summa Genera for all predications which can be made about any given Subject, the Subject which he has wholly, or at least principally, in his mind is an individual Man. We understand, then, how it is that he declares Habere and Jacere to be so plain as to need no farther explanation. What is a man’s posture? What is his clothing or equipment? are questions understood by every one.[75] But when Aristotle treats of Habere elsewhere, he is far from recognizing it as narrow and plain per se. Even in the Post-Predicamenta (an appendix tacked on to the Categoriæ, either by himself afterwards, or by some follower) he declares Habere to be a predicate of vague and equivocal signification; including portions of Quale, Quantum, and Relata. And he specifies the personal equipment of an individual as only one among these many varieties of signification. He takes the same view in the fourth book (Δ.) of the Metaphysica, which book is a sort of lexicon of philosophical terms.[76] This enlargement of the meaning of the word Habere seems to indicate an alteration of Aristotle’s point of view, dropping that special reference to an individual man as Subject, which was present to him when he drew up the list of Ten Categories. The like alteration carried him still farther, so as to omit the ninth and tenth almost entirely, when he discusses the more extensive topics of philosophy. Some of his followers, on the contrary, instead of omitting Habere out of the list of Categories, tried to procure recognition for it in the larger sense which it bears in the Metaphysica. Archytas ranked it fifth in the series, immediately after Relata.[77]
[75] In the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Mr. James Harris’s Philosophical Arrangements, there is a learned and valuable illustration of these two last Aristotelian Categories. I think, however, that he gives to the Predicament Κεῖσθαι (Jacere) a larger and more comprehensive meaning than it bears in the treatise Categoriæ; and that neither he, nor the commentators whom he cites (p. 317), take sufficient notice of the marked distinction drawn in that treatise between κεῖσθαι and θέσις (Cat. p. 6, b. 12). Mr. Harris ranks the arrangement of words in an orderly discourse, and of propositions in a valid syllogism, as cases coming under the Predicament Κεῖσθαι; which is travelling far beyond the meaning of that word in the Aristotelian Categories. At the same time he brings out strongly the fact, that living beings, and especially men, are the true and special subjects of predicates belonging to Κεῖσθαι and Ἔχειν. The more we attend to this, the nearer approach shall we make to the state of Aristotle’s mind when he drew up the list of Categories; as indeed Harris himself seems to recognize (chap. ii. p. 29).