[112] Aristotle gives an explanation of what he means by καθ’ αὑτό — καθ’ αὑτά, in the Analytic. Post. I. iv. p. 73, a. 34, b. 13. According to that explanation it will be necessary to include in τὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ of the Category Οὐσία, all that is necessary to make the definition or explanation of that Category understood.
M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire, in the valuable Preface introducing his translation of the Organon, gives what I think a just view of the Categories generally, and especially of πρώτη οὐσία, as simply naming (i.e. giving a proper name), and doing nothing more. I transcribe the passage, merely noting that the terms anterior and posterior can mean nothing more than logical anteriority and posteriority.
“Mais comment classer les mots? — C’est à la réalité seule qu’il faut le demander; à la réalité dont le langage n’est que le réflet, dont les mots ne sont que le symbole. Que nous présente la réalité? Des individus, rien que des individus, existant par eux-mêmes, et se groupant, par leurs ressemblances et leurs différences, sous des espèces et sous des genres. Ainsi donc, en étudiant l’individu, l’être individuel, et en analysant avec exactitude tout ce qu’il est possible d’en dire en tant qu’être, on aura les classes les plus générales des mots; les catégories, ou pour prendre le terme français, les attributions, qu’il est possible de lui appliquer. Voilà tout le fondement des Catégories. — Ce n’est pas du reste, une classification des choses à la manière de celles de l’histoire naturelle, qu’il s’agit de faire en logique: c’est une simple énumération de tous les points de vue, d’où l’esprit peut considérer les choses, non pas, il est vrai, par rapport à l’esprit lui-même, mais par rapport à leur réalité et à leurs appellations. — Aristote distingue ici dix points de vue, dix significations principales des mots. — La Catégorie de la Substance est à la tête de toutes les autres, précisément parceque la première, la plus essentielle, marque d’un être, c’est d’être. Cela revient à dire qu’avant tout, l’être est, l’être existe. Par suite les mots qui expriment la substance sont antérieurs à tous les autres et sont les plus importants. Il faut ajouter que ces mots là participeront en quelque sorte à cet isolement que les individus nous offrent dans la nature. Mais de même que, dans la réalité, les individus subsistant par eux seuls forment des espèces et des genres, qui ont bien aussi une existence substantielle, la substance se divisera de même en substance première et substance seconde. — Les espèces et les genres, s’ils expriment la substance, ne l’expriment pas dans toute sa pureté; c’est déjà de la substance qualifié, comme le dit Aristote. — Il n’y a bien dans la réalité que des individus et des espèces ou genres. Mais ces individus en soi et pour soi n’existent pas seulement; ils existent sous certaines conditions; leur existence se produit sous certaines modifications, que les mots expriment aussi, tout comme ils expriment l’existence absolue. Ces nouvelles classes de mots formeront les autres Catégories. — Ces modifications, ces accidents, de l’individu sont au nombre de neuf: Aristote n’en reconnaît pas davantage. — Voilà donc les dix Catégories: les dix seules attributions possibles. Par la première, on nomme les individus, sans faire plus que les nommer: par les autres, on les qualifie. On dit d’abord ce qu’est l’individu, et ensuite quel il est.� Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Logique d’Aristote, Preface, pp. lxxii.-lxxvii.
Aristotle, taking his departure from an analysis of the complete sentence or of the act of predication, appears to have regarded the Subject as having a natural priority over the Predicate. The noun-substantive (which to him represents the Subject), even when pronounced alone, carries to the hearer a more complete conception than either the adjective or the verb when pronounced alone; these make themselves felt much more as elliptical and needing complementary adjuncts. But this is only true in so far as the conception, raised by the substantive named alone (ἄνευ συμπλοκῆς), includes by anticipation what would be included, if we added to it some or all of its predicates. If we could deduct from this conception the meaning of all the applicable predicates, it would seem essentially barren or incomplete, awaiting something to come; a mere point of commencement or departure,[113] known only by the various lines which may be drawn from it; a substratum for various attributes to lie upon or to inhere in. That which is known only as a substratum, is known only relatively to a superstructure to come; the one is Relatum, the other Correlatum, and the mention of either involves an implied assumption of the other. There may be a logical priority, founded upon expository convenience, belonging to the substratum, because it remains numerically one and the same, while the superstructure is variable. But the priority is nothing more than logical and notional; it does not amount to an ability of prior independent existence. On the contrary, there is simultaneity by nature (according to Aristotle’s own definition of the phrase) between Subject, Relation, and Predicate; since they all imply each other as reciprocating correlates, while no one of them is the cause of the others.[114]
[113] Plato would not admit the point as as anything more than ἀρχὴν γραμμῆς (Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 992, a. 21).
[114] Aristot. Categor. p. 14, b. 27: φύσει δὲ ἅμα, ὅσα ἀντιστρέφει κατὰ τὴν τοῦ εἶναι ἀκολούθησιν, μηδαμῶς δὲ αἴτιον θάτερον θατέρῳ τοῦ εἶναι ἐστιν, οἷον ἐπὶ τοῦ διπλασίου καὶ τοῦ ἡμίσεος· &c.
When Aristotle says, very truly, that if the First Substances were non-existent, none of the other Predicaments could exist, we must understand what he means by the term first. That term bears, in this treatise, a sense different from what it bears elsewhere: here it means the extreme concrete and individual; elsewhere it means the extreme abstract and universal. The First Substance or First Essence, in the Categories, is a Hoc Aliquid (τόδε τι), illustrated by the examples hic homo, hic equus. Now, as thus explained and illustrated, it includes not merely the Second Substance, but various accidental attributes besides. When we talk of This man, Sokrates, Kallias, &c., the hearer conceives not only the attributes for which he is called a man, but also various accidental attributes, ranking under one or more of the other Predicaments. The First Substance thus (as explained by Aristotle) is not conceived as a mere substratum without Second Substance and without any Accidents, but as already including both of them, though as yet indeterminately; it waits for specializing words, to determine what its Substance or Essence is, and what its accompanying Accidents are. Being an individual (Unum numero), it unites in itself both the essential attributes of its species, and the unessential attributes peculiar to itself.[115] It is already understood as including attributes of both kinds; but we wait for predicates to declare (δηλοῦν — ἀποδιδόναι[116]) what these attributes are. The First or Complete Ens embodies in itself all the Predicaments, though as yet potential and indeterminate, until the predicating adjuncts are specified. There is no priority, in the order of existence, belonging to Substance over Relation or Quality; take away either one of the three, and the First Ens disappears. But in regard to the order of exposition, there is a natural priority, founded on convenience and facility of understanding. The Hoc Aliquid or Unum Numero, which intimates in general outline a certain concretion or co-existence of attributes, though we do not yet know what they are — being as it were a skeleton — comes naturally as Subject before the predicates, whose function is declaratory and specifying as to those attributes: moreover, the essential attributes, which are declared and connoted when we first bestow a specific name on the subject, come naturally before the unessential attributes, which are predicated of the subject already called by a specific name connoting other attributes.[117] The essential characters are native and at home; the accidental attributes are domiciliated foreigners.[118]
[115] Aristot. Metaphys. Z. p. 1033, b. 24; p. 1034, a. 8. Τὸ δ’ ἄπαν τόδε Καλλίας ἢ Σωκράτης ἐστὶν ὥσπερ ἡ σφαῖρα ἡ χαλκῆ ἡδί, ὁ δ’ ἄνθρωπος καὶ τὸ ζῷον ὥσπερ σφαῖρα χαλκῆ ὅλως. — τὸ δ’ ἅπαν ἤδη τὸ τοιόνδε εἶδος ἐν ταῖσδε ταῖς σαρξὶ καὶ ὀστοῖς Καλλίας καὶ Σωκράτης· καὶ ἕτερον μὲν διὰ τὴν ὕλην, ἕτερα γάρ, ταὐτὸ δὲ τῷ εἴδει· ἄτομον γὰρ τὸ εἶδος.
[116] Categor. p. 2, b. 29, seq. εἰκότως δὲ μετὰ τὰς πρώτας οὐσίας μόνα τῶν ἄλλων τὰ εἴδη καὶ τὰ γένη δεύτεραι οὐσίαι λέγονται· μόνα γὰρ δηλοῖ τὴν πρώτην οὐσίαν τῶν κατηγορουμένων. &c.
[117] Analyt. Poster. i. p. 73, b. 6: οἷον τὸ βαδίζον ἕτερόν τι ὃν βαδίζον ἐστὶ καὶ λευκόν, ἡ δ’ οὐσία, καὶ ὅσα τόδε τι σημαίνει, οὐχ ἕτερόν τι ὄντα ὅπερ ἐστίν. Also p. 83, a. 31. καὶ μὴ εἶναί τι λευκόν, ὃ οὐχ ἕτερόν τι ὃν λευκόν ἐστιν: also p. 83, b. 22.