Daily Aristotle. Day one. Categories part one. Sit. The campus will wait. Claudius can throw without you for one hour. We begin today a book, The Master Headed Categories. And I will tell you why it is worth the afternoon. His aim is simple to say. He means to treat of spoken words, the ones that signify things with thoughts standing as the middle term, but not endless words. He leads them all back under ten. That is substance. What a thing most truly is. How much? Of what sort? In relation to something. Where? When. Doing, being acted upon, being placed, having. Under these ten, every word finds its place. That is the whole aim. Why call it categories? Because he is teaching the most general kinds, the one's only set of things, never themselves lying under anything higher. That is the name he gave it. Its use you can see at once. This book is where the study of logic begins. And logic marks off for us the true from the false and the good from the bad. Your reta spent the morning teaching you to argue both sides of any case. A dangerous art, unless a man can tell which side is true. That sorting begins here. And it is the difference between you and every clever liar in the forum. As for the order, simple words come before names and verbs, and those before accounts woven together, and those before syllogisms, and those before the demonstrative ones. The books have been made to match. No one reads anything before the categories, nor after them anything but on interpretation. And the same chain holds as far as the demonstrative books. So we start where the chain starts. Is the book truly his? Everyone agrees it is. He calls to mind throughout his other works the things worked out here. If this were false, those would be two. The ten kinds were found before him. The ordering of them is his own. The book divides in three. The things before the categories, the categories themselves, and the things after. Today we take up the first pages, how things are said, and the first cuts among the things that are.

Listen. Some things share a name only. The name alone is common to them. The logos of the that goes with the name is different. Take an animal. A man is an animal, and so is a man in a picture. These share only the name, for the logos of thee is different in each. Ask what it is for each to be an animal, and you will give a logos proper to each. Other things share both a name and a logos. The name is common, and the logos of the that goes with it is the same. Take an animal again. A man is called an animal, and so is an ox, by the one common name, and here the logos of thee is the same. Ask what it is for each to be an animal, and you will give the same logos for both. And some things are named after something else. They take their name from that thing, differing only in the ending. So the grammarian gets his name from grammar and the brave man from bravery. Now of things said, some are said in combination, others without. In combination, a man runs, a man wins. Without combination, man ox runs, wins. Of the things there are, take four cases. Some are said of an underlying subject but are in no underlying subject. So man is said of an underlying subject, the individual man, but is in no underlying subject. Others are in an underlying subject but are said of no underlying subject. By in an underlying subject, I mean what is in something, not as a part, and cannot be apart from what it is in. So a particular piece of grammar is in an underlying subject, the susha, but is said of no underlying subject. And a particular white is in an underlying subject, the body, for all color is in a body, but is said of no underlying subject. Others are both said of an underlying subject and in one. So knowledge is in an underlying subject, the sush, and is also said of an underlying subject, grammar, and others are neither in an underlying subject nor said of any, like the individual man and the individual horse. Nothing of this kind is either in an underlying subject or said of one. To speak simply, individuals, the things one in number, are said of no underlying subject, but nothing stops some of them from being in one. For a particular piece of grammar is among the things in an underlying subject, yet is said of no underlying subject. When one thing is said of another as of an underlying subject, then whatever is said of the thing said will all be said of the underlying subject too. So man is said of the individual man and animal is said of man. Therefore, animal will be said of the individual man too, for the individual man is both a man and an animal. When kinds are of different sorts and not set one under the other, their differences too are different in form. Take animal and knowledge. The differences of animal are having feet, being two footed, being winged, living in water, and no one of these is a difference of knowledge, for one knowledge does not differ from another by being two footed. But where kinds are set one under the other, nothing stops the differences from being the same. For the higher kinds are said of the kinds under them, so that however many differences the thing said has, there will be that many of the underlying subject too, of things said without any combination, each one means one of these, either an or how much or what sort, or a relation to something, or where, or when, or being placed, or having, or doing, or being acted on. To speak roughly, an is like man, horse, how much is like two cubits, three cubits, what sort is like white, grammatical, a relation to something is like double, half, greater, where is like in the Lyceum, in the marketplace, when is like yesterday, last year. Being placed is like he lies, he sits. Having is like he has shoes on, he is armed, doing is like he cuts, he burns. Being acted on is like he is cut, he is burned. None of these, said by itself and on its own, is in any affirmation or denial. It is by combining them with one another that affirmation or denial comes about. For every affirmation and denial seems to be either true or false, while of things said without combination none is either true or false, like man white runs wins. Now to the that is called most strictly, first and most of all, it is what is neither said of an underlying subject nor in one, the individual man, the individual horse. Second Usii are the forms in which the first Usii are found, both these forms and the kinds of these forms. So the individual man is found in a form, man, and the kind of that form is animal. These then are the second Usi, man and animal. From what has been said, of things said of an underlying subject, both the name and the logos must be said of the underlying subject. So man is said of an underlying subject, the individual man, and the name is said of it, you will say, man, of the individual man. The logos of man will be said of the individual man too, for the individual man is both a man and an animal. So both the name and the logos are said of the underlying subject. But of things in an underlying subject, in most cases neither the name nor the logos is said of the underlying subject. In some cases, though, nothing stops the name from sometimes being said of it, but the logos cannot be. So white being in an underlying subject, the body is said of the underlying subject, for a body is called white, but the logos of white will never be said of a body. All the other things are either said of the first Ausai as underlying subjects or are in them as underlying subjects. This is clear from taking up cases one by one. So, animal is said of man, and therefore of the individual man too, for if it were said of no individual man, it would not be said of man at all. Again, color is in a body, and therefore, in a particular body. For if it were in no one of the individual bodies, it would not be in a body at all, so everything else is either said of the first Usi or is in them. And so, if the first Usi did not exist, none of the other things could exist either. Of the second Usi, the form is more and than the kind, for it is nearer to the first. Ask what a first is, and you give a more knowable and more fitting account by the form than by the kind. Of the individual man, man is more knowable than animal. The one is proper to him, the other more common. Of a particular tree, tree is more knowable than plant. Again, the first Usi are called Usii most of all, because they underlie everything else, and everything else is said of them or is in them, and as the first Usi stand to everything else, so the form stands to the kind, the form underlies the kind, for the kinds are said of the forms, but the forms are not said of the kinds in return, so from this too the form is more an than the kind, but of the forms themselves, those that are not kinds, no one is any more an than another. You give no more fitting account of the individual man by man than of the individual horse by horse. In the same way of the first Osi, none is any more an than another. The individual man is no more an than the individual ox. It stands to reason that after the first Aussi, only the forms and the kinds are called second Osi, for only these of the things said make plain the first. Ask what the individual man is, and you give a fitting account by the form or the kind, more knowable by man than by animal. But whatever else you might give would not belong, white, say, or runs, or anything of that sort, so it stands to reason that only these others are called Aussi. And again, the first Ausia, because they underlie everything else, are called Ausia most strictly. As the first Aussi stand to everything else, so the forms and kinds of the first Asiai stand to all the rest, for all the rest are said of these. Call the individual man grammatical, and you call man and animal grammatical too, and so with the others. Common to every is not being in an underlying subject. The first is neither in one nor said of one, and the second oceai are not in an underlying subject either, as is clear this way. Man is said of an underlying subject, the individual man but is not in one. For man is not in the individual man, in the same way animal is said of the individual man, but animal is not in the individual man. Again, of things in an underlying subject, nothing stops the name from sometimes being said of the subject, but the logos cannot be. Yet of the second Usi, both the logos and the name are said of the subject, you will say the logos of man of the individual man and the logos of animal in the same way. So the is not among the things in an underlying subject, but this is not proper to. The difference too is among the things not in an underlying subject. For, having feet and two footed are said of an underlying subject man, but are not in one. The two footed, the footed is not in man, and the logos of the difference is said of that of which the difference is said. So if having feet is said of man, the logos of having feet is said of man too, for man is a thing having feet. Let us not be troubled by the parts of Usi, as though, since they are in holes as in underlying subjects, we should be forced to say they are not Uzii. For the things in an underlying subject were never meant to include the things that belong as parts in something. It belongs to Usii, and to differences that everything said from them is said sharing both name and logos. For all the things said from them are said either of the individuals or of the forms. From the first there is no such saying, since it is said of no underlying subject, but of the second Usii, the form is said of the individual, and the kind is said both of the form and of the individual, in the same way the differences are said of the forms and of the individuals, and the first oci take on the logos of the forms and the logos of the kinds and the form takes on the logos of the kind. For whatever is said of the thing said will all be said of the underlying subject too. In the same way the forms and the individuals take on the logos of the differences. Now things sharing both name and logos are things whose name is common and whose logos is the same. So everything said after the Aussi and after the differences is said sharing both name and logos. Every seems to mean a this something. With the first Ausii it is beyond dispute and true. Each means a this something, for what is made plain is an individual, one in number. But with the second Usi, the shape of the word only makes it appear so, say man or animal, and it is not true, each rather means a sort of thing, for the underlying subject is not one, as the first is. Man and animal are said of many. Yet it does not mean a sort of thing simply, as white does. White means nothing but a sort of thing. The form and the kind mark off the sort of thing with respect to an they mean an of a certain sort, and the marking off ranges wider with the kind than with the form, for the one who says animal takes in more than the one who says man. It belongs to Usi too that nothing is contrary to them. What could be contrary to a first, the individual man, the individual animal? Nothing. Nor is anything contrary to man or to animal. But this is not proper too, it holds of many other things, like how much, for nothing is contrary to two cubits or three cubits, nor to ten, nor to any such thing, unless someone were to say that much is contrary to little, or great to small. But of the marked off amounts, nothing is contrary to anything, seems not to take on the more and the less. I do not mean that one is not more and less and than another, for it has been said that this is so, I mean that each, this very thing that it is, is not said to be more and less. So if this is a man, it will not be more and less a man, not than itself, not than another. One man is not more a man than another, the way one white thing is more and less white than another, or one thing more and less beautiful than another. And a thing is said to be more and less than itself. A white body is said to be whiter now than before, and a warm thing more and less warm. But an is not said to be more and less at all. A man is not said to be more a man now than before, nor is any of the other things that are osi. So an does not take on the more and the less. It seems most of all proper to that, while being one and the same in number, it can take on contraries. Among the other things, those that are not ousi, you could bring forward nothing of this kind, nothing that, being one in number can take on contraries. So color, one and the same in number, will not be white and black, and the same action, one in number, will not be base and worthy, in the same way with the others that are not, Usi. But an T, being one and the same in number, can take on contraries. So the individual man being one and the same is at one time white and at another black and warm and cold and base and worthy. Nothing of this kind appears with any of the other things, unless someone were to object that the logos and the opinion can take on contraries, for the same logos seems to be true and false. If the logos that someone is sitting is true, once he has stood up, the same logos will be false, and so with opinion, think truly that a person is sitting, and once he stands you think falsely while holding the same opinion about him. But even granting this, there is still a difference in the way. In the case of Usii, it is by changing themselves that they take on contraries. A thing became cold from hot by changing, for it was altered, and black from white, and worthy from base. In the same way with the others, each by taking on change, takes on contraries. But the logos and the opinion themselves stay wholly and altogether unmoved, it is when the thing is moved that the contrary comes to be about them. The logos stays the same, that someone is sitting, but when the thing has been moved it is said now true, now false, and so with opinion, so in the way at least it would be proper to take on contraries by its own change. But if someone were to grant even this that the logos and the opinion take on contraries, it is not true. For the logos and the opinion are said to take on contraries not by taking on anything themselves, but because something else has been affected. It is by the thing being or not being that the logos is said true or false, not by the logos itself taking on contraries. Simply put, neither the logos nor the opinion is moved by anything at all, so they cannot take on contraries, for they are not affected in any way, but An is said to take on contraries by itself, taking them on. For it takes on disease and health, whiteness and blackness, and taking on each such thing itself, it is said to take on contraries, so it would be proper to that, being one and the same in number, it can take on contraries by its own change. Let this much be said then about the Daily Aristotle. More at dailyaristotle.com