When and how did Aristotle create 10 categories. Aristotle's doctrine of categories. Origin of the concept "essence"

[Same name, sonominal, denominate]

Those objects that have only a common name are called things of the same name, and the speech about the essence (logos tes oysias) corresponding to this name is different, as, for example, dzoon means both a person and an image. After all, they only have a common name, and the speech about the essence corresponding to this name is different, for if we indicate what it means for each of them to be dzoon, then [in both cases] a special concept (logos) will be indicated.

Those objects that have a common name and the corresponding speech about the essence corresponding to this name are called those objects, such as, for example, “ Living being"(dzoon) is both a man and a bull. In fact, both man and bull are called common name“living being” and the talk about the essence [of them] is one and the same. After all, if you indicate the concept of both, what it means for each of them to be dzoon, then the same concept will be indicated.

Finally, denominative objects are those that receive a name from something in accordance with its name, while differing in the ending of the word, such as, for example, from “grammar” - “grammar”, from “courage” - “courageous”.

Chapter two

[Predicate about the subject and located in the subject]

Of what is said, some are said in connection, others without connection. One in connection, for example: “a man runs”, “a man wins”; other without connection, for example: “man”, “bull”, “runs”, “wins”.

Of the existing things, one thing is said about some subject, but is not found in any subject, for example, a person; the subject - an individual person - is spoken of as a person, but the person is not in any subject; the other is in the subject, but is not spoken of about any subject (I call that which, not being a part, cannot exist separately from what it is in) being in the subject; for example, a certain ability to read and write is in the subject - in the soul, but no subject is spoken of as a certain ability to read and write. And the definite white is in the subject - in the body (for every color is in the body), but no subject is spoken of as a definite white. But something else is said about the subject and is in the subject, as, for example, knowledge is in the subject - in the soul - and the subject - the ability to read and write - is spoken of as knowledge. Finally, something else is not in the subject and is not said about any subject, for example, an individual person and an individual horse. Neither one nor the other is in the subject and is not said about the subject. And in general, everything that is singular and everything that is one in number is not said about any subject, but nothing prevents something like that from being in the subject. Indeed, a certain ability to read and write belongs to what is in the subject, but no subject is spoken of as a certain ability to read and write).

Chapter Three

[Gender as a predicate. Species differences]

When one thing is predicated about another as a subject, everything that is said about the predicate also applies to the subject, for example: “man” is predicated about an individual person, and “living being” is about “man”, therefore, “living being” will be predicated and about an individual person: after all, an individual person is both a person and a living being. For things that belong to different and not subordinate genera, their species differences are also different, for example, a living being and knowledge. The species differences in a living creature are “living on land”, “bipedal”, “winged” and “living in water”, but none of them is a species difference in knowledge: after all, one knowledge differs from another not in that it bipedal. However, no one prevents the species differences within subordinate genera to be the same: after all, the higher genera are predicated on those subordinate to them, and therefore, as many species differences as the predicate has, the subject will have the same.

Chapter Four

From what has been said without any connection, each means either an essence, or “how much”, or “which”, or “in relation to something”, or “where”, or “when”, or “to be in some position” ", or "to possess", or "to act", or "to endure". An entity, in short, is, for example, a person, a horse; “how much” is, for example, two cubits long, three cubits long; “what” - for example, white, able to read and write; “in relation to something” - for example, for double, half, more; “where” - for example, in the Lyceum, in the square; “when” - for example, yesterday, last year; “to be in some position” - for example, lying, sitting; “possess” - for example, shod, armed; “act” - for example, cuts, burns; “to endure” - for example, they cut him, burn him. Each of the above does not in itself contain any statement; an affirmation or negation is obtained by combining them: after all, every affirmation or negation must be assumed to be either true or false, and from what is said without any connection, nothing is true or false, for example, “man”, “white”, “runs”, "wins".

Chapter Five

[Essence]

The essence so called in the most basic, primary and unconditional sense is that which is not spoken of or in any subject, such as an individual man or an individual horse. And the second essences are those to which, as species, belong the essences so called in the primary sense - both these species and their genera; for example, an individual person belongs to the species "man", and the genus for that species is "living being". Therefore they are spoken of as second entities, such as “man” and “living being”.

From what has been said, it is obvious that what is said about the subject necessarily has both a name and a concept about the subject; so, for example, a person is said about the subject - about an individual person - and about him, of course, the name [of a person] is said: after all, you will call an individual person a person and the definition of a person will be said about an individual person, because an individual person is both a person and a living being. Thus, both the name and the definition will affect the subject. On the contrary, for that which is in the subject, in most cases neither the name nor the definition affects the subject; in some cases, nothing prevents the name from sometimes being said about the subject, but the definition cannot be said about it. Thus, white, being in the body as a subject, affects the subject (after all, the body is called white), but the concept of white can never affect the body. And everything else [besides the first essences] is either said about the first essences as subjects, or is found in them as subjects. This becomes clear if we take individual cases: a living being, for example, is expressed about a person, therefore it will also be expressed about an individual person; after all, if it did not apply to any of the individual people, it would not apply to man in general. Next, color is in the body; therefore, in a separate body. If he were not in any of the individual bodies, he would not be in the body at all. Thus, everything else [besides the first essences] is either said about the first essences as subjects, or is found in them as subjects. Therefore, if the first entities did not exist, nothing else could exist.

Of the second essences, species is more of an essence than genus, for it is closer to the first essence. In fact, if they begin to explain what the first essence is, then it will be explained more accessible and more appropriately by indicating the species than by pinpointing the genus; so, indicating an individual person, they will indicate something understandable, indicating that he is a person, rather than indicating that he is a living being; the first is more characteristic of an individual, the second is more general; and in indicating a particular tree, we indicate more clearly by indicating that it is a tree than by indicating that it is a plant. Further, first of all, the first essences are called essences, because for everything else they are subjects and everything else is predicated on them or is in them. And just as the first essences relate to everything else, so the species relates to the genus, namely: the species is the subject of the genus, since genera are predicated on species, but species are not predicated on genera. This means that for this reason also the species is more an essence than the genus. As for the species themselves, since they are not genera, one species is more of an essence than another: [your definition] will not be any more suitable if you indicate “man” for an individual person than if you indicate “man” for an individual horse. horse". In the same way, one first essence is no more an essence than another. After all, an individual person is an essence no more than an individual bull.

1. Aristotle(384 - 322, BC) - ancient Greek philosopher classical period, student of Plato, teacher of Alexander the Great.

In his Aristotle's philosophical activity went through three main stages:

367 - 347 BC e. (20 years old) - worked, starting from the age of 17, at Plato’s Academy and was his student (until Plato’s death);

347 - 335 BC e. (12 years) - lived and worked in Pella, the capital of the Macedonian state, at the invitation of King Philip; raised Alexander the Great;

335 - 322 - founded his own philosophical school- Lyceum (peripatetic school) and worked in it until his death. Aristotle's most famous works include:

“Organon”, “Physics”, “Mechanics”, “Metaphysics”, “On the Soul”, “History of Animals”, “Nicomachean Ethics”, “Rhetoric”, “Politics”, “Athenian Politics”, “Poetics”.

2. Aristotle divided philosophy into three types:

theoretical, studying the problems of existence, various spheres of existence, the origin of all things, the causes of various phenomena (received the name " primary philosophy");

practical - about human activity, the structure of the state;

poetic.

It is believed that in fact Aristotle distinguished as the fourth part of philosophy logics.

3. Considering the problem of being, Aristotle came up with criticism of Plato's philosophy, according to which the world was divided into the “world of things” and the “world of pure (incorporeal) ideas”, and the “world of things” as a whole, like each thing separately, was only a material reflection of the corresponding “pure idea”.

Plato's mistake, according to Aristotle, is that he separated the "world of ideas" from real world and considered “pure ideas” without any connection with the surrounding reality, which has its own characteristics - extension, rest, movement, etc.

Aristotle gives his interpretation of this problem:

There are no “pure ideas” that are not associated with the surrounding reality, the reflection of which is all things and objects of the material world;

There are only isolated and specifically defined things;

These things are called individuals(translated as “indivisible”), that is, there is only a specific horse in a specific place, and not the “idea of a horse”, the embodiment of which this horse is, a specific chair located in a specific place and having its own characteristics, and not the “idea of a chair” , a specific house with precisely defined parameters, and not an “idea of a house,” etc.;

Individuals are primary essence, and the types and genera of individuals (horses in general, houses in general, etc.) are secondary.

4. Since being is not “pure ideas” (“eidos”) and their material reflection (“things”), the question arises: what is being?

Aristotle tries to answer this question (what is being) through statements about existence that is, through categories(translated from ancient Greek - sayings).

Aristotle highlights 10 categories, which answer the question posed (about being), and one of the categories says what being is, and the other 9 give its characteristics. These categories are:

Essence (substance);

Quantity;

3. "Categories" - the first essay in Aristotle's Organon, which lists all possible types of what can be the subject or predicate of a judgment. Aristotle puts every thing about which it is possible to make a statement under one of the ten categories of the highest genera (known to medieval authors under the name praedicamenta). They are intended to list everything that can be expressed without composition or structure, that is, everything that can be either the subject or the predicate of a judgment. Introductory provisions (chapters 1-3). The analysis of categories in Aristotle is preceded by introductory provisions, which medieval authors called “ antepredications" (Latin ante before). The text begins with an explanation of what is meant by “same-named” objects, what is meant by “same-named” objects, and what is meant by “denominated” objects. Everything we say about things we say :

Without connection with other objects, that is, a name/subject or verb/predicate separately “man”, “bull”, “wins”, etc.;
In connection with other objects, that is, we create a statement (sentence) “the man wins”, “the man runs”.

Next, Aristotle talks about categories, or predicates, distinguished on the basis of how one or another predicate relates to the essence of a thing. 10 categories (chapters 4-10) The ten categories, or the most general genera (classes) are (according to the list in chapter 4):

Substances or " essence “The word “predicate” means a predicate of essence if the corresponding characteristic of a thing is not based on anything other than itself. “This single person” or “this single tree” are entities. Later in the text, Aristotle calls these particular essences first essences, distinguishing them from “second essences”, which are universals. Therefore, “Socrates” is the first essence, while “man” is the second essence. Quantity “how much” spatial-numerical characteristics of a thing. All medieval debates about the nature of the continuum, the infinitely large and the infinitely divisible, are a long commentary on the text of Chapter 6. It had big influence on the development of mathematical ideas in the medieval and late scholastic periods.

Quality is a predicate that characterizes all non-quantitative properties of an object. These properties do not coincide with the nature (essence) of a thing.

Relationship is the way in which one thing can be related to another.

Space (where) the position of a thing relative to its immediate environment.

Time (when) the position of a thing relative to the sequence of events.

State (situation) position of the parts of an object relative to each other.

Possession presence of a constantly external circumstance of a thing (for example, “dressed”).

An action is the making of a change in some other thing.

Undergoing acceptance of change from some other thing.

The first four are dealt with in detail in chapters 5-8, the last six are only lightly touched upon in the short chapter 9, since their meaning is self-evident. Later texts by scholastic philosophers also reflect this disparity in detail. FINAL PROVISIONS (chapters 10-15) Aristotle’s list of categories is followed by the final provisions of the book, which medieval authors called “post-predicaments” (lat. post after):

Opposites and opposites (chapters 10-11)
Antecedent and Subsequent (Chapter 12)
Given Together (Chapter 13)
Types of movement (chapter 14)
Second Analysis of Possession (Chapter 15).

Chapter first

[Same name, sonominal, denominate]

Those objects are called co-nominal if they have a common name and the speech about the essence corresponding to this name is the same, as, for example, a “living being” (dzoon) is both a man and a bull. In fact, both man and bull are called by the common name “living being” and the essence of [their] is the same. After all, if you indicate the concept of both, what it means for each of them to be dzoon, then the same concept will be indicated.

Chapter two

[Predicate about the subject and located in the subject]

Chapter Three

[Gender as a predicate. Species differences]

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

[Essence]

Ideas do not have a separate reality, do not exist outside of individual things, the best pupil of his Academy, Aristotle, objected to Plato.

He was born into the family of the doctor Nicomachus in the distant Greek colony of Stagira. He was naturally thin and homely, had a lisp, and was distinguished by an obstinate and impudent disposition. Aristotle was seventeen when he entered Plato's Academy. There he became a different person and spent twenty years entirely devoted to scientific pursuits.

After Plato's death, Aristotle left the Academy. The Macedonian king Philip invited him to raise his son Alexander. Aristotle was already over fifty when he returned to Athens to found his own school there, the Lyceum. Meanwhile, the Athenians did not forgive the philosopher for his proximity to the Macedonian invaders: Aristotle had to flee to the island of Euboea, where he soon died, according to rumors, after taking poison.

Plato failed specifically explain how a single thing comes from a general idea.

And without this, to assert about ideas “that they are examples and that everything else is involved in them means idle talk and speaking in poetic allegories... It should, apparently, be considered impossible for the essence and that whose essence it is to exist separately from each other.” There is; how can ideas, if they are the essence of things, exist separately from them? [Aristotle: Metaphysics].

The general and the individual, essence and phenomenon can only exist together. Nothing common exists separately, by itself, Aristotle repeats again and again. Unless in abstract thinking the definitions common to many things can be torn off from these things. The idea of “horseness,” the horse as such, does not exist separately from real horses. There is no "smart place" where pure ideas reside. This heavenly home of ideas is just a poetic mirage drawn by Plato’s imagination.

Moreover, ideas that relate to many things at once and to none separately cannot be considered entities. Each thing must have its own individual essence, Aristotle postulates.

“The essence of each thing is that which belongs only to it and is not inherent in another, and the general is that which relates to many, for what is called general is precisely that which by its nature is inherent in more than one” [Metaphysics].

The individual also does not exist separately from the general. Things that have nothing in common with other things could not be known. Any science studies a certain class, or “genus,” of things and establishes laws common to this kind of things.

Aristotle did not even think of rejecting the value of general ideas. For him, as for Plato, the real “object of knowledge is the general.” However, he insists that the general be understood specifically, in inextricable connection with the individual.

Aristotle credits Socrates with defining the “beginnings of knowledge”—general ideas. Moreover, Socrates did not separate these ideas from individual things:

“Socrates did not consider either generalities or definitions to be separate from things. Supporters of ideas separated them and called this kind of existence ideas” [Metaphysics].

Plato’s call to “turn away with all your soul” from individual, sensory-given phenomena meant a renunciation of experimental knowledge. Plato valued only two “speculative” sciences – mathematics and dialectics. Aristotle again turns philosophy to the sensory world and seeks to logically substantiate experimental knowledge. He does a lot of research himself. physical phenomena, living organisms, forms of government, creates the first economic theory. However, most of all the philosopher is still interested in human soul and thinking.

The soul has the ability to perceive the idea of a thing separately from its matter. Thus, the soul becomes similar to the perceived thing and takes on a form identical to the form of its object. Aristotle compares the soul to soft wax, on which the geometric outline of the external thing is imprinted. The rational soul is such an absolutely plastic and universal idea, capable of absorbing and cognizing all other ideas - the “idea of ideas.”

In the process of sensory perception, the ideal forms of things are purified, getting rid of their material substrate 4 . Next, reason comes into play: the subject of its activity is no longer individual things, but the pure forms of their existence - “ideas” as such.

Ideas of individual things form, so to speak, “leaves” on the tree of knowledge. Their definitions depend entirely on general ideas. For example, this is a house, it is high or low, white or yellow, stone or wood. All these definitions, in turn, are defined through even more general ones: a house is a type of structure, high and low are types of size, white or yellow are colors, etc.

Each subsequent definition is more general than the previous one. Ultimately, the mind comes up against definitions that cannot be imagined as “types” of something. These universal ones, i.e. Aristotle calls extremely general ideas “categories” (kategoria, Greek “accusation”).

essence

quantity and quality

place and time

position, condition, possession

action and suffering

"None of the others<категорий>, except essence, does not exist separately, they all speak about the subject “essence”” [Aristotle: Physics].

Categories form a kind of “skeleton” of nature and mind. These are universal forms of both being and thinking. In categories, the real merges with the conceivable, and this identity receives the definition of “truth” from Aristotle.

Categories are logically primary in relation to things. They refer to everything that exists at once and to no single thing. - Wait, how can that be? After all, Aristotle, in his dispute with Plato, rejected the reality of pure ideas, and categories are precisely that. They are not at all abstract creations of the human mind - on the contrary, it is our mind that owes its existence to them.

Trying to cope with this problem, Aristotle comes to the concept of a higher Mind, which is the primary source of categories and the creator of the universe. Setting everything in motion, the Mind remains unchanged and motionless.

So, ultimately, Aristotle made peace with Plato, admitting that there is one absolutely pure essence in the world, “separated from sensory things” - Reason. Following the example of the teacher, Aristotle calls the highest Reason “divine”, and even directly awards the title “God”.

Aristotle's God does not need praise, prayer, or sacrifice. Instead, it requires that a person strive think as deeply, clearly and logically as possible. The temple of this deity is the entire Universe, and his priests are all thinking beings who have a love for wisdom.

Socrates brought philosophy down to earth. Isn't it better, instead of speculation about distant luminaries, to think about human affairs? A philosopher cannot reach the stars, but he can look inside the human soul and figure out how to make his thoughts harmonious and strict, and people’s actions reasonable.

Socrates also set an example of how one should take up the work of reflection and self-knowledge. Plato and Aristotle were able to fulfill his philosophical behest - to create a full-fledged theory of the “ideal man”. In the Middle Ages, the works of these two geniuses of antiquity were almost equated with the Holy Scriptures and served as a kind of “Bible for philosophers.” For two thousand years, the ideal models of the universe they built seemed unattainable models. And during this time they themselves managed to grow together and merge with their models, turning into ideal types human life and thoughts.

“Plato and Aristotle! - Heinrich Heine exclaimed. – These are not only two systems, but also two different types of human nature, from time immemorial, in all costumes, more or less hostilely opposing each other. Throughout the Middle Ages, right up to the present day, this enmity lasted” [On the history of religion and philosophy in Germany, 1834].

Dreamy, mystical, platonic natures in all areas of life are opposed to practical, ordering natures - Aristotelian. Plato's thought hovers high above the earth, in the ether of pure ideas; Aristotle is, first of all, a scientist, prudent and sober, standing with both feet on the solid ground of experience and facts. Their debate about the nature of ideas would resume with renewed vigor in medieval universities, and to this day it is far from over.

About him

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