Abstract
In the Corpus Aristotelicum we repeatedly find the phrase “to on legetai pollachos”: “ ‘being’ is said in many ways.” For Aristotle the diverse meanings of fundamental philosophical concepts is not merely a burdensome consequence of imprecise use of language to be avoided whenever possible. Instead, it bespeaks the diversity of the things themselves. Moreover, an essential part of Aristotle’s philosophy consists in attending to and explicating this diversity, and for him the manifold meanings of “on” undoubtedly are the most important. Recent scholarship has been particularly attentive to this essential problem.1 In the preface we cited the beginning of the second chapter of Book Gamma and briefly discussed how he takes the manifold “on” as his point of departure and elucidates by two examples the particular way in which its manifold meanings are related to “one, certain physis”:
...in the same way that everything which is said to be healthy is related to health either in that it preserves health or in that it produces health or in that it is a symptom of health or in that it is capable of it. And that which is medical is related to the medical art (either it is called medical because it knows the medical art or because it is the work of the medical art)... 2
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Aristotle composed his own work on the pollachos legomena in which their diverse meanings are presented as a sort of lexicon of concepts. We read this work — which was continually revised by Aristotle — as the fifth (Δ) book of the Metaphysics (cf. During: “Aristoteles, Darstellung und Interpretation seines Denkens.” Heidelberg, 1966, p. 593.) Its system of presentation betrays the old academic distinction between onoma and logos (cf. Topics, I. 15), which was then superseded by the Aristotelian principle of classification of the pros-hen relationship (in the case of “non-coincidental” homonyms). On Aristotle’s relationship to language in this regard, cf. Kurt v. Fritz: Philosophie und sprachlicher Ausdruck bei Demokrit, Plato und Aristoteles. Darmstadt, 1966, p. 70 ff.; Specht, „Über die primäre Bedeutung der Wörter bei Aristoteles,“ Kant-Studien 51, p. 102 ff.; H. J. Krämer: “Zur geschichtlichen Stellung der aristotelischen Metaphysik. II. Zur aristotelischen Ontologie.” Kant-Studien 58, 1967, p. 337 ff., see below n. 3. On the subsequent problematic, cf. further Fr. Brentano: Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles. Freiburg, 1862, p. 83 ff., 108 ff.; J. Owens: The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics,Toronto, 1951, p. 55 ff., p. 151 ff.; F. Wagner: “Zum Problem des aristotelischen Metaphysikbegriffs,” in: Philosophische Rundschau,1959, p. 129 ff.
Expanding upon the historically oriented initiatives of contemporary scholarship, H. J. Krämer (loc. cit.,see above, n. 1) has investigated the historical background of the structural relationship of the “pros hen legomena“ more precisely, a relationship of great importance for Aristotelian philosophy. He comes to the conclusion that this structural relationship, which one is inclined to regard as being peculiar to Aristotle in contrast to the Platonic doctrine of the Ideas, actually lies — problem-historically speaking — in the continuity of the development of the metaphysics of the academy. Indeed, according to recent scholarship, Aristotelian philosophy has shown itself to be determined ”much more strongly than supposed“ by its provenance from common academic doctrine (p. 353 and n. 134, 135; for the connection between metaphysics and theology with Aristotle cf. below Part Three). One may assume with Krämer that an immanent, coordinated principle of structure and order manifests itself in the pros-hen-relationship, a principle standing in opposition to yet another principle which generalizes and subordinates, just as in the Platonic doctrine of the Ideas. The priority of an individual in which the whole is represented takes the place of the genos in the generic structure: thus, among the onta,the prominent (”primary“) category of ousia would take over the function, so to speak, of a genus. The emancipation from a generalizing principle which manifests itself in the Aristotelian pros hen-relationship refers at the same time — as Aristotle himself indicates — to the process of the replacement of the generic structure by proteron-hysteron-gradations in the metaphysics of the Academy. According to the academic theory of gradations, as can be seen in the Aristotelian lectures Eth. Nic. A 4, 1096 a 17 ff. (further documentation in Krämer, p. 432, n. 98) through the example of the quantifying (mathematicizing) series of dimensions (number-line-surface-body), the succession of proteronhysteron has the character of a succession of members of a series proceeding from the simpler, less determinate, from the element (stoicheion) to the composite, derived, and complex. ”Universality“ or better, the equivalent of universality (if this concept should be reserved for the abstract genus) can be defined within this ”elementary ontology“ as the precedence (proteron) and priority (with respect to being and knowledge) of the simple as a part within a series. This ”simple“ is something ”which, as an immanent principle, is constitutively inherent (enhyparchei) in the complex.“ (loc. cit.,p. 352). According to Krämer Aristotle is referring to this doctrine, which Plato himself evolved in his lectures on the good, when he develops an opposing position in his critique of the doctrine of the ideas. In giving up this quantifying process Aristotle takes over the fundamental notion, according to which there is no universal standing beside the particular, but he transforms this notion, through his reference to the directedness (Gerichtetheit) of the structure of the series, to the pros hen-relationship, which insures the unity of the science of being by the very turning to the kath’hekaston. Thus Aristotle’s opposing position should not be understood primarily as a deviation from the philosophy of the academy, but rather as an option for one of the two ways of philosophizing within the Old Academy which compete with one another as elementarizing and generalizing forms of thinking. In the development of the doctrine of the academy the Aristotelian ontology appears as the ”last consequence and conclusive result of an elementarizing reorganization of the generic structure“ (loc. cit., p. 353).
More precisely, two divisions of “being” (seiend) are to be found in Aristotle. On one hand on is above all something four-fold; it can be spoken of in the way of on kata symbebekos,of on hos alethes e pseudos,of schemata tes kategorias and of dynamei or energeiai (Meta. E 2, 1026 a 33 ff.). On the other hand, one of these ways signifies the pros hen-manifold mentioned above. The categorial on exhibits ten different ways of meaning of which ousia is the primary and normative one. In our context it is this manifold which is our main concern.
Here, with the word “Being” (Sein, as an infinitive) we depart from Aristotelian terminology and adopt a concept from modern ontology in order to distinguish metalinguistically that which appears in Aristotle as “to on.” In this sense to on means being (as a participle), its sense, its meaning, as, for example, in the sentence to on legetai pollachos. Taken only linguistically, on the other hand, to on must be rendered with “the being” (das Seiende). H. Boeder: “Weshalb Sein des Seienden?” Philosophisches Jahrbuch,78. 7g. 1971, 1. Hbd., S. 111–133, has persuasively shown how “Being” (Sein) cannot be spoken of until Plotinus and subsequent philosophy.
Throughout Scholastic philosophy up to Descartes the translation of hypokeimenon was sub-iectum (also substratum) and thus connoted “object,” substance. Not until after Descartes — although decisively determined by him already — did the change in the concept of subject take place, to the subjective, to “I” as the sole subject, a change which, aside from grammatical-logical terminology, has become altogether predominant in German as in English. (In Ross’ translations, the reader will find the rendering substratum and subject. The author’s German translation is “das Zugrundeliegende”; the reader will find slightly varying translations of this term, each one, however, indicated by a raised h. — Tr.)
It should be mentioned here that Wolfgang Wieland in his book “Die Aristotelische Physik. Untersuchungen über die Grundlegung der Naturwissenschaft and die sprachlichen Bedingungen der Prinzipienforschung bei Aristoteles” (Göttingen, 1962), represents a different point of view on the relationship between language and being. According to Wieland, fundamental Aristotelian concepts have no sense beyond expressing “what we actually mean, when we speak of things in this way or that” (142). These principles are not “metaphysical entities” (187), but “functional or reflectional concepts” culled from language. Thus, for example, analyses of the structure of a predication do not reveal the structure of the things themselves; instead, they only serve as a guide to those “differentiating features” with “which we endeavor to think of things and what occurs with them” (186). Wieland is certainly correct in emphasizing that Aristotle “does not posit a fundamental separation between language and things” (146). But that the ontological realm is not a realm outside of language does not mean, inversely, that ontological principles can be interpreted as being solely of a linguistic character, all the more if this linguistic aspect is understood in the modern way as something subjective, if the concepts formulated in language are to be solely “topoi” (cf. p. 202 ff.) and “viewpoints for classification.” Critical discussions of Wieland’s thesis can be found in: Ernst Tugendhat, review in Gnomon 36 (1963), p. 543–555, and Hans Wagner: Einleitung zum Kommentar der Physikvorlesung. Darmstadt, 1967, p. 337–360; cf. also Klaus Oehler: Ein Mensch zeugt einen Menschen. Über den Mißbrauch der Sprachanalyse in der Aristoteles-Forschung. Frankfurt/M., 1963.
On the question of the “inadequacy of the concept of essence as that which underlies somethingh” cf. R. Boehm: Das Grundlegende und das Wesentliche, Den Haag, 1963.
Cf. below, p. 36 ff. on dynamis and energeia.
The definition of man used most often in Aristotle’s metaphysical treatises is “biped living thing.” As opposed to the definitions — whose meanings are more relevant — such as “zoon logon politikon” this definition clearly expresses the connection between the logical doctrine of definition and the biological division of the realm
of living things. Cf. on this point: K. Oehler, op. cit.
Cf. Meta. E 1, 1025 b 30 ff.; Z 11, 1037 a 30 ff.
On the Scholastic understanding of essence, see, for example, Thomas of Aquinas’ first work, De ente et essentia. In Chapter One we read: “Et quia illud, per quod res constituitur in proprio genere vel specie, est hoc quod significatur per definitionem indicantem quid est res, iode est quod nomen essentiae a philosophis in nomen quidditatis mutatur. Et hoc quod PHILOSOPmJs frequenter nominat quod quid erat esse id est hoc, per quod aliquid habet esse quid.” (Thomas v. Aquin: Über das Sein und das Wesen,deutsch-lat. Ausgabe üb. und erl. v. R. Allers, Wissenschaftliche Buchgemeinschaft, Tübingen o.J., p. 17). In his postscript R. Allers holds: “According to the doctrine of Aquinas, the essence is not initially related to a single being-thusthere-and-now (ein einzelnes Da-jetzt-so-Seiendes) into which matter has penetrated in an all-round determinate way; for matter is comprised in the essence not as a concrete-this-there, that is, as something designated in quantity (materia designata quantitate), but only in a general, as a correlate to form. Hence, a definition of Man is possible, but not of a concrete, individual man. Matter, however, enters only the essence of physical things in the way indicated. The intelligible substances are devoid of matter (thus: substantiae separatae)” (p. 74).
Cf. on this problematic the comprehensive and more extensive discussion by Fr. Bassenge: “Das to heni einai to agathoi einai etc. etc., und das to ti en einai bei Aristoteles.” In: Philologus 104, 1960, p. 14–47, p. 201–222, as well as the review of this treatise by E. Tugendhat. In: Gnomon,Vol. 33, 1961, p. 705, n. 1.
As Aristotle remarks himself, this greater meaning of form is already expressed by the fact that the usual name of a thing is the same as the name of its form, cf. Meta. H 3, 1043 a 29 ff.
One consequence of this definition became problem-historically decisive: if there is no change in the essence, then there can be nothing which is really new, which has never been before. This essential result of the fundamental trait of the selfsameness and the eternity of ousia was decisive for subsequent philosophy and entangled it in great difficulties when the advent of something new was declared; it brought every attempt at “historical” or “epochal” thinking into contradiction with itself; it left certain findings in the natural sciences unexplained, such as the discovery of the origin of “new species” and mutations and it obstructed, again and again, any philosophical access to the secret of a work of art which creates something totally new.
It should be remarked that in spite of the ousia’s traits of self-sameness and of being eternal, the problem of the coming-into-being of an essence qua synholon (genesis haplos) still existed for Aristotle. For him, the genuine problem of genesis lay in the coming-into-being or into-essence of a man, an animal, a thing, or a work of art. In this occurrence, the eidos,the “whither” of this movement and the latter’s privative form, the steresis,or the “whence” of this movement, mesh with one another. Together with the hypokeimenon,these interrelated factors form the structure of the process of genesis (cf. Phys. A 5–7), so that the Aristotelian ideal of a self-maintaining — although movable — order is in no way endangered by the possibility of such “changes.”
Cf. Meta. Z 9, 1034 a 21 ff. Ross translates: “...every product of art is produced from a thing which shares its name...”
Phys. d 12, 221 b 3–7. Translations by Hardie and Gaye, in the Ross edition.
Cf. on this problematic the essay by K. Oehler: Ein Mensch zeugt einen Menschen,Frankfurt/Main, p. 37 ff.
As opposed to change in the broader sense, which includes change of place as well as increase and decrease.
Cf. Phys. A 7, 190 a 13 ff.
In modern Aristotelian scholarship the difficult 17th Chapter of Metaphysics Z has been throughly discussed often: cf. particularly: Günter Patzig: “Die Entwicklung des Begriffes der Usia in der Metaphysik des Aristoteles.” Diss. Göttingen 1950 (typewritten); Ernst Tugendhat: Ti Kata Tinos. Freiburg-Munich, 1958; Klaus Oehler: Die Lehre vom noetischen and dianoetischen Denken bei Platon and Aristoteles. Munich, 1962; Rudolph Boehm: Das Grundlegende and das Wesentliche. The Hague 1965; Ute Guzzoni: Grund and Allgemeinheit: Untersuchungen zum aristotelischen Verständnis der ontologischen Gründe,Meisenheim am Glan, 1975.
We have taken the term “katallel” from Rudolph Boehm: Das Grundlegende and das Wesentliche (The Hague, 1965), who introduced it into German as a name for this relationship (Verhältnismäßigkeit) when speaking of being, deriving the term from the Aristotelian phrase Év Toar...Kar’ duiawv aeyoµivois (1041 a 33). — Since Boehm’s work is the most recent publication to have discussed Zeta 17 thoroughly, the central train of thought of this discussion should be briefly mentioned here. According to Boehm, in the closing chapter of Meta. Zeta, the tension between the two fundamental definitions of ousia becomes eminently apparent: on the one hand it is hypokeimenon,“something underlying” (“Zugrundeliegendes”) and as such is arranged in a “relationship” (“Verhältnismäßigkeit”),in accordance with the “katallel way of regarding something” (“katallele Blickweise”); on the other hand it is ti en einai,“being-what-it-was” (“Sein-was-es-war”), a simple concept of the essence, “strict in-itself” (“strenges An-ihm-selbst”) (189). The inquiry in Zeta 17 “aims at the essence and consequently, if the following is also otherwise an adequate concept of the essential form of the essence, at the being-what-it-was” (192). At the same time, however, it is inherent in the nature of an inquiry that it must always inquire first with a view to the relationship of a katallel (190), that is, of something underlying and something which attaches to it. The simple ti en einai,which, in any inquiry, is necessarily obvious from the first, is therefore a cause “which cannot be ‘brought into question’ at all” (195). Now if Aristotle still wishes — in accordance with the fundamental question of metaphysics — to inquire into the essence as cause, it follows, according to Boehm, “that as matter, the primary cause must be that which underlies” (“das Zugrundeliegende”) (196). Thus, because of the nature of the inquiry, it passes over, so to speak, the simple and self-evident “Being-what-it-was”, which thus “initially conceals itself” (idem.), and addresses itself to the essence as something underlying“ (Zugrundeliegendes), and thus — with regard to the latter — to the ”appearance“ (”Anblick“) which ” ‘mediates’ to matter its whatness“ (idem.).
In the treatise cited above, E. Tugendhat thoroughly presented the ontological necessity for understanding ousia as the ground of a thing. In the first three sections of his book he demonstrates in detail how Aristotle shows that something which is present-to-us (das Anwesende) “as something two-fold present in the way that a thing lying before us is present (Präsenz von Vorliegendem, ti kata tinos)” (op. cit.,p. 121). In the final and most important section, he shows how Aristotle then endeavored to reduce the two-fold to a unity once again, that is, to inquire into the ground for the unity of this manifold, into the mediating factor (the meson,cf. Post. An. B 2) of the two-fold.
On the understanding of the train of thought in Z 17 underlying these paragraphs cf. the interpretation of this chapter in: U. Guzzoni, op. cit., p. 144–227. There, a thorough analysis of the text shows that the two-fold structure required by the why-question, of that thing whose ousia is supposed to be the cause of the thing, i.e., the two-fold of hyle and eidos,means the same thing as the two-fold of the terms of a definition. The ousia is the cause in that as the ti en einai — which, in the context of this question, is to be distinguished from the eidos — it allows the two-fold structure to exist as that single, unified thing of which it is the essence.
With slight deviations Aristotle presented his doctrine of the four causes in several places; cf. especially these sections, to a large extent identical, in Phys. B 3 and Meta. d 2, as well as the beginning of Meta. A 3 and An. Post. B 11.
How the meanings of energeia and entelecheia are to be differentiated from one another is an old problem in the interpretation of Aristotle. The difficulty is that in Aristotle’s usage of the terms a consistent distinction between the two cannot be established. Often it seems that they can even be exchanged with one another (cf. During, p. 617, n. 195; Stallmach, p. 188). Furthermore the two passages (1047 a 30; 1050 a 22. Ross translates energeia with “actuality,” entelecheia with “complete reality.”) in which Aristotle connects the two terms allude to their being synonymous. Nonetheless, the fact that in the case of entelecheia Aristotle invented a new word may refer to his intention to emphasize a certain nuance or aspect of the concept of actuality, even if he did not carry out this intention in his later use of the terms. If, for Aristotle, “actuality” signifies the process of actualization as well as the state of being actualized (the telos) itself, then if one makes the distinction between a way and the destination to which it leads, one can see how entelecheia could assume the aspect of perfection (of the telos), whereas energeia would stand for aspect of becoming. Here it must be emphasized that this would be an attempt at a genetic explanation which does not take into consideration that the term energeia itself can always just as well indicate the aspect of perfection. Thus, taken linguistically, it fluctuates between a nomen actions and a nomen acti. In this attempt at an explanation we are obligated to the well-balanced presentation in Stallmach, op. cit., p. 182 ff.
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Marx, W. (1977). The Ousiology. In: Introduction to Aristotle’s Theory of Being as Being. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6798-9_2
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