On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle
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Franz Brentano ON THE SEVERAL SENSES OF BEING IN ARISTOTLE To OJ) A€'YETaL 7/'OAAaxW~ Aristotle, Metaphysics Z, 1 Edited and Translated ~ Rolf George UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London 1975 Dedicated in veneration and gratitude to DR. ADOLPH TRENDELENBURG Professor of Philosophy at the University of Berlin My most revered teacher, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS the scholar so highly distinguished BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES in the advancement of our understanding of Aristotle. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, LTD. LONDON, ENGLAND COPYRIGHT © 1975 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNlA ISBN: o-52()'()2346-3 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 72-89796 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Contents Editor's Preface . .. xi Preface ..................................... xv Introduction ................................. Chapter I. The Fourfold Distinction of Being. .. 3 Being is a homonym. Its several senses fit into the fourfold distinction of accidental being, being in the sense of being true, being of the categories, and potential and actual being. • . 3 Chapter II. Accidental Being . 6 Chapter III. Being in the Sense of Being True . 15 § 1. Of the true and the false . • • . • . .•. 1 5 § 2. Of the true and the false when considered in relation to the concept of being in the sense of being true and of non-being in the sense of being false . • . • . 22 Chapter IV. Potential and Actual Being . .. 27 § 1. The kind of being which is divided into actual and potential is being in the sense in which this name .is applied not only to that which is realized, that which exists, the really-being, but also to the mere real possibility of being. •... 27 § 2. Connections between states of potentiality and actuality. Movement as actuality which constitutes a thing as being in a state of potentiality . ....•....•....•.•.•.•.•' 34 Chapter V. Being According to the Figures of the Categories 49 § 1. Introductory remarks. Aristotle introduces a definite number of categories. Differing inter pretations of Aristotle's categories by recent commentators. • . • • . 49 viii Contents Contents ix § 2. Thesis I: The categories ~are not merely a frame §13. Thesis XII: The deductive proof for the division work for concepts, but they are themselves real of the categories must begin with the distinction concepts, extramental independent being. 56 between substance and accident. Substance will § 3. Thesis II: The categories are several senses of not allow of further division, but the latter can being which is asserted of them analogically, be divided initially into the two classes of abso indeed in a twofold manner, i.e., as analogy of lute accidents and relations, and absolute acci proportionality, and as analogy, to the same terminus 58 dents further into inherence, affection, and external circumstances. ..........•........ 97 § 4. Thesis III: The categories are the highest univocal K,eneral concepts,' the highest genera of being. 66 §14. Thesis XII: This deductive demonstration has been developed in ancient and recent times in § 5. Thesis IV: The categories are the highest a similar way by various interpreters of Aristotle. 118 predicates of first substance. ........... 68 §15. Thesis XIV: There is a harmony between the § 6. Thesis V: The categories differ from each other categories of Aristotle and the grammatical dif- because of the different relations they have to ferences of noun and adjective, verb and adverb. .• 123 first substance. .. 71 §16. Thesis XV: The preceding investigation concern § 7. Thesis VI: The categories differ from each other ing the prinCiple and meaning of the categories according to the different manners of predication . .. 75 resolves objection raised from various quarters § 8. Thesis VII: The categories differ according to the against the division of the categories. ...•.....• 130 different manners of predication. This does not amalgamate the division into categories with the Notes ............................................ 149 division into the five universals with Aristotle called "those which are predicated of something" Top. L 8. 1 03b 7: these are differentiated according to the degree of the defining power which the predicate has for the determination of the subject: they are differentiated according as they are more or less "defining". .. 80 § 9. Thesis VIII: The categories must be different in concept, i.e., one and the same concept cannot directly fall under two different categories.. .. 83 § 1O. Thesis IX: The difference between the cate- gories is not necessarily a real difference. .. 86 §11. Thesis X: Not every real and independent being stands directly in one of the categories. The differentiae and the things in which the concept does not exist in its completeness are, as it were, reckoned as belonging only marginally to the appropriate genus. 89 § 12. Thesis XI: Being which is divided into the cate gories is asserted in relation to some one thing: now since the categories are distinguished accord ing to their manner of existence within primary substance, a deduction of the classification of categories will not be impossible. 94 Editor's Preface This is Brentano's doctoral dissertation and his first book. In it he contemplates the several senses of "being," using Aristotle as his guide. He finds that (in Aristotle's view) being in the sense of the categories, in particular substantial being, is the most basic; all other modes, potential and actual being, being in the sense of the true, etc., stand to it in a relation of well-founded analogy. Many of his mature views are prepared in this work. For example his discussion of being in the sense of being true appears to be the foundation of his later nonpropositional theory of judgment. Brentano saw himself not merely as a historical scholar of Aristotle, but as his intimate disciple. In a few lines of occasion al verse he called himself brother of Eudemus and Theophrastus, but, as the youngest, beloved of the father above the others'! In his Aristotelian writings (there are four books) he meditates with Aristotle; he defends him, not his own interpretation-; he exults in the sweep and grandeur of his theology. But while he saw the Philosopher as a repository of truth and not only a figure of historical interest, he approached him with an inde pendent mind, fully familiar with the reorientation of science since Aristotle's day. He has only contempt for the Averrhoist view that there is clarity in each subject only to the extent in which Aristotle has dealt with it.2 All this makes Brentano's Aristotelian writings different from those of his learned con temporaries, Zeller, Bonitz, Prantl, Brandis, etc:"He thought about the issues more clearly, more profoundly, and more passionately than they, more concerned with substantive truth and coherence, which, in the investigation of Aristotle, he took to be the best guide to historical accuracy. It is possible, even likely, that Brentano imputes more systematic coherence to Aristotle's pronouncements than the texts .warrant. This is perhaps a reaction to the Kantian view .that Aristotle's categories are a haphazard collection, raked to- xii Editor's Preface Editor's Preface xiii gether without guiding principle (C.P.R., A81/BI07), and to the sufficiently clear, I have used its transliterated version as part of general and regrettable tendency to treating the Aristotelian English speech. I have used square brackets to indicate editorial corpus as a collection of disjointed elements. But it is certainly insertions, and parentheses to indicate Brentano's own paren also an expression of Brentano's own esteem for systematicity thetical remarks. and coherence, a tendency that manifests itself in his subsequent This translation is one of several6 sponsored by the Bren interpretation of De anima. Brentano's style reflects his diStrust tano Foundation under the general editorship of Professor for vague, even if perhaps profound intuition. Though fluent Roderick M. Chisholm. and sometimes eloquent, it is almost wholly devoid of metaphor Special thanks are due to Richard Goeller, to Manfred and allusion. As in all of his published work, his points are Kuhn, and to Professor Daniel Sahas for helping with the rather clearly stated, well reasoned, and heavily defended. complex Greek of some of the scholiasts. - Brentano had a most distinguished- group of pupils, among R.G. them Husser!, Meinong, Twardowski, Masaryk, Stumpf, Marty; Freud took his only nonmedical courses from him. 3 Through them he profoundly influenced the development of philosophy~ But it was the fate of this book, published long before he had any students, to make philosophical history in its own way: It was the book that awakened Martin Heidegger's interest in - philosophy. He says, "The frrst philosophical text through which I worked my way, again and again from 1907 on, was Franz Brentano's Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach i Arlstoteles."4 It is in this book that he found the quest for the -r "being of beings in its difference from beings";S it is thus the point of depm:ture for the problems treated in his fundamental I ontology. I The original version of this book was published in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1862, and reprinted by the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, in 1960. There are no variant readings and I made no significant alteration in the text. All Greek, Latin, and French quotations are given in translation. The English versions of Aristotle's words are taken almost without exception from the Oxford Aristotle, edited by W. D. Ross (Oxford University Press); a lengthy quotation from St. Thomas follows the translation of ~ohn P. Rowan's Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1961). Thanks are due to both publishers for letting us use these versions. Brentano's text is liberally laced with Greek words as parts of German speech. In these instances I have usually translated the Greek and inserted transliterated Greek expression in square brack I \ ets.