Categoria: Tratado 42 (VI,1)

24. There remains Situation, which like Possession is confined to a few instances such as reclining and sitting. Even so, the term is not used without qualification: we say “they are placed in such and such a manner,” “he is situated in such and such a position.” The position is added from outside the genus.…

17. We may be told that neither Act nor Motion requires a genus for itself, but that both revert to Relation, Act belonging to the potentially active, Motion to the potentially motive. Our reply is that Relation produces relatives as such, and not the mere reference to an external standard; given the existence of a…

16. If it be urged that Motion is but imperfect Act, there would be no objection to giving priority to Act and subordinating to it Motion with its imperfection as a species: Act would thus be predicated of Motion, but with the qualification “imperfect.” Motion is thought of as imperfect, not because it is not…

12. If then we do not propose to divide Quality in this (fourfold) manner, what basis of division have we? We must examine whether qualities may not prove to be divisible on the principle that some belong to the body and others to the soul. Those of the body would be subdivided according to the…

11. But if these considerations are sound, why has Quality more than one species? What is the ground for distinguishing between habit and disposition, seeing that no differentia of Quality is involved in permanence and non-permanence? A disposition of any kind is sufficient to constitute a quality; permanence is a mere external addition. It might…

9. It follows that in the cases specified above – agent, knowledge and the rest – the relation must be considered as in actual operation, and the Act and the Reason-Principle in the Act must be assumed to be real: in all other cases there will be simply participation in an Ideal-Form, in a Reason-Principle.…

8. But we are digressing: we must resume our enquiry into the cause of dissimilarity among relations. Yet we must first be informed what reality, common to all cases, is possessed by this Existence derived from mutual conditions. Now the common principle in question cannot be a body. The only alternative is that, if it…

7. Now if we do not mean anything by Relation but are victims of words, none of the relations mentioned can exist: Relation will be a notion void of content. Suppose however that we do possess ourselves of objective truth when in comparing two points of time we pronounce one prior, or posterior, to the…

5. Speech, time, motion – in what sense are these quantities? Let us begin with speech. It is subject to measurement, but only in so far as it is sound; it is not a quantity in its essential nature, which nature is that it be significant, as noun and verb are significant. The air is…

3. But perhaps we should rather speak of some single category, embracing Intellectual Substance, Matter, Form, and the Composite of Matter and Form. One might refer to the family of the Heraclids as a unity in the sense, not of a common element in all its members, but of a common origin: similarly, Intellectual Substance…

1. Philosophy at a very early stage investigated the number and character of the Existents. Various theories resulted: some declared for one Existent, others for a finite number, others again for an infinite number, while as regards the nature of the Existents – one, numerically finite, or numerically infinite – there was a similar disagreement.…

13. With regard to Date: If “yesterday,” “to-morrow,” “last year” and similar terms denote parts of time, why should they not be included in the same genus as time? It would seem only reasonable to range under time the past, present and future, which are its species. But time is referred to Quantity; what then…

23. As for Possession, if the term is used comprehensively, why are not all its modes to be brought under one category? Possession, thus, would include the quantum as possessing magnitude, the quale as possessing colour; it would include fatherhood and the complementary relationships, since the father possesses the son and the son possesses the…

15. The “category of Action”: The quantum has been regarded as a single genus on the ground that Quantity and Number are attributes of Substance and posterior to it; the quale has been regarded as another genus because Quality is an attribute of Substance: on the same principle it is maintained that since activity is…

14. The Academy and the Lyceum are places, and parts of Place, just as “above,” “below,” “here” are species or parts of Place; the difference is of minuter delimitation. If then “above,” “below,” “the middle” are places – Delphi, for example, is the middle (of the earth) – and “near-the-middle” is also a place –…

The Sixth Ennead First tractate. On the kinds of being – (1).

10. As regards Quality, the source of what we call a “quale,” we must in the first place consider what nature it possesses in accordance with which it produces the “qualia,” and whether, remaining one and the same in virtue of that common ground, it has also differences whereby it produces the variety of species.…

6. In considering Relation we must enquire whether it possesses the community of a genus, or whether it may on other grounds be treated as a unity. Above all, has Relation – for example, that of right and left, double and half – any actuality? Has it, perhaps, actuality in some cases only, as for…

4. We are told that number is Quantity in the primary sense, number together with all continuous magnitude, space and time: these are the standards to which all else that is considered as Quantity is referred, including motion which is Quantity because its time is quantitative – though perhaps, conversely, the time takes its continuity…

25. There are those who lay down four categories and make a fourfold division into Substrates, Qualities, States, and Relative States, and find in these a common Something, and so include everything in one genus. Against this theory there is much to be urged, but particularly against this posing of a common Something and a…