Categoria: Tratado 43 (VI,2)

7. What, then, are the several entities observable in this plurality? We have found Substance (Essence) and life simultaneously present in Soul. Now, this Substance is a common property of Soul, but life, common to all souls, differs in that it is a property of Intellect also. Having thus introduced Intellect and its life we…

QUANTITY IS A SECONDARY GENUS, THEREFORE NOT A FIRST. 13. Now why should we not posit quantity among the primary genera? And why not also quality? Quantity is not one of the primary genera like those we have posited, because the primary genera coexist with essence (which is not the case with quantity). Indeed, movement…

SIXTH ENNEAD, BOOK TWO. The Categories of Plotinos. 1. After having discussed the doctrine of the ten categories (of Aristotle), and spoken of the (Stoics) who reduce all things to a single genus, and then distribute them in four species, we must still set forth our own opinion on the subject, striving however to conform…

4. If we had to ascertain the nature of body and the place it holds in the universe, surely we should take some sample of body, say stone, and examine into what constituents it may be divided. There would be what we think of as the substrate of stone, its quantity – in this case,…

The Sixth Ennead Second tractate. On the kinds of being (2).

9. The above considerations – to which others, doubtless, might be added – suffice to show that these five are primary genera. But that they are the only primary genera, that there are no others, how can we be confident of this? Why do we not add unity to them? Quantity? Quality? Relation, and all…

13. We turn to ask why Quantity is not included among the primary genera, and Quality also. Quantity is not among the primaries, because these are permanently associated with Being. Motion is bound up with Actual Being (Being-in-Act), since it is its life; with Motion, Stability too gained its foothold in Reality; with these are…

19. Having established our four primary genera, it remains for us to enquire whether each of them of itself alone produces species. And especially, can Being be divided independently, that is without drawing upon the other genera? Surely not: the differentiae must come from outside the genus differentiated: they must be differentiae of Being proper,…

1. We have examined the proposed “ten genera”: we have discussed also the theory which gathers the total of things into one genus and to this subordinates what may be thought of as its four species. The next step is, naturally, to expound our own views and to try to show the agreement of our…

2. In asserting that Being is not a unity, we do not mean to imply a definite number of existences; the number may well be infinite: we mean simply that it is many as well as one, that it is, so to speak, a diversified unity, a plurality in unity. It follows that either the…

3. We assert, then, a plurality of Existents, but a plurality not fortuitous and therefore a plurality deriving from a unity. But even admitting this derivation from a unity – a unity however not predicated of them in respect of their essential being – there is, surely, no reason why each of these Existents, distinct…

8. We cannot indeed escape positing these three, Being, Motion, Stability, once it is the fact that the Intellect discerns them as separates; and if it thinks of them at all, it posits them by that very thinking; if they are thought, they exist. Things whose existence is bound up with Matter have no being…

10. In what sense is the particular manifestation of Being a unity? Clearly, in so far as it is one thing, it forfeits its unity; with “one” and “thing” we have already plurality. No species can be a unity in more than an equivocal sense: a species is a plurality, so that the “unity” here…

12. Enough upon that side of the question. But how does the perfection (goodness) of numbers, lifeless things, depend upon their particular unity? Just as all other inanimates find their perfection in their unity. If it should be objected that numbers are simply non-existent, we should point out that our discussion is concerned (not with…

THE FIRST TWO GENERA ARE BEING AND MOVEMENT. 7. What and how much can be seen in the soul? Since we have found in the soul both being and life, and as both being and life are what is common in every soul, and as life resides in intelligence, recognizing that there is (besides the…

WHY NOT ADD OTHERS SUCH AS UNITY, QUANTITY, QUALITY, OR RELATION? 9. These and similar (Platonic) arguments demonstrate that those are genuinely primary genera; but how are we to prove they are exclusive? Why, for example, should not unity, quantity, quality, relation, and further (Aristotelian) categories, be added thereto? NEITHER ABSOLUTE NOR RELATIVE UNITY CAN…