Philosophy - General & Miscellaneous
Available on Bookshop
Write a review
Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Log in to track your reading progress.
Overview
"Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Categories is the most comprehensive philosophical critique of the work ever written, representing 600 years of criticism. In his Categories, Aristotle divides what exists in the sensible world into ten categories, including Substance, Quantity, Relative, and Quality. Simplicius starts with a survey of previous commentators and an introductory set of questions about Aristotle's philosophy and about the Categories in particular. The commentator, he says, needs to present Plato and Aristotle as in harmony in most things." Why were precisely ten categories named, given that Plato managed with fewer distinctions? Where in the scheme of categories would one fit a quality that defines a substance - under substance or under quality? In his own commentary, Porphyry suggested classifying a defining quality as something distinct, a substantial quality, but others objected that this would constitute an eleventh category. The most persistent question dealt with in Simplicius' commentary is whether the categories classify words, concepts, or things.Book Details
Published
September 29, 2002
Publisher
Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2003.
Pages
200
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780801441011