Table Of ContentFranz Brentano
ON THE SEVERAL SENSES OF BEING
IN ARISTOTLE
To
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Aristotle, Metapkvsics Z, 1
Edited and Translated
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Rolf George
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
1975
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, LTD.
LONDON, ENGLAND
COPYRIGHT © 1975 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
ISBN: 0-520-02346-3
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 72-89796
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Dedicated in veneration and gratitude
to
DR. ADOLPH TRENDELENBURG
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Berlin
My most revered teacher,
the scholar so highly distinguished
in the advancement of our understanding of Aristotle.
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
§ 2. Thesis I: The categories are not merely a frame
work for concepts, but they are themselves real
concepts, extramental independent being. . . . 56
§ 3. Thesis II: The categories are several senses of
being which is asserted of them analogically,
indeed in a twofold manner, i.e., as analogy of
proportionality, and as analogy to the same terminus 58
§ 4. Thesis III: The categories are the highest univocal
general concepts, the highest genera of being. 66
§ 5. Thesis IV: The categories are the highest
predicates of first substance . . . . . . . . 68
§ 6. Thesis V: The categories differ from each other
because of the different relations they have to
first substance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 71
§ 7. Thesis VI: The categories differ from each other
according to the different manners of predication . . . 75
§ 8. Thesis VII: The categories differ according to the
different manners of predication. This does not
amalgamate the division into categories with the
division into the five universals with Aristotle
called "those which are predicated of something"
Top. I. 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
§10. 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 inrelation 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
Contents ix
§ 13. Thesis XII: The deductive proof for the division
of the categories must begin with the distinction
between substance and accident. Substance will
not allow of further division, but the latter can
be divided initially into the two classes of abso
lute accidents and relations, and absolute acci
dents further into inherence, affection, and
external circumstances. ................... 97
§14. Thesis XII: This deductive demonstration has
been developed in ancient and recent times in
a similar way by various interpreters of Aristotle. . 118
§15. Thesis XIV: There is a harmony between the
categories of Aristotle and the grammatical dif-
ferences of noun and adjective, verb and adverb. .. 123
§ 16. Thesis XV: The preceding investigation concern
ing the principle and meaning of the categories
resolves objection raised from various quarters
against the division of the categories. .......... 130
Notes ............................................ 149
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.1
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
gether without guiding principle (C.P.R., A8l/B107), and to the
general and regrettable tendency to treating the Aristotelian
corpus as a collection of disjointed elements. But it is certainly
also an expression of Brentano's own esteem for systematicity
and coherence, a tendency that manifests itself in his subsequent
interpretation of De anima. Brentano's style reflects his distrust
for vague, even if perhaps profound intuition. Though fluent
and sometimes eloquent, it is almost wholly devoid of metaphor
and allusion. As in all of his published work, his points are
clearly stated, well reasoned, and heavily defended.
Brentano had a most distinguished group of pupils, among
them HusserI, 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 first 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
Aristoteles."4 It is in this book that he found the quest for the
"being of beings in its difference from beings"; 5 it is thus the
point of departure for the problems treated in his fundamental
ontology.
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 John 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
ets. Sometimes, when the meaning of a Greek word had been made
