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Philosophy Resource Center |
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The Ontological Question |
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Section 3: The Classification of Being Topics:
a) The Categories in General A category is an ultimate classification of things as knowable. Webster rightly defines category as "one of the highest classes to which the objects of though can be reduced, and by which they can be arranged in a system." The categories, as classifications of things (or "the objects of knowledge"), are the philosopher's map, his guide, his plan of work. Indeed, no man, even the least philosophical, can do without a fundamental classification of realities. For we live in such a complex world, we are surrounded by such a multitude and variety of things, that we must have some system and order, some scheme of unifying things, if we are able to think of them and speak of them at all. The categories we are to propose and discuss are the ten categories or the ten predicamentals listed by Aristotle. Founded, as all sane categories must be, on human experience with this thought-provoking and speech-inviting world around us, these ten have stood the test of more than two thousand years and they have not proved fallacious or defective. They have justified their claim as valid classifications "of the objects of thought and knowledge." In determining these supreme classes of things as understandable, Aristotle set forth a twofold general division of things, that is, "of the objects of thought and knowledge." He considered that a knowable thing, a reality, is either such a thing as may exist itself, may, so to speak, stand on its own feet, or it is such a thing as regularly requires some other thing in which to exist. The first class of thing is substance; the second class is accident or accidental. These are the two master-categories.
Accidents are said to inhere in the other reality to which they belong. This other reality in which accidents inhere is called the subject of inherence or simply the subject. One accident may inhere in another accident as in its subject, but at the bottom of all inherence is a substance. Thus the motion of a bullet has a certain rate of velocity and this velocity is an accident of motion which in itself is an accident of the bullet; the bullet is a substance. It is not accurate to classify understandable reality simply as "Substance and Accident." For there is no general accident; there is only this determinate accident or that determinate accident. The proper way of speaking of the categories is "Substance and the Nine Accidents." The nine accidents are: quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, place, time, posture, habit. These together with substance make up the ten categories or the ten predicamentals. For a reality to be classified under any of these ten heads it must be a single, real, finite being. It must be a single being; man is a substance, but good man falls under two categories; man, substance, goodness, quality. It must be a real thing, not a logical being (or ens rationis), for the categories are supreme classifications of understandable reality. It must be a finite being, for the Infinite Being is not to be listed, labeled, or classified; such things are limits and bounds, and the Infinite Being is without limits and bounds.
b) The Categories Taken Singly (1) Substance is a reality, bodily or spiritual, suited to exist as itself. The name substance is from the Latin sub stans or "standing under," for a creatural substance is capable of "standing under" the accidents of which it is the subject. It supports accidents in being. (2) Quantity is an accident proper to bodies; it is the extension of bodies in space. To say a thing is big or little is not to speak of quantity, for quantity deals with measurements. Big and little indicate qualities. If we say a man is six feet tall we indicate quantity; so also we indicate quantity when we say "forty cents," or "a nine by twelve rug," or "a mile walk," or "a two quart bottle." (3) Quality is an accident which determines the sort or kind of a thing. Nearly all adjectives indicate qualities. Quality is a very broad and inclusive category. Thus it indicates:
(4) Relation is an accident which determines a thing in its standing to or towards another. It is unique among accidents because it involves two realities and does not really exist in either but between them. Examples of relation are: equality, similarity, unlikeness, paternity, loyalty, servitude. (5) Action is an accident which determines a reality as doing something, as producing an effect. Examples: talking, writing, speeding, striking, painting. (6) Passion is an accident which determines a reality as undergoing something, as affected by some action. Examples: being talked to, being written, being struck. As action is expressed by the active voice of verbs, passion is expressed by the passive voice. (7) Place is an accident which determines a reality as to position with reference to other realities. Place is an accident which, strictly speaking, is proper to bodily substances only. Place finds expression in such terms as: in the room, at the corner of Main Street, in this county, on the surface of the earth, in that chair. (8) Time is an accident which determines a reality in its position with reference to before and after. Examples: at midday, this evening, at five o'clock, next Tuesday, in 1492, before midnight, after dinner. (9) Posture is an accident proper to bodies which determines its subject with reference to the arrangement or disposition of its own parts. Examples: sprawled, sitting, standing, lying down, huddled up, erect, prone, crosslinked, outstretched. (10) Habit is an accident proper to bodies which determines its subject with reference to its clothing or external accouterments or adjuncts. Examples: well-dressed, armored, moss-covered, ivy-hung, bearded, swaddled. In one aspect, habit is also quality. Mental and moral habits are always qualities merely. Habit as a predicamental or category means some kind of bodily dress or bodily adornment or bodily swathing.
c) Subsistence A thing which is existible as itself and not as the mark of something else is a substance. But sometimes a substance is a substantial part of a larger substance, as, for instance, a hand or an arm is part of the human substance. Now, a substance that has rounded completeness in itself, and its own way of acting, is said to be subsistent. Substances that are parts of other and greater substances are non-subsistent substances. A subsistent substance has its own mode of activity; its operations are referred to it. A man's actions are referred to the man, for a man is a subsistent substance. But the acts of a man's hand are not ascribed ultimately to the hand, but to the man. The man rightly says, "I wrote a letter"; he does not say, "My hand wrote a letter." The man is a substance; the hand is a substance; but the man is subsistent substance and the hand is not. That which gives a substance its rounded completeness, its crowning perfection, as a thing with its own activities, and a thing to which the activities of its parts are ultimately ascribed, is subsistence. A subsistent substance, that is, a substance that has subsistence, is called a suppositum or a support or a hypo stasis. If such a substance is of the rational order (that is, if it be basically equipped for understanding and willing) it is a person. We must notice a philosophical axiom: actions SunNet suppository, "actions are to be ascribed to supposes." The pitcher throws the ball, not merely the pitcher's arm and hand; the horse kicked the hostler, not the horse's hoof and leg.
Summary of the Section In this Section we have defined category, and have set down as master-categories substance and accident. Substance has a definite meaning of its own, and whatever falls under this category is a substance, material or spiritual. But whatever falls under the category of accident is a special accident; it is one of nine accidents. Therefore, we have learned not to say "substance and accident" when asked for the categories, but "substance and the nine accidents." We must contrast the categorical or predicamental accident discussed in the present Section with the categorematical or predicable accident discussed in the course on The Logical Question. We have listed, defined, and exemplified the ten categories. We have added an important word on the meaning of subsistence.
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