Porphyry: On Aristotle Categories

Porphyry: On Aristotle Categories (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

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After reading Aristotle's Categories and On Interpretation, I decided to read a commentary on one or both texts. I wasn't aware of any commentary on these texts written by the Angelic Doctor (although I have learned is one for On Interpretation, which was begun by St. Thomas and finished by Cardinal Cajetan.) I decided to go outre and pick up the one on Categories by the third-century pagan (and anti-Christian) Neo-Platonic philosopher Porphyry of Tyre.

I had assumed that reading Porphyry would be a difficult slog. Porphyry's commentary was accessible and entertaining. The commentary is written as a dialogue between Porphyry and a hypothetical student. This framework allows Porphyry to flag where he is going in nice bite-size pieces. The “student'” contribution usually consists of saying, “you have explained this very well,” but occasionally, the student challenges Porphyry on some topic. If the reader is following, the “student” becomes a quasi-character to access the narrative.

Porphyry is an interesting historical figure. He was born in 234 AD and died in 305 AD., the year of Diocletian's abdication of the imperial throne, an event that would lead in short order to the Christian hegemony over the Roman empire. During Porphyry's lifetime, Christianity became a powerful challenge to the hegemony of paganism. He was alive during Diocletian's persecution of Christianity and died about ten years before Constantine took control of the Roman empire.

Porphyry criticized Christianity. His critiques were very effective. They were based on his knowledge of the text of the Old Testament and his knowledge that Christianity was dependent on the Old Testament. He was an astute literary critic. One of his accomplishments was determining that the Book of Daniel had been written in the second-century BC and not in the sixth-century BC. As such, the “prophecies” of Daniel were debunked as mere history. Porphyry's anti-Christian works were largely destroyed during the reign of Constantine, but extracts survived in Christian rebuttals to Porphyry. Book 19 of Augustine's City of God analyzes and rebuts Porphyry. Augustine described Porphyry as the “most learned of philosophers, although one of the fiercest enemies of Christians.”

Porphyry was a disciple and student of the Neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus. Porphyry collected Plotinus's writings into the Enneads, which are well-known to fans of classic philosophy. Porphyry lived an ascetic lifestyle. Robert Louis Wilken points out that becoming a philosopher involved a conversion process whereby a lifestyle of asceticism and virtue was adopted. In that regard, it seems Christianity and philosophy had much in common.

In his commentary, Porphyry deals with the conflict between Aristotle and Plato casually. Aristotle made particular things primary instances of being; Plato made universal things primary. Porphyry deals with this conflict by treating Aristotle's focus on the particular as a focus on words. Porphyry can thereby ignore Aristotle's contradictory ontological focus as a matter of grammar. (P 74.)

Reading this commentary allowed me to have a second look at the material. Porphyry follows Categories closely but pays attention to some details that went past me on the first read. The details were there, but Porphyry's treatment brought those details into focus.

For example, I had not considered the significance of the title, “Categories.” I assumed that “Category” referred to the ten classes that Aristotle had defined for nouns and predicates. However, “kategoria” denoted the speech the prosecution gives against someone at trial, which is opposed by the defendant's speech (“apologia.”) Porphyry argues that Aristotle “chose to call those utterances in which significant expressions are applied to things “predications” (kategoria.)” A predication is a simpler significant (signifying(?)) expression is employed and said of what it signifies, such as pointing to a stone and saying “this.” So, “category” means “predication” and comes from the prosecutor's speech where the prosecutor points to the defendant, so to speak, and predicates various things about him.

For Porphyry, the ten categories are about words, which are in turn, about things. (“pragmata.”) “Beings are comprehended by the ten generic differentiae.” (p. 34.) “Words are like messengers that report to us about things, and they get their generic differentiae from things about which they report.” (p. 35.) Words are divided into nouns and verbs. Nouns are things; verbs contain an element of time and are about nouns.
Words can also be defined by comparing and contrasting their sounds and definitions into Homonyms, Synonyms, Paronyms, and Heteronyms. These terms become important later when Porphyry discusses the nine accidental categories. The differences can be diagrammed as follows:

Classification Similarity of Words Similarity of Definition/Description

Homonym Same Different
Synonym Same Same
Polyonym Different Same
Heteronym Different Different
Paronym Different grammatical forms Same root

“Common” is a homonym since it can mean something divisible into parts or used by several people without division. “Ajax, son of Telamon” and “Ajax, son of Oeleus” both have the name Ajax in common, but the name “Ajax” has different definitions in both cases. Another kind of homonym involves an image and the subject of the image. We can point to King Charles and a painting of King Charles and say, “that is King Charles.”

Polyonyms have multiple words for a single meaning, e.g., sword, blade, sabre, etc.

Paronyms get their names from a word but use a different grammatical ending, e.g., grammar, grammarian.

Synonyms have a common definition, albeit the definition may not be obvious. Porphyry calls “man” and “ox” synonyms insofar as they are both animals.

Porphyry moves on to the “said of or found in” distinction. His treatment of this is far clearer and more explicit than Aristotle's. Porphyry explicitly defines those things that are “found in” a subject as “accidents and that thing “said of” as universals. Thus, we get a diagram of the “four categories” based on accidents and universals:

The next subject is “differentiae.” Differentiae differ in genus, e.g., the difference between having two feet and four feet for animals. The differentiae are predicated of several different things and, therefore, constitutes a species. (P. 67.)

This takes the reader to the “ten ultimate categories” and the genera, species, and genus in each.

Substance is the single highest genus of substances. Nothing is prior to substance. The remaining nine categories are accidents that exist parasitically on substance. (p. 77, 78.) There is no contradictory/contrary to substance, but substances are receptive to characteristics (Accidents) which are receptive of contradiction or contraries (and affected by the contraries, e.g., Socrates is sick/healthy. (p. 91.) There is nothing intermediate between substances and accidents. (p. 87, 89.)

The nine remaining categories are divided by Aristotle into units of three: “Of things said without any combination, each signifies, either substance or quantity or qualification or relative or where or when or position or having or doing or being affected.” (p. 73; 1b27-8.)

Porphyry discusses the categories in terms of “proprium” and “differentiae.” The nine categories are not susceptible of definition, but they can be classed by “proprium” which are attributes common to a category and only to that category. (p. 91.) Following his methods, Porphyry develops the following points that I've organized into a grid:

Quantity
- No contrary
- More/less not quantity
- Differentiae – Discrete and continuous
- Proprium – to be called equal/unequal
Relation
- Depends on something else.
- Always plural and correlative.
- Defined by paronyms e.g., grammar/grammarian
- Contraries exist.
- Proprium – to be in relation to correlatives.
- Relation exists in the relationship, not in the substance.(p. 133.)
Quality
- 4 species of quality: states/ conditions; capacity; Affected Qualities; shape.
- Affected qualities are permanent.
- Contrariety exists in Quality.
- Negative states exist in Quality
- Proprium: Similarity and Dissimilarity.
Where
- Parasitic upon Quantity. (p. 158.)
- Requires “Place” which is a Quantity. When
- Parasitic upon Quantity. (p. 158.)
- Requires “Time” which is a Quantity. (p. 158.() Position
- “Position” refers to the position of a body as named by paronyms, e.g., to sit, to stand, to lie down.
- Sitting is a Relative.
Having Doing Being affected.
- “Being affected” involves temporary reactions, such as being frightened or shocked.

Porphyry describes the Categories as a beginning text in the class of logic. There is plenty of logical conundrums here. For example, knowledge is a Relation because there has to be someone with knowledge and some knowledge to be known. Some philosophers distinguished between general knowledge as a relation and specific knowledge as a quality. If that is unconvincing, Porphyry allows that knowledge could be both.

Likewise, perception is a Relation since there must be a perceiver and something perceived. The perceived is prior in this Relation since the perceived will exist without a perceiver, but one cannot be a perceiver without the perceived.

And that sounds like an answer to the question of the tree falling in the forest without someone to hear it.

Philosophy can be practical.