Study Notes of Bostock's and Burnyeat's. Z4-Z5 Main concern: What can be said to have a definition? Answer: Only species, i.e. forms, in the category of substance will qualify.
Z4-Z5 Aristotle argues that only a substance has an essence. But in Z6 he argues that a substance in fact is the essence that it has.
Bostock’s translation
(i) what being is for a thing (the what it was for a thing to be); a what-being-is (the what it was to be)
(ii) what a thing is; a what it is
(iii) a this
(iv) an underlying thing
29b13
The what-being-is Ross: linguistic (suggests plausibility rather than truth) Bostock: logical
Account #1 logos often means definition, it would be quite nature to suppose that Aristotle is proposing to begin by defining his notion of essence
Account #2 “Logical remarks” concern language, or “how to express oneself ”
Account #3 In contrast with “physical remarks” one remains general and abstract, whereas the other goes deeply into the nature of the objects concerned.
29b13-22
Two senses of “in its own right”:
Sense #1 A predication “A is B” is counted as a predication in “its own right” when B is, or is part of, the definition of A. I construe it as “B is predicated of A in its own right iff (a) B is predicated of A, and (b) B is part of the definition of A.” (29b14)
Sense #2 A is also said to be B in its own right when A occurs in the definition of B. See An. Post I, 4, 73a34-b5; Met. 18, 22a29-32.
In the case of when one predicates of a surface that it is pale, e.g. a surface (A) is a pale surface (B), B is not a part of definition of A, because Aristotle’s objection is not that being a surface is not equivalent to being a pale surface, but that A is repeated in B, so that as a definition it would be circular.
A formula is the essence of a thing iff (a) this formula expresses the thing, and (b) it is not circular by including that thing itself. (1029b19-20)
29b28-30a2
Not very clear in many ways
30a2-6
Issue: “The essence is precisely what a thing is”
Aristotle switches to a different line of argument: an essence must be a this, whereas a compound such as “pale man” is not a this. Aristotle says in Z3 that only a substance is a this, and compounds are not substances.
29b22-30a6
Bostock: It is less clear why Aristotle should be entitled to claim that “only a substance is a this.”
Aristotle would seem to be justified in his claim that a compound such as “pale man” is not a this, i.e. that “this pale man” is not a proper subject-expression, because the essence of the item referred to is not to be a pale man, but simply to be a man. But does it follow that the compound has no essence?
On the one hand, (a) Aristotle is prepared to distinguish the pale man from the man, since the latter underlies the former, and on this approach it will be reasonable to say that, whereas the man has an essence, the pale man does not; or (b) we would prefer to say that the essence of the pale man is the same as the essence of the man.
On the other, the phrase “the essence of a pale man” can of course be taken quite differently, as speaking of the essence of a certain compound universal expressed by “pale man”. But when the phrase is taken in this way, the fact that this expression fails to introduce a this, in the sense explained, is neither here nor there.
Bostock thinks that it is wrong to assert “an essence must be a this,” because a this is an essence.
30a6-17
formula: any meaningful series of words is counted as a formula
definition: only a formula of a certain kind will be a definition
30a10
Issue: “There is a formula of something primary, i.e. of something which is expressed without predicating one thing of another. A what-being-is, then, will belong to nothing but what is a form of a genus.”
Only “a form of a genus” will count as primary. It can be translated as form when contrasted with matter, and can be translated as species when contrasted with genus and differentia. Bostock says “if Aristotle is aware of any potential ambiguity in the word, arising from these two different contrasts, then clearly he is indicating here that it is form in the sense of “species” that he intends.” Mina: so it is about secondary substances?
Issue: How can it be only species that satisfy the condition?
#1 The phrase “nothing but what is a form of a genus” is not intended to rule out genera themselves.
#2 It is intended only to rule out ultimate genera.
#3 Perhaps Aristotle intends the extra condition that only a substance will count as primary. There is reason to suppose #3 is nearer the mark. When Aristotle says that only what is “primary” will have an essence, he means to restrict the field to things that are both (a) simple (i.e. not expressed by predicating one thing of another) and (b) in the category of substance.
Hence certain things (i.e. all non-substances, not only of compounds) do not have definitions.
30a17-27
30a18 “What a thing is in one sense means substance and the this, and in another way of the predicates—predicates of quantity, quality, and so on.”
30a27-b7
Aristotle proceeds to add an explanation of how “primarily” and its opposite are to be understood, namely as a case of what Owen (1960) has called “focal meaning.” For instance, the word “medical” applies primarily to the art, skill, or knowledge of medicine. Other things are called “medical” by reference to this. For instance, a patient is called a medical patient because she is being treated by the art of medicine.
30b7-13
More restriction on the formulae that can be taken as expressing definitions: such a formula must be a formula “of a unity” (literally of “one thing”).
Study Notes on Burnyeat Z4
Burnyeat aims at persuade readers of Zeta that Simplicius’ third meaning and Andronicus’ sense of “logical” are so closely connected and can be treated as one. (25)
The questions arise (A) about what Aristotle means by this qualification, (B) about how far the “logical” stage of the discussion will extend. (19)
At Physics III 3.202a21-22, Aristotle raises a “logical puzzle”, and Simplicius offers three meanings for the use of the word “logical”:
Burnyeat goes by the third meaning: the puzzle proceeds form generalities rather than from principles peculiar to the subject.
Use Alexander’s contrast: (a) the argument from opposites for the immortality of the soul in Plato’s Phaedo (70c-72e) is logical: it proceeds from the premise that everything comes to be from its opposite, and this is a premise which applies to lots of different kinds of things.
(b) The argument from the definition of soul as self-mover in Plato’s Phadedurs (245c-246a) is not logical: it proves immortality form the essential nature of its subject, the soul.
Aristotle often scolds the Platonists for the exclusively “logical” approach that leads them to their bizarre theories. He does not mean that their reasoning is merely verbal, rather, Aristotle means that their approach shows an “unscientific” craving for generality and abstraction. (20)
Socrates in the Phaedo is to investigate causes (99e5, 100a1), so as to avoid having to decide difficult questions about the physics of the sensible world.
Answering (A), two qualifications are in order. (21)
(a) A “logical” approach need not start fro outside the science altogether. It may start from a more general level within the science.
(b) The principles that a “logical” discussion abstracts from need not be causal.
Logic is more abstract and general than science or ethics. (22)
1030a27 Issue: Ross suggests a move from the linguistic question “how one ought to express” to the metaphysical question “how things are.”
Michael Woods objects that this effects a more local move, from the ranking of the many meanings of “definition” (1030a17-25) to a correspondingly hierarchy of real essences (1030a27-32). Burnyeat holds that Simplicius’ third meaning would turn us against Ross. The Simplicius-Alexander contrast between logical and non-logical is quite independent of the contrast between linguistic and non-linguistic considerations. (22-23)
Notice the plural : some things. This suggests that we have more than immediately appended definition: (a) the essence of each thing is what it is said to be in virtue of itself. Also it includes (b) it is substantial being alone that has definition and essence in the primary, unqualified sense of those terms (Z5.1031a11-14). (24)
Burnyeat holds that throughout Z4-5 the discussion remains at the abstract level of Simplicius’ third meaning. (24)
Andronicus recommended logic as the initial training for students of the Aristotelian philosophy. Burnyeat calls us attention to (a) the resemblance between Z3’s sketch of what a subject is and the Categories account of what a primary substance is and (b) the connection between Z4’s preliminary definition of essence and the passage in Posterior Analytics I 4.73a34-73b5.
