Summary of Aristotles Categories

Name

Instructor 's Name

Course

Date

Aristotle 's Ten Categories

The ten Categories of Aristotle are derived from Aristotle 's Organon (Evans ) and are classifications of individual words (as opposed to propositions ) They consist of substance , quantity , quality , relation place , time , situation , condition , action , and passion (Robin , 2004

Of the ten categories , Substance (ouisa ) is consistently considered to be the most important as it is the fundamental element of all living things . Each individual thing has its own substance that is unique to that thing and does not belong

to any other individual thing . Substance exists in two forms Primary Substance and Secondary Substance . Primary Substances are absolute , concrete individual things that can exist in isolation to other things . Aristotle specified elements such as air water and earth as primary categories because they are entirely independent of other beings . Secondary Substances are essentially properties of the primary substances and therefore cannot exist in their own right (Smith , Robin , 2004 . Aristotle specified that whilst primary substances were restricted to genus , secondary substances were restricted to the individual species to which they belonged , 'man ' is predicated of the individual man but 'animal ' is predicated of 'man it will , therefore , be predicable of the individual man also : for the individual man is both 'man ' and 'animal (Edghill , 2000

The remaining nine categories are utilized to help define and determine the details of the substance and what it is similar to and much of Aristotle 's discussion of these categories concerned the way the categories are used in language

The second of Aristotle 's categories is Quantity , which as per the conventional meaning of this word , refers to the physical size of something . Quantity can be measured by numbers , weight , volume , area etc and thus the category is intended as a means by which substance can be measured and interpreted relative to one another

Quality is related to the inherent nature of something , that is its attributes or characteristics . Quality aspects generally cannot be described mathematically . Descriptive words such as white , fat larger ' etc . would generally characterize the quality aspect of the categories

Relation concerns the way in which one thing is related to another This relationship could be a cause and effect relationship , a physical relationship or an equivalent relationship

The next category is Place . This refers to the physical location of an object or thing in its environment . Following this is Time . This category is concerned with a thing 's position with regards to the passage of time in the conventional sense or in relation to other events

The seventh category , Position , addresses the relative position parts of an object in relation to each other or the position of one object in relation to other objects

State is similar to quality but is concerned with the ongoing nature of an object as opposed to the inherent nature . So , for example , easy going ' would be classified as a quality whilst depressed ' would be classified as a state

The ninth category , Action , refers...