40 See Aristot. Topic. i. p. 100, b. 21, p. 101, a. 25, 34-36, b. 2. Πρὸς δὲ τὰς κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν ἐπιστήμας (χρήσιμος ἡ πραγματεία), ὅτι δυνάμενοι πρὸς ἀμφότερα διαπορῆσαι ῥᾷον ἐν ἑκάστοις κατοψόμεθα τἀληθές τε καὶ τὸ ψεῦδος, p. 105, b. 30. Πρὸς μὲν οὖν φιλοσοφίαν κατ’ ἀληθειαν περὶ αὐτῶν πραγματευέον, διαλεκτικῶς δὲ πρὸς δόξαν.
Compare also the commencement of book B. in the Metaphysica, p. 995, a. 28 seq., and, indeed, the whole of book B., which contains a dialectic discussion of numerous ἀπορίαι. Aristotle himself refers to it afterwards (Γ. p. 1004, a. 32) in the words ὕπερ ἐν ταῖς ἀπορίαις ἐλεχθη.
The Scholia of Alexander on the beginning of the Topica (pp. 251, 252, Brandis) are instructive; also his Scholia on p. 105, b. 30, p. 260, a. 24. διαλεκτικῶς δὲ πρὸς δόξαν, ὡς ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ πραγματείᾳ (i.e. the Topica) καὶ ἐν τοῖς ῥητορικοῖς, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐξωτερικοῖς. καὶ γὰρ ἐν ἐκείνοις πλεῖστα καὶ περὶ τῶν ἠθικῶν καὶ περὶ τῶν φυσικῶν ἐνδόξως λέγεται.
We see here that Alexander understands by the exoteric the dialectic handling of opinions on physics and ethics.
In the Eudemian Ethica also (i. 8, p. 1217, b. 16) we find ἐπέσκεπται δὲ πολλοῖς περὶ αὐτοῦ τρόποις, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐξωτερικοῖς λόγοις καὶ ἐν τοῖς κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν, where we have the same antithesis in other words — Exoteric or Dialectic versus Philosophical or Didactic. Compare a clear statement in Simplikius (Schol. ad Physic. p. 364, b. 19). Πρῶτον μὲν λογικῶς ἐπιχειρεῖ, τούτεστι πιθανῶς καὶ ἐνδόξως, καὶ ἔτι κοινότερόν πως καὶ διαλεκτικώτερον. Ἡ γὰρ διαλεκτικὴ ἡ Ἀριστοτέλους κοινή ἐστι μέθοδος περὶ παντὸς τοῦ προτεθέντος ἐξ ἐνδόξων συλλογιζομένη — τὸ γὰρ λογικὸν ὡς κοινὸν εἴωθεν ἀντιδιαστέλλειν τᾳ οἰκείῳ καὶ κατὰ φύσιν τοῦ πράγματος καὶ ἀποδεικτικῷ.
We thus learn, from the example furnished by Aristotle himself, what he means by “exoteric discourses.” The epithet means literally, extraneous to, lying on the outside of; in the present case, on the outside of philosophy, considered in its special didactic and demonstrative march.41 Yet what thus lies outside philosophy, is nevertheless useful as an accompaniment and preparation for philosophy. We shall find Aristotle insisting upon this in his Topica and Analytica; and we shall also find him introducing the exoteric treatment into his most abstruse philosophical treatises (the Physica is one of the most abstruse) as an accompaniment and auxiliary — a dialectic survey of opinions, puzzles, and controverted points, before he begins to lay down and follow out affirmative principles of his own. He does this not only throughout the Physica (in several other passages besides that which I have just cited),42 but also in the Metaphysica, the treatises De Animâ, De Generatione et Corruptione, &c.
41 We find the epithet ἐξωτερικὸς used once by Aristotle, not in conjunction with λόγοι, but with πράξεις, designating those acts which are performed with a view to some ulterior and extraneous end (τῶν ἀποβαινόντων χάριν, as contrasted with πράξεις αὐτοτελεῖς — οἰκεῖαι): Polit. vii. p. 1325, b. 22-29. σχολῇ γὰρ ἂν ὁ θεὸς ἔχοι καλῶς καὶ πᾶς ὁ κόσμος, οἷς οὐκ εἰσὶν ἐξωτερικαὶ πράξεις παρὰ τὰς οἰκείας τὰς αὐτῶν. In the Eudemian Ethics the phrase τοῖς ἀλλοτρίοις λόγοις σοφίζονται is used much in the same sense as τοῖς ἐξωτερικοῖς λόγοις: i.e. opposed to τοῖς οἰκείοις — to that which belongs specially to the scientific determination of the problem (Ethic. Eudem. i. p. 1218, b. 18).
The phrase διὰ τῶν ἐξωτερικῶν λόγων, in Aristot. Physic. iv. 10, p. 217, b. 31, and the different phrase ἐκ τῶν εἰωθότων λόγων λέγεσθαι, in Phys. vi. 2, p. 233, a. 13, appear to have the same meaning and reference. Compare Prantl not. ad Arist. Phys. p. 501.
42 If we turn to the beginning of book iv. of the Physica, where Aristotle undertakes to examine Τόπος, Place, we shall see that he begins by a dialectic handling of ἀπορίαι, exactly analogous to that which he himself calls ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι, when he proceeds to examine Χρόνος, Time: see Physica, iv. pp. 208, a. 32-35, 209, a. 30; 210, a. 12, b. 31. He does the like also about Κενόν, Vacuum, p. 213, a. 20, b. 28, and about Ἄπειρον, Infinitum, iii. p. 204, b. 4 (with the Scholia of Simplikius, p. 364, b. 20, Br.).
Compare the Scholion of Simplikius ad Physica (i. p. 329, b. 1, Br.) — ἴσως δὲ (Simplikius uses this indecisive word ἴσως) ὅτι ἡ ἐφ’ ἑκάτερα ἀπορία τοῦ λόγου ἐξωτερική τις ἦν, ὡς Εὔδημός φησι, διαλεκτικὴ μᾶλλον οὖσα, with this last Scholion, on p. 364, b. 20, which describes the same dialectic handling, though without directly calling it exoteric.
Having thus learnt to understand, from one distinct passage of Aristotle himself, what he means by “exoteric discourses,” we must interpret by the light of this analogy the other indistinct passages in which the phrase occurs. We see clearly that in using the phrase, he does not of necessity intend to refer to any other writings of his own — nor even to any other writings at all. He may possibly mean this; but we cannot be sure of it. He means by the phrase, a dialectic process of turning over and criticizing diverse opinions and probabilities: whether in his own writings, or in those of others, or in no writings at all, but simply in those oral debates which his treatise called Topica presupposes — this is a point which the phrase itself does not determine. He may mean to allude, in some cases where he uses the phrase, to his own lost dialogues; but he may also allude to Platonic and other dialogues, or to colloquies carried on orally by himself with his pupils, or to oral debates on intellectual topics between other active-minded men. When Bernays refers “exoteric discourse” to the lost Aristotelian Dialogues; when Madvig, Zeller, Torstrick, Forchhammer, and others, refer it to the contemporary oral dialectic43 — I think that neither of these explanations is in itself inadmissible. The context of each particular passage must decide which of the two is the more probable. We cannot go farther, in explaining the seven doubtful passages where Aristotle alludes to the “exoteric discourses,” than to understand the general character and scope of the reasonings which he thus designates. Extra-philosophical, double-sided, dialectic, is in general (he holds) insufficient by itself, and valuable only as a preparation and auxiliary to the didactic process. But there are some particular points on which such dialectic leaves a result sufficient and satisfactory, which can be safely accepted as the basis of future deduction. These points he indicates in the passages above cited; without informing us more particularly whether the dialectic was written or spoken, and whether by himself or by others.44
43 Ueberweg (Geschichte der Philos. des Alterthums, vol. i. § 46, p. 127, 2nd ed.) gives a just and accurate view of ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι, as conceived by Aristotle. See also the dissertation of Buhle, prefixed to his unfinished edition of Aristotle, De Aristotelis Libris Exotericis et Acroamaticis, pp. 107-152 — which discusses this subject copiously, and gives a collection both of the passages and comments which bear upon it. It is instructive, though his opinion leans too much towards the supposition of a double doctrine. Bernays, in his dissertation, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, maintains that by exoteric books are always meant the lost dialogues of Aristotle; and he employs much reasoning to refute the supposition of Madvig (Excurs. VII. ad Cicero, de Fin. p. 861), of Torstrick (ad Aristotel. de Animâ, p. 123), and also of Zeller, that by exoteric discourses are not meant any writings at all, but simply the colloquies and debates of cultivated men, apart from the philosophical schools. On the other hand, Forchhammer has espoused this last-mentioned opinion, and has defended it against the objections of Bernays (Forchhammer, Aristoteles und die exoterischen Reden, p. 16, seq.). The question is thus fully argued on both sides. To me it seems that each of these two opinions is partially right, and neither of them exclusively right. “Exoteric discourse,” as I understand it, might be found both in the Aristotelian dialogues, and in the debates of cultivated men out of the schools, and also in parts of the Aristotelian akroamatic works. The argument of Bernays (p. 36, seq.), that the points which Aristotle alludes to as having been debated and settled in exoteric discourses, were too abstruse and subtle to have been much handled by cultivated men out of the schools, or (as he expresses it) in the salons or coffee-houses (or what corresponded thereto) at Athens — this argument seems to me untenable. We know well, from the Topica of Aristotle, that the most abstruse subjects were handled dialectically, in a manner which he called extra-philosophical; and that this was a frequent occupation of active-minded men at Athens. To discuss these matters in the way which he calls πρὸς δόξαν, was more frequent than to discuss them πρὸς ἀλήθειαν.
Zell remarks (ad Ethica Nikom. i. 13), after referring to the passage in Aristotle’s Physica, iv. 10 (to which I have called attention in a previous note), “quo loco, à Buhlio neglecto, ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι idem significant quod alibi κοιναὶ δόξαι, εἰωθότες λόγοι, vel τὰ λεγόμενα: quæ semper, priusquam suas rationes in disputando proponat, disquirere solet Aristoteles. Vide supra, ad cap. viii. 1.” I find also in Weisse (Translation of and Comment on the Physica of Aristotle, p. 517) a fair explanation of what Aristotle really means by exoteric; an explanation, however, which Ritter sets aside, in my judgment erroneously (Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. iii. p. 23).
44 Thus, for example, the passage in the Ethica Nikom. i. 13, p. 1102, a. 26. λέγεται δὲ περὶ αὐτῶν καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐξωτερικοῖς λόγοις ἀρκούντως ἔνια, καὶ χρηστέον αὐτοῖς, is explained in the Paraphrase of the Pseudo-Andronikus as referring to oral colloquy of Aristotle himself with pupils or interlocutors; and this may possibly be a correct explanation.
From the time of Cicero downward, a distinction has been drawn between some books of Aristotle which were exoteric, and others that were not so; these last being occasionally designated as akroamatic. Some modern critics have farther tried to point out which, among the preserved works of Aristotle, belonged to each of these heads. Now there existed, doubtless, in the days of Cicero, Strabo, Plutarch, and Gellius, books of Aristotle properly called exoteric, i.e. consisting almost entirely of exoteric discourse and debate; though whether Aristotle himself would have spoken of an exoteric book, I have some doubt. Of such a character were his Dialogues. But all the works designated as akroamatic (or non-exoteric) must probably have contained a certain admixture of “exoteric discourse”; as the Physica (Φυσικὴ Ἀκρόασις) and the Metaphysica are seen to contain now. The distinction indicated by Cicero would thus be really between one class of works, wherein “exoteric discourse” was exclusive or paramount, — and another, in which it was partially introduced, subordinate to some specified didactic purpose.45 To this last class belong all the works of Aristotle that we possess at present. Cicero would have found none of them corresponding to his notion of an exoteric book.
45 To this extent I go along with the opinion expressed by Weisse in his translation of the Physica of Aristotle, p. 517: “Dass dieser Gegensatz kein absoluter von zwei durchaus getrennten Bücherclassen ist, sondern dass ein und dasselbe Werk zugleich exoterisch und esoterisch sein konnte; und zweitens, dass exoterisch überhaupt dasjenige heisst, was nicht in den positiv-dogmatischen Zusammenhang der Lehre des Philosophen unmittelbar als Glied eintritt.” But Weisse goes on afterwards to give a different opinion (about the meaning of exoteric books), conformable to what I have cited in a previous note from Sepulveda; and in that I do not concur. However, he remarks that the manner in which Aristotle handled the Abstracta, Place and Infinite, is just the same as that which he declares to be exoteric in the case of Time. The distinction drawn by Aulus Gellius (xx. 5) is not accurate: “Ἐξωτερικὰ dicebantur, quæ ad rhetoricas meditationes, facultatem argutiarum, civiliumque rerum notitiam conducebant. Ἀκροατικὰ autem vocabantur, in quibus philosophia remotior subtiliorque agitabatur; quæque ad naturæ contemplationes, disceptationesque dialecticas pertinebant.” It appears to me that disceptationes dialecticæ ought to be transferred to the department ἐξωτερικά, and that civilium rerum notitia belongs as much to ἀκροατικὰ as to ἐξωτερικά. M. Ravaisson has discussed this question very ably and instructively, Essai sur la Métaphysique d’Aristote, pp. 224-244. He professes indeed to defend the opinion which I have cited from Sepulveda, and which I think erroneous; but his reasonings go really to the support of the opinion given in my text. He remarks, justly, that the dialogues of Plato (at least all the dialogues of Search) are specimens of exoteric handling; of which attribute Forchhammer speaks as if it were peculiar to the Charmides (Aristot. Exot. Reden. p. 22). Brandis (Aristoteles, p. 105) thinks that when Aristotle says in the Politica, vii. 1, p. 1323, a. 21: νομίσαντας οὖν ἱκανῶς πολλὰ λέγεσθαι καὶ τῶν ἐν τοῖς ἐξωτερικοῖς λόγοις περὶ τῆς ἀρίστης ζώης, καὶ νῦν χρηστέον αὐτοῖς, he intends to designate the Ethica. It may be so; yet the Politica seems a continuation of the Ethica: moreover, even in the Ethica, we find reference made to previous discussions, ἐν τοῖς ἐξωτερικῶς λόγοις (Eth. N. I. 13).
To understand fully the extent comprehended by the word exoteric, we must recollect that its direct and immediate meaning is negative — extraneous to philosophy, and suitable to an audience not specially taught or prepared for philosophy. Now this negative characteristic belongs not merely to dialectic (as we see it in the example above cited from the Aristotelian Physica), but also to rhetoric or rhetorical argument. We know that, in Aristotle’s mind, the rhetorical handling and the dialectical handling, are placed both of them under the same head, as dealing with opinions rather than with truth.46 Both the one and the other are parted off from the didactic or demonstrative march which leads to philosophical truth; though dialectic has a distant affinity with that march, and is indeed available as an auxiliary skirmisher. The term exoteric will thus comprehend both rhetorical argument and dialectical argument.47 Of the latter, we have just seen a specimen extracted from the Physica; of the former, I know no specimen remaining, but there probably were many of them in the Aristotelian dialogues now lost — that which was called ‘Eudemus,’ and others. With these dialogues Cicero was probably more familiar than with any other composition of Aristotle. I think it highly probable that Aristotle alludes to the dialogues in some of the passages where he refers to “exoteric discourses.” To that extent I agree with Bernays; but I see no reason to believe (as he does) that the case is the same with all the passages, or that the epithet is to be understood always as implying one of these lost Aristotelian dialogues.48
46 See the first two chapters of Aristotle’s Rhetorica, especially pp. 1355 a. 24-35, 1358 a. 5, 11, 25, also p. 1404 a. 1.: ὅλως οὔσης πρὸς δόξαν τῆς πραγματείας τῆς περὶ τὴν ῥητορικήν, which is exactly what he says also about Dialectic, in the commencement of the Topica.
47 Octavianus Ferrarius observes, in his treatise De Sermonibus Exotericis (Venet. 1575), p. 24: “Quod si Dialecticus et Rhetor inter se mutant, ut aiunt, ita ut Dialecticus Rhetorem et Rhetor Dialecticum vicissim induat — de his ipsis veteribus Dialecticis minime nobis dubitandum est, quin iidem dialectice simul et rhetorice loqui in utramque partem potuerint. Nec valde mirum debet hoc videri; libros enim exotericos prope solos habuerunt: qui cum scripti essent (ut posterius planum faciam) dialectico more, illorum lectio cum libris peperit philosophos congruentes” — Ferrari adverts well to the distinction between the philosopher and the dialectician (sensu Aristotelico), handling often the same subjects, but in a different way: between the οἰκεῖαι ἀρχαί, upon which didactic method rested, and the δόξαι or diverse opinions, each countenanced by more or less authority, from which dialectic took its departure (pp. 36, 86, 89).
48 I agree very much with the manner in which Bernays puts his case, pp. 79, 80, 92, 93: though there is a contradiction between p. 80 and p. 92, in respect to the taste and aptitude of the exterior public for dialectic debate; which is affirmed in the former page, denied in the latter. But the doctrine asserted in the pages just indicated amounts only to this — that the dialogues were included in Aristotle’s phrase, ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι; which appears to me true.
There grew up, in the minds of some commentators, a supposition of “exoteric doctrine” as denoting what Aristotle promulgated to the public, contrasted with another secret or mystic doctrine reserved for a special few, and denoted by the term esoteric; though this term is not found in use before the days of Lucian.49 I believe the supposition of a double doctrine to be mistaken in regard to Aristotle; but it is true as to the Pythagoreans, and is not without some colour of truth even as to Plato. That Aristotle employed one manner of explanation and illustration, when discussing with advanced pupils, and another, more or less different, when addressing an unprepared audience, we may hold as certain and even unavoidable; but this does not amount to a double positive doctrine. Properly speaking, indeed, the term “exoteric” (as I have just explained it out of Aristotle himself) does not designate, or even imply, any positive doctrine at all. It denotes a many-sided controversial debate, in which numerous points are canvassed and few settled; the express purpose being to bring into full daylight the perplexing aspects of each. There are indeed a few exceptional cases, in which “exoteric discourse” will itself have thrown up a tolerably trustworthy result: these few (as I have above shown) Aristotle occasionally singles out and appeals to. But as a general rule, there is no doctrine which can properly be called exoteric: the “exoteric discourse” suggests many new puzzles, but terminates without any solution at all. The doctrine, whenever any such is proved, emerges out of the didactic process which follows.
49 Luc. Vit. Auct. 26.
CHAPTER III.
CATEGORIÆ.
Of the prodigious total of works composed by Aristotle, I have already mentioned that the larger number have perished. But there still remain about forty treatises, of authenticity not open to any reasonable suspicion, which attest the grandeur of his intelligence, in respect of speculative force, positive as well as negative, systematizing patience, comprehensive curiosity as to matters of fact, and diversified applications of detail. In taking account of these treatises, we perceive some in which the order of sequence is determined by assignable reasons; as regards others, no similar grounds of preference appear. The works called 1. De Cœlo; 2. De Generatione et Corruptione; 3. Meteorologica, — are marked out as intended to be studied in immediate succession, and the various Zoological treatises after them. The cluster entitled Parva Naturalia is complementary to the treatise De Animâ. The Physica Auscultatio is referred to in the Metaphysica, and discusses many questions identical or analogous, standing in the relation of prior to a posterior, as the titles indicate; though the title ‘Metaphysica’ is not affixed or recognized by Aristotle himself, and the treatise so called includes much that goes beyond the reach of the Physica. As to the treatises on Logic, Rhetoric, Ethics, Politics, Poetics, Mechanics, &c., we are left to fix for ourselves the most convenient order of study. Of no one among them can we assign the date of composition or publication. There are indeed in the Rhetorica, Politics, and Meteorologica, various allusions which must have been written later than some given events of known date; but these allusions may have been later additions, and cannot be considered as conclusively proving, though they certainly raise a presumption, that the entire work was written subsequently to those events.
The proper order in which the works of Aristotle ought to be studied (like the order proper for studying the Platonic dialogues),1 was matter of debate from the time of his earliest editors and commentators, in the century immediately preceding the Christian era. Boêthus the Sidonian (Strabo’s contemporary and fellow-student) recommended that the works on natural philosophy and physiology should be perused first; contending that these were the easiest, the most interesting, and, on the whole, the most successful among all the Aristotelian productions. Some Platonists advised that the ethical treatises should be put in the front rank, on the ground of their superior importance for correcting bad habits and character; others assigned the first place to the mathematics, as exhibiting superior firmness in the demonstrations. But Andronikus himself, the earliest known editor of Aristotle’s works, arranged them in a different order, placing the logical treatises at the commencement of his edition. He considered these treatises, taken collectively, to be not so much a part of philosophy as an Organon or instrument, the use of which must be acquired by the reader before he became competent to grasp or comprehend philosophy; as an exposition of method rather than of doctrine.2 From the time of Andronikus downward, the logical treatises have always stood first among the written or printed works of Aristotle. They have been known under the collective title of the ‘Organon,’ and as such it will be convenient still to regard them.3
1 Scholia, p. 25, b. 37, seq. Br.; p. 321, b. 30; Diogen. L. iii. 62. The order in which the forty-six Aristotelian treatises stand printed in the Berlin edition, and in other preceding editions, corresponds to the tripartite division, set forth by Aristotle himself, of sciences or cognitions generally: 1. Theoretical; θεωρητικαί 2. Practical; πρακτικαί. 3. Constructive or Technical; ποιητικαί.
Patricius, in his Discussiones Peripateticæ, published in 1581 (tom. i. lib. xiii. p. 173), proclaims himself to be the first author who will undertake to give an account of Aristotle’s philosophy from Aristotle himself (instead of taking it, as others before him had done, from the Aristotelian expositors, Andronikus, Alexander, Porphyry, or Averroes); likewise, to be the first author who will consult all the works of Aristotle, instead of confining himself, as his predecessors had done, to a select few of the works. Patricius then proceeds to enumerate those works upon which alone the professors “in Italicis scholis” lectured, and to which the attention of all readers was restricted. 1. The Predicabilia, or Eisagoge of Porphyry. 2. The Categoriæ. 3. The De Interpretatione. 4. The Analytica Priora; but only the four first chapters of the first book. 5. The Analytica Posteriora; but only a few chapters of the first book; nothing of the second. 6. The Physica; books first and second; then parts of the third and fourth; lastly, the eighth book. 7. The De Cœlo; books first and second. 8. The De Generatione et Corruptione; books first and second. 9. The De Animâ; all the three books. 10. The Metaphysica; books Alpha major, Alpha minor, third, sixth, and eleventh. “Idque, quadriennio integro, quadruplicis ordinis Philosophi perlegunt auditoribus. De reliquis omnibus tot libris, mirum silentium.”
Patricius expressly remarks that neither the Topica nor the De Sophisticis Elenchis was touched in this full course of four years. But he does not remark — what to a modern reader will seem more surprising — that neither the Ethica, nor the Politica, nor the Rhetorica, is included in the course.
2 Aristot. Topica, i. p. 104, b. 1, with the Scholia of Alexander, p. 259, a. 48 Br.; Scholia ad Analyt. Prior. p. 140, a. 47, p. 141, a. 25; also Schol. ad Categor. p. 36, a., p. 40, a., 8. This conception of the Organon is not explicitly announced by Aristotle, but seems quite in harmony with his views. The contemptuous terms in which Prantl speaks of it (Gesch. der Logik, i. 136), as a silly innovation of the Stoics, are unwarranted.
Aristotle (Metaph. E. i. p. 1025, b. 26) classifies the sciences as θεωρητικαί, πρακτικαί, ποιητικαί; next he subdivides the first of the three into φυσική, μαθηματική, πρώτη φιλοσοφία. Brentano, after remarking that no place in this distribution is expressly provided for Logic, explains the omission as follows: “Diese auffallende Erscheinung erklärt sich daraus, dass diese [the three above-named theoretical sciences] allein das reelle Sein betrachten, und nach den drei Graden der Abstraktion in ihrer Betrachtungsweise verschieden, geschieden werden; während die Logik das bloss rationelle Sein, das ὃν ὡς ἀληθές, behandelt.” (Ueber die Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles, p. 39.) — Investigations περὶ τῆς ἀληθείας, ὃν τρόπον δεῖ ἀποδέχεσθαι are considered by Aristotle as belonging to τὰ Ἀναλυκτικά; enquiries into method in the first instance, and into doctrine chiefly with a view to method (Metaphys. Γ. p. 1005, b. 2. In Metaphys. Γ. 1005, b. 7, he declares that these enquiries into method, or analysis of the principia of syllogistic reasoning, belong to the Philosophia Prima (compare Metaphys. Z. 12, p. 1037, b. 8). Schwegler in his Commentary (p. 161) remarks that this is one of the few passages in which Aristotle indicates the relation in which Logic stands to Metaphysics, or First Philosophy. The question has been started among his Ἀπορίαι, Metaph. B. 2, p. 999, b. 30.
3 Respecting the title of Organon which was sometimes applied to the Analytica Posteriora only, see Waitz ad Organ. ii. p. 294.
These treatises are six in number:— 1. Categoriæ;4 2. De Interpretatione, or De Enunciatione; 3. Analytica Priora; 4. Analytica Posteriora; 5. Topica; 6. De Sophisticis Elenchis. This last short treatise — De Sophisticis Elenchis — belongs naturally to the Topica which precedes it, and of which it ought to be ranked as the ninth or concluding book. Waitz has printed it as such in his edition of the Organon; but as it has been generally known with a separate place and title, I shall not depart from the received understanding.
4 Some eminent critics, Prantl and Bonitz among them, consider the treatise Categoriæ not to be the work of Aristotle. The arguments on which this opinion rests are not convincing to me; and even if they were, the treatise could not be left out of consideration, since the doctrine of the Ten Categories is indisputably Aristotelian. See Zeller, Die Phil. der Griech. ii. 2, pp. 50, 51, 2nd ed.
Aristotle himself does not announce these six treatises as forming a distinct aggregate, nor as belonging to one and the same department, nor as bearing one comprehensive name. We find indeed in the Topica references to the Analytica, and in the Analytica references to the Topica. In both of them, the ten Categories are assumed and presupposed, though the treatise describing them is not expressly mentioned: to both also, the contents of the treatise De Interpretatione or Enunciatione, though it is not named, are indispensable. The affinity and interdependence of the six is evident, and justifies the practice of the commentators in treating them as belonging to one and the same department. To that department there belonged also several other treatises of Aristotle, not now preserved, but specified in the catalogue of his lost works; and these his disciples Theophrastus, Eudemus, and Phanias, had before them. As all these three disciples composed treatises of their own on the same or similar topics,5 amplifying, elucidating, or controverting the views of their master, the Peripatetics immediately succeeding them must have possessed a copious logical literature, in which the six treatises now constituting the Organon appeared as portions, but not as a special aggregate in themselves.
5 Ammonius ap. Schol. p. 28, a. 41; p. 33, b. 27, Br.
Of the two treatises which stand first in the Aristotelian Organon — the Categoriæ and the De Interpretatione — each forms in a certain sense the complement of the other. The treatise De Interpretatione handles Propositions (combinations of terms in the way of Subject and Predicate), with prominent reference to the specific attribute of a Proposition — the being true or false, the object of belief or disbelief; the treatise Categoriæ deals with these same Terms (to use Aristotle’s own phrase) pronounced without or apart from such combination. In his definition of the simple Term, the Proposition is at the same time assumed to be foreknown as the correlate or antithesis to it.6
6 Τὰ ἄνευ συμπλοκῆς λεγόμενα — τῶν κατὰ μηδεμίαν συμπλοκὴν λεγομένωνα (Categ. p. 1, a. 16, b. 25). See Schol. ad Aristot. Physica, p. 323, b. 25, Br.; and Bonitz ad Aristotel. Metaph. (A. p. 987) p. 90.
The Categories of Aristotle appear to formed one of the most prominent topics of the teaching of Themistius: rebutting the charge, advanced both against himself, and, in earlier days, against Sokrates and the Sophists, of rendering his pupils presumptuous and conceited, he asks, ἠκούσατε δὲ αὖ τινος τῶν ἐμῶν ἐπιτηδείων ὑψηλογουμένου καὶ βρενθυομένου ἐπὶ τοῖς συνωνύμοις ἢ ὁμωνύμοῖς ἢ παρωνύμοις; (Orat. xxiii. p. 351.)
Reference is made (in the Scholia on the Categoriæ, p. 43, b. 19) to a classification of names made by Speusippus, which must have been at least as early as that of Aristotle; perhaps earlier, since Speusippus died in 339 B.C. We do not hear enough of this to understand clearly what it was. Boêthus remarked that Aristotle had omitted to notice some distinctions drawn by Speusippus on this matter, Schol. p. 43, a. 29. Compare a remark in Aristot. De Cœlo, i. p. 280, b. 2.
The first distinction pointed out by Aristotle among simple, uncombined Terms, or the things denoted thereby, is the Homonymous, the Synonymous, and the Paronymous. Homonymous are those which are called by the same name, used in a different sense or with a different definition or rational explanation. Synonymous are those called by the same name in the same sense. Paronymous are those called by two names, of which the one is derived from the other by varying the inflexion or termination.7
7 Aristot. Categor. p. 1, a. 1-15.
We can hardly doubt that it was Aristotle who first gave this peculiar distinctive meaning to the two words Homonymous and Synonymous, rendered in modern phraseology (through the Latin) Equivocal and Univocal. Before his time this important distinction between different terms had no technical name to designate it. The service rendered to Logic by introducing such a technical term, and by calling attention to the lax mode of speaking which it indicated, was great. In every branch of his writings Aristotle perpetually reverts to it, applying it to new cases, and especially to those familiar universal words uttered most freely and frequently, under the common persuasion that their meaning is not only thoroughly known but constant and uniform. As a general fact, students are now well acquainted with this source of error, though the stream of particular errors flowing from it is still abundant, ever renewed and diversified. But in the time of Aristotle the source itself had never yet been pointed out emphatically to notice, nor signalized by any characteristic term as by a beacon. The natural bias which leads us to suppose that one term always carries one and the same meaning, was not counteracted by any systematic warning or generalized expression. Sokrates and Plato did indeed expose many particular examples of undefined and equivocal phraseology. No part of the Platonic writings is more valuable than the dialogues in which this operation is performed, forcing the respondent to feel how imperfectly he understands the phrases constantly in use. But it is rarely Plato’s practice to furnish generalized positive warnings or systematic distinctions. He has no general term corresponding to homonymous or equivocal; and there are even passages where (under the name of Prodikus) he derides or disparages a careful distinctive analysis of different significations of the same name. To recognize a class of equivocal terms and assign thereto a special class-name, was an important step in logical procedure; and that step, among so many others, was made by Aristotle.8
8 In the instructive commentary of Dexippus on the Categoriæ (contained in a supposed dialogue between Dexippus and his pupil Seleukus, of which all that remains has been recently published by Spengel, Munich, 1859), that commentator defends Aristotle against some critics who wondered why he began with these Ante-predicaments (ὁμώνυμα, συνώνυμα, &c.), instead of proceeding at once to the Predicaments or Categories themselves. Dexippus remarks that without understanding this distinction between equivoca and univoca, the Categories themselves could not be properly appreciated; for Ens — τὸ ὂν — is homonymous in reference to all the Categories, and not a Summum Genus, comprehending the Categories as distinct species under it; while each Category is a Genus in reference to its particulars. Moreover, Dexippus observes that this distinction of homonyms and synonyms was altogether unknown and never self-suggested to the ordinary mind (ὅσων γὰρ ἔννοιαν οὐκ ἔχομεν, τούτων πρόληψιν οὐκ ἔχομεν, p. 20), and therefore required to be brought out first of all at the beginning; whereas the Post-predicaments (to which we shall come later on) were postponed to the end, because they were cases of familiar terms loosely employed. (See Spengel, Dexipp. pp. 19, 20, 21.)
Though Aristotle has professed to distinguish between terms implicated in predication, and terms not so implicated,9 yet when he comes to explain the functions of the latter class, he considers them in reference to their functions as constituent members of propositions. He immediately begins by distinguishing four sorts of matters (Entia): That which is affirmable of a Subject, but is not in a Subject; That which is in a Subject, but is not affirmable of a Subject; That which is both in a Subject, and affirmable of a Subject; That which is neither in a Subject, nor affirmable of a Subject.10