The Categories

The work analyzes how language corresponds to reality by distinguishing equivocal, univocal, and derivative naming, simple and composite expressions, and what may be predicated of or present in a subject. It then classifies basic ways of being into a small set of fundamental types and examines their interrelations, focusing in particular on the category of quality. Quality is further divided into habits or stable dispositions, transient dispositions, natural capacities, and affective qualities tied to perception and bodily change, with examples and arguments about how these predicates relate to subjects. The text proceeds in short sections that define terms and give illustrative contrasts.