Categories
Aristotle
tr. J.L. Ackrill

"Substance [i.e., thinghood], it seems, does not admit of a more and a less. I do not mean that one substance [i.e., entity] is not more a substance than another (we have said that it is), but that any given substance is not called more, or less, that which it is. For example, if this substance is a man, it will not be more a man or less a man either than itself or than another man.... For a man is not called more  aman now than before, nor is anything else that is a substance. Thus substance does not admit of a more and a less. It seems most distinctive of substance that what is numerically one and the same is able to receive contraries. In no other case could one bring forward anything, numerically one, which is able to receive contraries. For example, a colour which is numerically one and the same will not be black and white, nor will numerically one and the same action be bad and good; and similarly with everything else that is not substance. A substance, however, numerically one and the same, is able to receive contraries. For example, an individual man - one and the same - becomes pale at one time and dark at another, and bad and good." (3b32-4a21)

"We call relatives all such things as are said to be just what they are, of or than other things, or in some other way in relation to something else. For example, what is larger is called what it is than something else (it is called larger than something); and what is double is called it is of something else (it is called double of something); similarly with all other such cases. The following, too, and their like, are among relatives: state [hexis], condition [diathesis], perception [aisthesis], knowledge [episteme], position. For each of these is called what it is (and not something different) of something else. A state [hexis] is called a state of something, and the rest similarly." (6a36-b6)

"There is contrareity in relatives, e.g. virtue is contrary to vice (and each of them is a relative), and knowledge to ignorance. But there is not a contrary to every relative; there is no contrary to what is double or treble or anything like that. Relatives also seem to admit of a more and a less. For a thing is called more similar and less similar..." (6b15-21)

"One kind of quality let us call states [hexeis] and conditions [diatheseis]. A state differs from a condition in being more stable and lasting longer. Such are the branches of knowledge and the virtues. For knowledge seems to be something permanent and hard to change if one has even a moderate grasp of a branch of knowledge, unless a great change is brought about by illness or some other such thing. So also virtue; justice, temperance, and the rest seem to be not easily changed. It is what are easily changed and quickly changing that we call conditions, e.g. hotness and chill and sickness and health and the like. For a man is in a certain condition in virtue of these but he changes quickly from hot to cold and from being healthy to being sick. Similarly with the rest, unless indeed even one of these were eventually to become through length of time part of a man's nature and irremediable or exceedingly hard to change - and then one would perhaps call this a state. It is obvious that by a state people do mean what is more lasting and harder to change. For those who lack full mastery of a branch of knowledge and are easily changed are not said to be in a state of knowledge, though they are of course in some condition, a better or a worse, in regard to that knowledge. Thus a state differs from a condition in that the one is easily changed while the other lasts longer and is harder to change." (8b25-9a9)

"When circumstances have their origin in affections that are hard to change and permanent they are called qualities.... But those that result from something that easily disperses and quickly gives way are called affections; for people are not, in virtue of them, said to be qualified somehow. Thus a man who reddens through shame is not called ruddy, nor one who pales in fright pallid; he is rather said to be affected somehow. Hence such things are called affections but not qualities. Similar with regard to the soul we speak of affective qualities and affections. Those which are present right from birth as a result of certain affections are called qualities, for example, madness and irascibility and the like; for in virtue of these people are said to be qualified, being called irascible and mad. Similarly with any aberrations that are not natural but result from some other circumstances, and are hard to get rid of or even completely unchangeable; such things, too, are qualities." (9b32-10a5)

"If contraries are such that it is necessary for one or the other of them to belong to the things they naturally occur in or are predicated of, there is nothing intermediate between them.... [examples are health/sickness and odd/even] But if it is not necessary for one or the other to belong, there is something intermediate between them. For example, black and white naturally occur in bodies, but it is not necessary for one or the other of them to belong to a body (for not every body is either white or black); again, bad and good are predicated of men and of many other things, but it is not necessary for one or the other of them to belong to those things they are predicated of (for not all are either bad or good). And between these there is certainly something intermediate - between white and black are grey, yellow and all other colours, and between the bad and the good the neither bad nor good. In some cases there exist names for the intermediates, as with grey and yellow between white and black; in some, however, it is not easy to find a name for the intermediate, but it is by the negation of each of the extremes that the intermediate is marked off, as with the neither good nor bad and neither just nor unjust. Privation [steresis] and possession [hexis] are spoken of in connexion with the same thing, for example sight and blindness in connexion with the eye. To generalize, each of them is spoken of in connexion with whatever the possession naturally occurs in. We say that anything capable of receiving a possession is deprived of it when it is entirely absent from that which naturally has it, at the time when it is natural for it to have it." (12a1-31) [at Physics VII.3, arete is called a completion and kakia is called a loss - is the latter equivalent to a privation?]

"[W]ith contraries it is possible (while the thing capable of receiving them is there) for change into one another to occur, unless the one belongs to something by nature as being hot does to fire. For it is possible for the healthy to fall sick and for the white to become black and the hot cold; and it is possible to become bad instead of good or good instead of bad. (For the bad man, if led to better ways of living and talking, would progress, if only a little, towards being better. And if he once made even a little progress it is clear that he might either change completely or make really great progress. For however slight the progress he made to begin with, he becomes ever more easily changed towards virtue, so that he is likely to make still more progress; and when this keeps happening it brings him over completely into the contrary state, provided time permits.) With privation and possess, on the other hand, it is impossible for change into one another to occur. For change occurs from possession to privation but from privation to possession it is impossible; one who has gone blind does not recover sight nor does a bald man regain his hair nor does a toothless man grow teeth." (13a18-36)

"What is contrary to a good thing is necessarily bad; this is clear by induction from cases - health and sickness, justice and injustice, courage and cowardice, and so on with the rest. But what is contrary to a bad thing is sometimes good but sometimes bad. For excess is contrary to deficiency, which is bad, and is itself bad; yet moderation [mesotes] as well is contrary to both, and it is good. However, though this sort of thing may be seen in a few cases, in most cases what is contrary to a bad thing is always good." (13b37-14a6)

"Having [to exein] is spoken of in a number of ways: having as a state [hexis] and condition [diathesis] or some other quality (as we are said to have knowledge and virtue)...." (15b17-19)

END