29. The Final Six Categories and Post-Predicamental Concepts

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

• The Final Six Categories: Where, when, position, having, acting upon, and undergoing
• Place and Time as Extrinsic Measures: How they differ from intrinsic qualities
• Position vs. Mere Location: Why position requires reference to external objects
• The Problem of Imagination: How humans struggle to conceive of things not in place or time
• Acting Upon vs. Undergoing: The distinction between causing change and undergoing it
• Post-Predicamental Concepts: Things found in multiple categories (opposites, order, motion, having)
• God’s Eternal Knowledge: How eternity transcends temporal categories

Key Arguments #

Why Place and Time Are Extrinsic #

• Place (where) and time (when) are not intrinsic to substance itself but measure it externally
• Simply saying “I am in this room” does not specify whether one is standing, sitting, or lying down
• Position requires external reference points; sitting requires a chair; standing requires bodily arrangement relative to something external

The Imagination Problem #

• Humans naturally imagine everything must be “somewhere” because we live in place
• The Greeks before Aristotle believed: “Whatever is must be somewhere; if not somewhere, it doesn’t exist”
• This imagination makes it difficult to understand immaterial realities (the soul) and transcendent being (God)
• When the soul leaves the body, it does not go “somewhere”; it transcends spatial categories entirely
• Similarly, the universe cannot be “in” a larger space, or it would not be the whole universe
• Transcending imagination is necessary for proper understanding of immaterial things

Acting Upon and Undergoing Relate to Quality #

• Acting upon involves causality from something external: “If I heat something, that’s acting upon it”
• Undergoing is the reception of change in the affected thing
• The stove is hot (an intrinsic quality in the third species of quality); heating something requires bringing it to the stove
• Becoming hot (internal acquisition of a quality) differs from being warmed (external causation)
• Both involve quality but from different perspectives: one looks at internal change, one looks at external causality

The Structure of Division in the Categories #

• Genera are divided by opposites (e.g., discrete and continuous within quantity; material and immaterial within substance)
• Things divided together are on the same level: discrete and continuous are ἀμα (together)
• The order of predication: substance comes before body, body before living body, living body before animal, animal before man
• All these higher terms are said of the individual man, illustrating the predicamental order

Important Definitions #

Place (Pou) #

• An extrinsic measure of substance, specifically the inner boundary of a container
• Differs from mere location; requires external reference

Position (Keisthai) #

• The order of parts in place
• Requires external reference point (e.g., standing requires relationship to the ground or space)
• Distinct from mere arrangement of parts without external reference

Time (Pote) #

• Defined as ἀριθμὸν τοῦ πρὸ καὶ ὕστερον ἐν κινήσει (the number of before and after in motion)
• An extrinsic measure analogous to place
• Differs from “becoming” because it involves the numbering soul’s ordering of motion

Eternity (Aeternitas) #

• Definition: τοτίσσιμος, τελεία, ποσέσσιον, ἰντερμιναβιλις (complete and perfect possession of unending life)
• Negates what time has: no before and after, no beginning or end
• God’s knowledge is measured by eternity, not time; thus past, present, and future are all present to God simultaneously

Post-Predicamental Things (Post-Predigamenta) #

• Things found in more than one category but not composing a single genus
• Include: opposites, order (ἀμα—togetherness in division), motion, and having
• Require special treatment because they cannot be placed in a single category

Examples & Illustrations #

Position Requires External Reference #

• To sit is not merely to crouch; it requires a chair (external object)
• The Romans reclined when eating; this would be uncomfortable for modern people
• Professors lean on lecterns, exemplifying a particular position relative to external objects
• Whether one stands, sits, or lies down cannot be determined merely by being “in a room”

The Universe and Imagination #

• If the universe were “in” some larger place, then that place would be the universe
• The difficulty: we cannot imagine something not being somewhere because we live in place
• Yet Aristotle concluded the universe is finite with nothing outside it
• This requires transcending spatial imagination

Heating vs. Becoming Hot #

• The stove (when on) is hot—this is a quality present in the stove
• To heat something, you must bring something to the stove—this is acting upon something external
• When something becomes hot, it acquires this quality internally—this is undergoing or being heated
• The difference: one focuses on external causation, the other on internal change

Division by Opposites #

• Quantity divides into discrete and continuous (opposite arrangements)
• Substance divides into material and immaterial (opposites)
• Living body divides into plant and animal (opposites)
• These divisions use opposites, and the post-predicamental concept of opposites is essential to understanding them

Questions Addressed #

How can we understand that the soul is not “in place” when it leaves the body? #

• We must recognize that place is an extrinsic measure, not essential to being
• The soul does not go “somewhere”; it transcends the category of place entirely
• We tend to use spatial language (“where does the soul go?”) because we cannot transcend our imagination of place
• Yet the soul’s existence does not depend on occupying a place

Why is God’s knowledge not in time, and how does eternity solve the problem of future contingents? #

• God’s knowledge is measured by eternity, not by time
• Eternity possesses all at once what time divides into before and after
• Thus past, present, and future are all present to God simultaneously in his knowledge
• This means God knows future contingents without destroying contingency, because his knowledge is not temporal

Why do the last six categories require special treatment? #

• They have less intrinsic connection to being than the first four
• They often depend on external circumstances (where one is, when something happens)
• Yet they are essential to understanding how substances actually exist in the world

How do opposites function universally in knowledge and reasoning? #

• The mind always distinguishes things by opposites
• Order (before and after) is essential to reason; Shakespeare’s “reason looks before and after” shows this
• Ethics distinguishes virtue and vice; medicine distinguishes health and sickness
• Logic deals with both demonstration and fallacious reasoning
• Understanding the kinds of opposites (contradictories, contraries, privation and possession, relative opposites) is thus universally important

Why do modern philosophers (including Marxists) fail to understand opposites? #

• Dialectical materialism depends on the clash of opposites as its central mechanism
• Yet Marx never distinguishes the kinds of opposites (contradiction vs. contrariety, etc.)
• Modern philosophers similarly fail to recognize when words are equivocal by reason
• The confusion between contradictories (rich/poor are not contradictories; one can be neither) and contraries represents a loss of Aristotelian precision

Notable Quotes #

“Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what’s not stirring.” — Aristotle (on why motion is important to study despite being post-predicamental)

“The mind is best at the age of 49.” — Aristotle (cited by Berquist regarding intellectual development, noting Mozart’s brief life)

“Reason looks before and after.” — Shakespeare, Hamlet (illustrating how reason requires distinguishing things by temporal order)

“Whatever is must be somewhere; if it isn’t somewhere, it doesn’t exist.” — Greek philosophers before Aristotle (representing the imagination problem)