Nor does the manuscript reading seem to be that of Alexander, though it is impossible to say exactly what lies behind his words: gavepdv dpa ote Suvdper dvta Kal évepyyjoas rept ata 6 vods ebpicketar’ adtos yap eorw 6 aitis 6 dywv atta eis evepyeay. voyows 7 evepyera may have arisen from 7 voyous evéepyeia (cf. A. 10726 16), which goes well with what precedes and what follows: ‘the potentially existing constructions are discovered by being actualized; and the explanation is that the geometer’s thinking is an actuality, so that the potentiality pro- ceeds from an actuality, and therefore it is by doing that people come to know’ (or ‘by making constructions that people come to know them’).
Aristotle, then, brings the case under his general rule é« rod duvaet dvros yiyverar TO evepyeia dv bd evepyeia dvros (1049 24); the poten- tial constructions are actualized by the actuality of thought. And as, before, Aristotle drew from the necessity of an actuality for the actualization of a potentiality the inference that actuality is prior to potentiality (1049" 23), so he does here in the words dor’ é evepyeias » Svvapus (unless airiov... évépyea is parenthetical and ectpicxerat, not yiyvera, is to be understood with éé évepyeias 4 Svvayus). atriov dé éore vonows H évepye’a may also be suggested ; this comes nearer to
gT. ALBERT'S COLLEGE LIBRARY
Alexander’s paraphrase. For confusion between éoré and dr due to tachygraphy cf. Bast 810.
32-33. Aristotle has said that potentiality comes from actuality ; he now guards against misinterpretation. ‘But it is only in a sense that actuality is prior to potentiality, for the individual actuality is posterior in generation to the corresponding individual potentiality” Cf. 104919. In his view, the potentiality of the construction presupposes the activity of thought but precedes the actuality of the construction. For a similar elliptical use of ydp cf. Zop. 11927, 122> 39, De An, 407% 23, 409224. The emendation of]. 30 gives point to this clause, which Bz. found unintelligible.
We are now in a position to see the object of the whole passage ll. 21-33. Aristotle’s purpose is to enforce his doctrine of the priority of actuality by two considerations with regard to 7a wabnparicd. (1) It is only by being actualized that they are known. In their case therefore, as in all others (1049 17), actuality is prior to potentiality tH yvdoe. And (2), as in all other cases (1049> 17—1050® 3), though their potentiality precedes their actuality in time, it presupposes another actuality, that of apprehension.
The passage is of great importance because it emphasizes the significance of the intuition of the construction for the understanding of the proof (idovru d7Aor, ll. 26, 28). It thus corrects Aristotle’s ten- dency in the Organon to treat mathematical proof as if it were simply a process of deducing conclusions syllogistically from definitions and trobéces, and anticipates Kant’s doctrine of the synthetic nature of mathematical procedure. But it cannot be said that Aristotle works this out clearly.
The nature of truth (ch. 10). ”
1051* 34. ‘Being’ and ‘ not being’ are used with reference (1) to the categories, (2) to potency and actuality, (3) to truth and falsity. Truth means thinking that to be divided or united which is divided or united, respectively; error means being in a state contrary to the facts.
b5. When is truth present? You are not white because we truly think you are, but v7ce versa.
g. (1) Some things are always united, others always divided, others may be either. Being is being-united ; not being is not-being-united. About things which may be either united or divided the same opinion is at different times false and true; not so with regard to things that must be as they are.
17. (2) In the case of incomposites what is being and truth? For them, being is not being-united, and truth cannot be what it was in the case of composites.
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22, (a) Truth in this case is contact and assertion (as distinct from affirmation). Ignorance can only mean in this case non-contact ; error is not possible (except per acczdens) regarding what a thing is or an incomposite substance. Such substances all exist actually, not potentially ; otherwise they would have come into being and perished, but there is nothing out of which being itself can have come to be.
30. About all things that are essences and actualities, then, we cannot err; either we know them or we do not. But we may inquire what they are, whether they are such-and-such.
33. (2) The Jeng which answers to truth does not in this case mean being united; if the thing exists at all it exists in a certain way, Truth means knowing such objects; no error about them is possible, but only ignorance—not, however, ignorance analogous to blindness, which would be a complete absence of the knowing faculty.
1052* 4, (Return to(r)). Regarding the unchangeable, if we believe it to be unchangeable, we cannot mistakenly suppose that it some- times has a certain attribute and sometimes not; but we may suppose one member of a class to have an attribute and another not. About a single member we cannot make even this mistake ; whether we are right or wrong, it is implied that the facts are eternal.
This chapter, dealing with truth and falsity, has little to do with the rest of book @, which treats of potency and actuality. _Schwegler and Christ therefore treat it as the work of an editor. Bz. and Bullinger point out that in view of the enumeration of the senses of ‘ being’ in A. 7 it is only natural that after discussing the chief category, sub- stance, and the distinction of potency and actuality, Aristotle should go on to discuss truth and falsity ; and that the chapter is specially in place here because ch. 8 has introduced us to the simple and eternal substances which are évépyevau avev Suvdjews, and are now described as the objects with which one kind of truth is concerned (1051 27), Jaeger thinks that the chapter is by Aristotle, but was inserted here simply because there was some room at the end of the roll on which Z-®. 9 was written. Between this view and that of Bz. it is difficult to decide ; that the chapter is the work of Aristotle there is no reason to doubt; E. 1027428 has prepared us to find such a discussion in the Metaphysics.
1051? 34-2. For the classification cf. A. 7, E. 10262 33-? 2.
85. To 8é KaTd Sdvayw 7 evépyerav toUTwy 7} Tdvavtia, i.e, being or not-being may be divided not only according as it is the being (or not- being) of (1) a substance, (2) a quality, (3) a quantity, &c., but also may be further subdivided according as it is the being (or not-being) (z) potentially or (2) actually of a substance, quality, &c.
br, rd Be [kupidrara 3] GdnPes 7} Weddos. Being as truth and not-
being as falsity are elsewhere treated as emphatically not the primary or strictest senses of being and not-being (76 & otrws dv érepov dv Trav kupiws, E. 1027) 31), but as being due merely to rs Siavoias ru 3d bos (ib. 34) and presupposing being in its primary sense, that in which it is subdivided into the categories (7 yap TO té eorw 7 dre rovov } dre Togov 7 TL GAAO ovvdrrer 7 Sraiped ) Sidvo.a, ib. 31). Jaeger suggests that Aristotle may mean merely that the copulative ‘is’ of the judge- ment is the commonest usage of the verb ‘to be’, but it is improbable that kupusrara dv should mean this. The words are probably a gloss, or should go after pevy in 2 34. It will be seen that there is a good deal of divergence among the manuscripts at this point.
If retained, xypustara dv must go with dAyGes 7 Weddos, ‘that which is true or false in the most proper sense of those terms’, in contrast to truth and falsity rept ra dovvOera, which Aristotle treats of later (l. 17—1052°4). But it is highly unnatural to sever xupuitata dv from 70 6éé.
2. todto 8 éml tOv Tpaypdtwy éoTl TA cuyKetoOat 7H SinpHoOat, ‘and this depends, in the things’ (i. e. so far as the objects are concerned), ‘on their being united or divided’. The implied opposition is between 7a. Tpdypara, and 7 dd€a (1. 14).
II-13. To pev...etvat. This passage makes no use of the distinc- tion drawn at the beginning of the sentence between things always united, things always divided, and things capable of being either united or divided. That distinction is first used in what follows, wept péev ody... wevdn (13-17). Bessarion and Christ therefore treat ro wey... elvas as parenthetical, while Bz. (following what may have been Alexander's reading) inserts xa/ before 7d pév. It seems probable, however, that grammatically 76 pev. . . etvar is the apodosis, though logically it only prepares the way for what follows.
17—1052° 4. There is much obscurity in Aristotle’s references to truth and falsity with regard to ra dotvOera, Ta drAG, 7d ddcaiperov. In BE. 4 and De Ax. iii. 6, as well as here, it is contrasted with truth and falsity with regard to composites, which is clearly truth and falsity of propositions. Aristotle seems to reason as follows. What is true in the ordinary sense is a judgement in which two things (a subject and an attribute) are thought to be united which are united in reality, or two things to be separated which are separated in reality. But if we think of two things as united, must we not first think of each thing by itself, and in this thinking is there not a possibility of truth and of error? Aristotle’s strict theory is that there is not (I. 2, E. 1027” 19, Cat, 2°8, De An. 430% 26); that the only alternatives are, to appre- hend them or not to apprehend them. He says in this chapter clearly enough that there can be no falsity with regard to them (I. 25), but he does not say as clearly as he might that there can be no truth either. That which could not possibly be false cannot without tauto- logy, and therefore absurdity, be said to be true, just as ‘true know- ledge’ is an absurd expression because there could not be false knowledge. But instead of saying this he says that truth 2 another
276 Commentary
than the ordinary sense is possible with regard to incomposites (1. 24). The fault, however, is only in the expression; the distinction is probably clear enough in his ‘mind.
In the present passage Aristotle seems for the most part to be reason- ing from the bare notion of an ‘incomposite’ as opposed to a ‘ com- posite’, without asking himself very definitely what he means by an ‘incomposite’. From the very fact that it is simple, it follows that there cannot be truth or falsity about it of the same kind as truth or falsity about composites. His primary meaning seems to be that if you say A is B you must attach a definite meaning to your terms ; you must know about A, and about B, ‘what it is’ (I. 25 f.). The alternative to knowing what it is is not having a false opinion about what it is, but simply not being ‘in touch’ with it at all. But from this general position about the terms of any judgement Aristotle passes to a point which he distinguishes from this (6uotws dé kal xrd., 1.26). The terms of a judgement are, so far as their function in the judgement goes, simple, but they may be in themselves complex terms, and again they need not be substances, and if substances, they need not be simple substances. ‘ White’, ‘incommensurate’, ‘ dia- gonal’ are not substances; ‘wood’ is a substance concrete of form and matter. What has been said of all terms with reference to their place in judgement may be said without qualification of ‘incom- posite substances’, the things which are free from any admixture of potentiality and therefore eternal, which are pure forms (‘just what it is to be something’) (Il. 26-31), i.e. God and the intelligences which move the spheres.
20. Bywater proposed 16 Neukév (76) EUXov , ‘ the proposition that the wood is white’, so as to get a phrase of the same form as 76 dovppetpov tiv dudperpov, and the addition seems to be necessary.
Aristotle points out that there is no Weddos or dary with regard to them but only dyvowa (1. 25).
24. Qyetv. The metaphor of contact in the description of simple apprehension recurs in A. 107221. Its implications are (1) the absence of any possibility of error, which characterizes the apprehen- sion of the tdva aio Oyra. (cf. De An. 430” 29), (2) the apparent (though on Aristotle’s view only apparent, De An. i. 11) absence of a medium in the case of touch. 7d @yeiv means an apprehension which is infallible and direct.