Note 143 — Chapter III · CATEGORIÆ.

Categ. p. 11, b. 24.

Ammonius and Simplikius inform us that there was much debate among the commentators about these four alleged varieties of ἀντικείμενα; also, that even Aristotle himself had composed a special treatise (not now extant), Περὶ τῶν Ἀντικειμένων, full of perplexing ἀπορίαι, which the Stoics afterwards discussed without solving (Schol. p. 83, a. 15-48). Herminus and others seem to have felt the difficulty of calling all Relatives ἀντικείμενα; for they admitted that the antithesis between the Relative and its Correlate was of gentler character, not conflicting, but reciprocally sustaining. Alexander ingeniously compared Relatum and its Correlatum to the opposite rafters of a roof, each supporting the other (μαλακώτερα καὶ ἧττον μαχόμενα ἐν τοῖς ἀντικειμένοις, ὡς καὶ ἀμφιβάλεσθαι εἰ εἰσὶν ἀντικείμενα σώζοντα ἄλληλα· ἀλλὰ τοῦτο μὲν δείκνυσιν Ἀλέξανδρος ὅτι ἀντικείμενα, ὃς καὶ τὰ λαβδοειδῆ ξύλα παραδεῖγμα λαμβάνει, &c., Schol. p. 81, b. 32; p. 82, a. 15, b. 20). This is an undue enlargement of the meaning of Opposita, by taking in the literal material sense as an adjunct to the logical. On the contrary, the Stoics are alleged to have worked out the views of Aristotle about ἐναντία, but to have restricted the meaning of ἀντικείμενα to contradictory opposition, i. e. to Affirmative and Negative Propositions with the same subject and predicate (Schol. p. 83, b. 11; p. 87, a. 29). In Metaphysica, A. 983, a. 31, Aristotle calls the final cause (τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα καὶ τἀγαθόν) τὴν ἀντικειμένην αἰτίαν to the cause (among his four), τὸ ὅθεν ἡ κίνησις. This is a misleading phrase; the two are not opposed, but mutually implicated and correlative.