Note 8 — Chapter III · CATEGORIÆ.

In the instructive commentary of Dexippus on the Categoriæ (contained in a supposed dialogue between Dexippus and his pupil Seleukus, of which all that remains has been recently published by Spengel, Munich, 1859), that commentator defends Aristotle against some critics who wondered why he began with these Ante-predicaments (ὁμώνυμα, συνώνυμα, &c.), instead of proceeding at once to the Predicaments or Categories themselves. Dexippus remarks that without understanding this distinction between equivoca and univoca, the Categories themselves could not be properly appreciated; for Ens — τὸ ὂν — is homonymous in reference to all the Categories, and not a Summum Genus, comprehending the Categories as distinct species under it; while each Category is a Genus in reference to its particulars. Moreover, Dexippus observes that this distinction of homonyms and synonyms was altogether unknown and never self-suggested to the ordinary mind (ὅσων γὰρ ἔννοιαν οὐκ ἔχομεν, τούτων πρόληψιν οὐκ ἔχομεν, p. 20), and therefore required to be brought out first of all at the beginning; whereas the Post-predicaments (to which we shall come later on) were postponed to the end, because they were cases of familiar terms loosely employed. (See Spengel, Dexipp. pp. 19, 20, 21.)