1

Metafísica

Causas

Princípios

Ser
2

[1003a] There is a science which studies Being qua Being, and the properties inherent in it in virtue of its
own nature. This science is not the same as any of the so-called particular sciences, for none of the others
contemplates Being generally qua Being; they divide off some portion of it and study the attribute of this
portion, as do for example the mathematical sciences. But since it is for the first principles and the most
ultimate causes that we are searching, clearly they must belong to something in virtue of its own nature.
Hence if these principles were investigated by those also who investigated the elements of existing things,
the elements must be elements of Being not incidentally, but qua Being. Therefore it is of Being qua
Being that we too must grasp the first causes.

1. Existe uma epistemê que estuda os seres enquanto ser e suas propriedades inerentes que decorrem do fato de
serem. Essa epistemê não é a mesma que alguma ciência particular, porque nenhuma delas estuda os seres
enquanto ser, mas dividem os seres de acordo com sua natureza e estudam os atributos dessa natureza; a epistemê
de que falamos estuda os atributos inerentes.

2. Essa epistemê não estuda "o" ser, mas as propriedades inerentes aos seres enquanto tal. Isso parece ter criado
muita confusão ao longo da história (e.g. assumir que Aristóteles reduz o estudo do ser enquanto ser à teologia, o
que está baseado numa leitura equivocada de 1026a:

"When he contends that the first philosophy is to study what is changeless and separate (as I would prefer to
render chôriston), Aristotle does not thereby imply that this science studies only that being, or even that it takes it
as its individuating object—as opposed to contending merely that the immovable substance is simply one
particular object in its domain. Indeed, so far, at least, there is no reason to suppose that Aristotle thinks that
being qua being must study this object insofar as it is any particular sort of being. That is, Aristotle gives in this
passage no reason to conclude that being qua being studies the separate and unmovable substance insofar as it is
a substance, or insofar as it is separate, or insofar as it is anything whatsoever other than a being. As a being, of
course, the divine substance is an object of first philosophy along with every other being, insofar as it is a being
and in no other way. Consequently, there is no reason to conclude that first philosophy studies this being
exclusively."
3

Aristotle’s description ‘the study of being qua being’ is frequently and easily misunderstood, for it seems to
suggest that there is a single (albeit special) subject matter—being qua being—that is under investigation. But
Aristotle’s description does not involve two things—(1) a study and (2) a subject matter (being qua being)—for he
did not think that there is any such subject matter as ‘being qua being’. Rather, his description involves three
things: (1) a study, (2) a subject matter (being), and (3) a manner in which the subject matter is studied (qua
being).

Aristotle’s Greek word that has been Latinized as ‘qua’ means roughly ‘in so far as’ or ‘under the aspect’. A study
of x qua y, then, is a study of x that concerns itself solely with the y aspect of x. So Aristotle’s study does not
concern some recondite subject matter known as ‘being qua being’. Rather it is a study of being, or better, of
beings—of things that can be said to be—that studies them in a particular way: as beings, in so far as they
are beings.

Every science studies that which is but not in the same way, and none of the special
sciences will study that which is in the same way as the general science of being. Still the
cases are importantly parallel. For example, Aristotle can say that physics studies that
which is qua having an internal principle of motion and rest. Here the occurrence of “that
which is” before the qua operator can be replaced by a variable and what follows the qua
specifi es the property that will be studied by the science (which property, implicitly,
restricts the range of values for the variable). So, switching to a more transparent idiom,
we can say that physics studies x insofar as x has an internal principle of motion and rest.
Similarly, biology studies x insofar as x has the capacity for living, and geometry studies
x insofar as x is the limit of a solid. The second sentence of the Declaration Statement
suggests that special sciences may investigate universally, but what they investigate
universally is only a part of that which is. So the special sciences satisfy universally quantifi ed formulae –
physics studies any x insofar as x has an internal principle of rest and
motion, biology studies any x insofar as x has the capacity for living, and so on.

The general science of being does not, then, differ formally from the special sciences,
at least as so far characterized. It also studies that which is, and, like them, it does so
under a specifi cation that fi xes its domain. But the specifi cation in question is rather
different. The expression translated above as “that which is qua that which is” is typically rendered as “being qua
being.” This tends to obscure the expression’s function,
something better captured by the more transparent idiom, “that which is insofar as it
is.” Thus, the general science of being studies things simply insofar as they are, that is,
it studies any x insofar as x is. This idiom also shows what is misleading about the
expression “being qua being” – it is too easily taken to function as a semantic unit that
picks out an object, being-qua-being. But this mistakenly takes “qua being” to modify the
noun “being”; rather the phrase has adverbial force and goes with “study,” indicating
how the given science will investigate things. There is no fancy object to serve as the
referent of the expression “being qua being.” On the contrary, for the most part, there
are only the ordinary objects studied in the various sciences. In the general science of
being, however, these ordinary objects will be studied in a quite extraordinary way. In
particular, to study them insofar as they are entails that the general science of being will
study everything that is.

The fact that Γ characterizes the general science of being in terms that apply to the special sciences suggests that
Aristotle conceives of this science on the model of the demonstrative sciences outlined in the Posterior Analytics.
This impression gains force from the fact that particular sciences demonstrate of a subject those attributes that
hold of the subject in its own right. This is just what Provision (B) of the Declaration Statement says about the
science of being. Just as geometry investigates what holds in its own right of things insofar as they are the limits
of solids, so the general science of being will investigate what holds in its own right of things insofar as they
are. So it will investigate notions that apply to everything, notions such as being, difference and similarity.
Most especially, as we shall see shortly, it also will study axioms – the paradigms of principles
that hold of everything. Before pursuing this further, however, we must address a
worry that threatens the very possibility of a general science of being.
4

3. Mas o que é estudar o ser enquanto ser?

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They [the per se features] are not essential in the sense of being the intrinsic, explanatorily basic
features of some internally complex sort of entity like a human being. Nor are they the sorts of
features which hold universally but in a contingent manner, of the sort Aristotle identifies in the
Topics, when he rightly observes that some features may simply happen to hold of all instances of a
kind without their needing to do so (Top. 102a18–28). The per se features of beings are more than
universal, belonging necessarily but not essentially.

What might these features be? In executing his science of being qua being, Aristotle focuses on
three sets of per se features above all others:

• Beings are as beings logically circumscribed.

One of the first orders of business for Aristotle’s epistêmê of being qua being is initially somewhat
perplexing: he sets out to offer an indirect defense of the principle of non-contradiction. He
contends in both Metaphysics IV 1 and 2 that the science of being qua being appropriately concerns
itself with substance, but he does not investigate substance immediately.

This is because, as he contends, any science which considers substance will clearly need to
address itself to general axioms such as the principle of non-contradiction (Met. 1005a19-b12).
He then offers an elenchtic defense of this principle, that is, a defense which does not undertake to
prove the principle of non-contradiction directly, but instead purports to show that anyone engaged
in even the most rudimentary activity presupposed by science— signifying individual things—
implicitly commits himself to that principle (Met. 1005b35–1007a20). The precise character of
Aristotle’s elenchtic defense of the principle of noncontradiction does not concern us at present; still
less does its ultimate defensibility. Rather, in the present context, we need only appreciate why this
discussion should occur where it does in Aristotle’s program of scientific inquiry into being. It is not
that according to Aristotle such a defense must be mounted as an indispensible preliminary to
rational inquiry, although he does believe that is so. It is, rather, that a defense of the principle of
non-contradiction constitutes the first activity of the science of being qua being. It belongs to
all beings insofar as they are beings, he contends, to be subject to the principle of non-
contradiction. The attribute being subject to the principle of non-contradiction belongs per se
to all beings insofar as they are beings, and not insofar as they are this or that kind of being. It
holds of human substances, of quantities of matter, of locations, and indeed all entities belonging in
any arbitrarily chosen category of being. All beings, as beings, are per se logically circumscribed.
6

Aristot. Met. 4.1005b

We must pronounce whether it pertains to the same science [20] to study both the so-called
axioms in mathematics and substance, or to different sciences. It is obvious that the
investigation of these axioms too pertains to one science, namely the science of the
philosopher; for they apply to all existing things, and not to a particular class separate and
distinct from the rest. Moreover all thinkers employ them—because they are axioms of
Being qua Being, and every genus possesses Being—but employ them only in so far as
their purposes require; i.e., so far as the genus extends about which they are carrying out
their proofs. Hence since these axioms apply to all things qua Being (for this is what is
common to them), it is the function of him who studies Being qua Being to investigate
them as well. For this reason no one who is pursuing a particular inquiry—neither a
geometrician nor an arithmetician—attempts to state whether they are true or false; but some
of the physicists did so, quite naturally; for they alone professed to investigate nature as a
whole, and Being.But inasmuch as there is a more ultimate type of thinker than the natural
philosopher (for nature is only a genus of Being), the investigation of these axioms too will
belong to the universal thinker who studies the primary reality.

[1005b] [1] Natural philosophy is a kind of Wisdom, but not the primary kind. As for the
attempts of some of those who discuss how the truth should be received, they are due to lack
of training in logic; for they should understand these things before they approach their task,
and not investigate while they are still learning. Clearly then it is the function of the
philosopher, i.e. the student of the whole of reality in its essential nature, to investigate also
the principles of syllogistic reasoning. And it is proper for him who best understands each
class of subject to be able to state the most certain principles of that subject; so that he who
understands the modes of Being qua Being should be able to state the most certain principles
of all things. Now this person is the philosopher, and the most certain principle of all is that
about which one cannot be mistaken; for such a principle must be both the most familiar (for
it is about the unfamiliar that errors are always made), and not based on hypothesis.For the
principle which the student of any form of Being must grasp is no hypothesis; and that
which a man must know if he knows anything he must bring with him to his task.
Clearly, then, it is a principle of this kind that is the most certain of all principles. Let us next
state what this principle is."It is impossible for the same attribute at once to belong and
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not to belong [20] to the same thing and in the same relation"; and we must add any
further qualifications that may be necessary to meet logical objections. This is the most
certain of all principles, since it possesses the required definition;for it is impossible for
anyone to suppose that the same thing is and is not, as some imagine that Heraclitus says1—
for what a man says does not necessarily represent what he believes.And if it is impossible
for contrary attributes to belong at the same time to the same subject (the usual
qualifications must be added to this premiss also), and an opinion which contradicts another
is contrary to it, then clearly it is impossible for the same man to suppose at the same
time that the same thing is and is not; for the man who made this error would entertain
two contrary opinions at the same time.Hence all men who are demonstrating anything refer
back to this as an ultimate belief; for it is by nature the starting-point of all the other axioms
as well.

Before embarking on this study of substance, however, Aristotle goes on in Book Γ to argue that
first philosophy, the most general of the sciences, must also address the most fundamental principles
—the common axioms—that are used in all reasoning. Thus, first philosophy must also concern
itself with the principle of non-contradiction (PNC): the principle that “the same attribute cannot
at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect” (1005b19).
This, Aristotle says, is the most certain of all principles, and it is not just a hypothesis. It cannot,
however, be proved, since it is employed, implicitly, in all proofs, no matter what the subject matter.
It is a first principle, and hence is not derived from anything more basic.

What, then, can the science of first philosophy say about the PNC? It cannot offer a proof of the
PNC, since the PNC is presupposed by any proof one might offer—any purported proof of the
PNC would therefore be circular. Aristotle thus does not attempt to prove the PNC; in the
subsequent chapters of Γ he argues, instead, that it is impossible to disbelieve the PNC. Those who
would claim to deny the PNC cannot, if they have any beliefs at all, believe that it is false. For one
who has a belief must, if he is to express this belief to himself or to others, say something—he must
make an assertion. He must, as Aristotle says, signify something. But the very act of signifying
something is possible only if the PNC is accepted. Without accepting the PNC, one would have no
reason to think that his words have any signification at all—they could not mean one thing rather
than another. So anyone who makes any assertion has already committed himself to the PNC.
Aristotle thus does not argue that the PNC is a necessary truth (that is, he does not try to prove the
PNC); rather, he argues that the PNC is indubitable. (For more on the PNC, see the discussion in the
entry on Aristotle’s logic)

• Beings are as beings categorially delineated.

If the principle of non-contradiction applies to any arbitrarily selected being belonging to any
category whatsoever, then this is not because it is arbitrary that every being in fact belongs to some
category or other; on the contrary, according to Aristotle, every being belongs to precisely the
category it does given the kind of being it is. It is not arbitrary, but rather necessary, then,
that every being belong to some category or other; consequently, this feature too belongs to all
beings just insofar as they are beings, that every being be categorially delineated.

To understand the problems and project of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, it is best to begin with one of his
earlier works, the Categories. Although placed by long tradition among his logical works (see the
discussion in the entry on Aristotle’s logic), due to its analysis of the terms that make up the
propositions out of which deductive inferences are constructed, the Categories begins with a
strikingly general and exhaustive account of the things there are (ta onta)—beings. According to
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this account, beings can be divided into ten distinct categories. (Although Aristotle never says
so, it is tempting to suppose that these categories are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive of
the things there are.) They include substance, quality, quantity, and relation, among others. Of these
categories of beings, it is the first, substance (ousia), to which Aristotle gives a privileged position.
9

After providing his first system of classification, Aristotle turns to the predicamenta and presents a
second, which ends up occupying him for much of the remainder of the Categories. Aristotle
divides what he calls ta legomena (τἃ λεγόμενα), i.e. things that are said, into ten distinct kinds
(1b25). Things that are said according to Aristotle, are words (De Int 16a3), and so it is natural to
interpret his second system as a classification of words. And because the English word ‘category’
comes from the Greek word for predicate, one might naturally think of the second system as a
classification of distinct types of linguistic predicates. There is, however, considerable debate about
the subject matter of the second system of classification.

There are three reasons to think that Aristotle is not primarily interested in words but rather in the
objects in the world to which words correspond. First, his locution ta legomena is in fact
ambiguous, as between ‘things said’—where these might or might not be words—and ‘things
spoken of’—where these are more naturally taken to be things referred to by means of words.
Second, Aristotle's examples of items belonging to the various categories are generally extra-
linguistic. For instance, his examples of substances are an individual man and a horse. Third,
Aristotle explicitly accepts a doctrine of meaning according to which words conventionally signify
concepts, and concepts naturally signify objects in the world (De Int 16a3). So, even if he is in some
sense classifying words, it is natural to view his classification as ultimately driven by concerns
about objects in the world to which our words correspond.

Those scholars dissatisfied with the linguistic interpretation of Aristotle's second system of
classification have moved in one of several directions. Some have interpreted Aristotle as
classifying concepts. The objections raised against the linguistic interpretation, however, can again
be raised against the concept interpretation as well. Other scholars have interpreted Aristotle as
classifying extra-linguistic and extra-conceptual reality. Finally, some scholars have synthesized the
linguistic and extra-linguistic interpretations by interpreting Aristotle as classifying linguistic
predicates in so far as they are related to the world in semantically significant ways. Although I
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think that this latter interpretation is probably the one that best withstands close textual scrutiny, the
general character of the second system of classification is most easily seen by focusing on the extra-
linguistic interpretation. So, in what follows, I shall simplify matters by talking as if Aristotle's first
classificatory system is really a classification of extra-linguistic items; and I shall note places at
which such an interpretation faces difficulties.

What then is Aristotle's second classificatory system? Quite simply, it is a list of highest kinds,
which are also known as categories. That there are highest kinds (or perhaps that there is one
single highest kind) can be motivated by noticing the fact that the ordinary objects of our experience
fall into classes of increasing generality. Consider, for instance, a maple tree. It is in the first
instance a maple and so belongs in a class with all and only other maples. It is also, however, a tree
and so belongs in a broader class, namely the class of trees, whose extension is wider than the class
of maples. Continuing on, it is also a living thing and so belongs in a class whose extension is wider
still than the class of trees. And so on. Now, once this basic pattern is before us, we can ask the
following question: does this increase in generality go on ad infinitum or does it end at a class that
is the most general possible? Does it end, in other words, at a highest kind?

It might seem that the answer to this question is obvious: of course there is a highest kind — being.
After all, someone might argue, everything exists. So the class that contains all and only beings
must be the class with the greatest possible extension. In the Metaphysics, however, Aristotle
argues that being is not a genus (998b23, 1059b31). According to Aristotle, every genus must
be differentiated by some differentia that falls outside that genus. Hence, if being were a
genus, it would have to be differentiated by a differentia that fell outside of it. In other words,
being would have to be differentiated by some non-being, which, according to Aristotle, is a
metaphysical absurdity. Although he does not explicitly make this claim, Aristotle's argument, if
cogent, would generalize to any proposal for a single highest kind. Hence, he does not think that
there is one single highest kind. Instead, he thinks that there are ten:

(1) substance;
(2) quantity;
(3) quality;
(4) relatives;
(5) somewhere;
(6) sometime;
(7) being in a position;
(8) having;
(9) acting; and
(10) being acted upon (1b25–2a4).

I shall discuss the first four of these kinds in detail in a moment. But doing so will take us into
matters that, while interesting, nonetheless distract from the general nature of the scheme. So I will
first discuss some of the general structures inherent in Aristotle's second system of classification,
and then proceed to a more detailed discussion.

In addition to positing ten highest kinds, Aristotle also has views about the structure of such kinds.
Each kind is differentiated into species by some set of differentiae. In fact, the essence of any
species, according to Aristotle, consists in its genus and the differentia that together with that
genus defines the species. (It is for this reason that the highest kinds are, strictly speaking,
indefinable — because there is no genus above a highest kind, one cannot define it in terms of its
genus and a differentia.) Some of the species in various categories are also genera — they are, in
other words differentiated into further species. But at some point, there is a lowest species that is
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not further differentiated. Under these species, we can suppose, fall the particulars that belong to
that species.

Now, if we accept the characterization of said-of and present-in that I have given, we can see that
Aristotle's two classificatory systems can, so to speak, be laid on top of each other. The resulting
structure would look something like the following.

Some features of this system are worth pointing out. First, as I have already noted, Aristotle gives
pride of place in this scheme to primary substances. He says that were primary substances not to
exist then no other entity would exist (2b6). As a result, Aristotle's categorialism is firmly anti-
Platonic. Whereas Plato treated the abstract as more real than material particulars, in the Categories
Aristotle takes material particulars as ontological bedrock — to the extent that being a primary
substance makes something more real than anything else, entities such as Socrates and a horse are
the most real entities in Aristotle's worldview. Moreover, among secondary substances, those at a
lower level of generality are what Aristotle calls ‘prior in substance’ than those at a higher level
(2b7). So, for instance, human is prior in substance than body. Whether this is to be interpreted in
terms of the greater reality of the kind human is an open question. Nonetheless, Aristotle's equating
an increase in generality with a decrease in substantiality is at least in spirit strongly anti-Platonic.

There is one other interesting general feature of this scheme that is worth pointing out before
looking at its details. Aristotle's rejection of the view that being is a genus and his subsequent
acceptance of ten distinct highest kinds leads to a doctrine concerning being itself that is at the
center of Aristotle's Metaphysics. (It should be noted, however, that there is genuine disagreement
over the extent to which Aristotle accepted the doctrine of being that appears in the Metaphysics
when he wrote the Categories.) According to Aristotle, some words do not express a genus but
instead are what he calls pros hen homonyms — that is, homonyms related to one thing (pros hen),
variously called cases of ‘focal meaning’ or ‘focal connection’ or ‘core-dependent homonymy’ in
the literature on this topic (1003a35 ff.). Such words are applicable to various items in the world in
virtue of the fact that those items all bear some type of relation to some one thing or type of thing.
An example of such a homonym, according to Aristotle, is ‘healthy’. A regimen, he says, is healthy
because it is productive of health; urine is healthy because it is indicative of health; and Socrates is
healthy because he has health. In this case, a regimen, urine and Socrates are all called ‘healthy’ not
because they stand under some one genus, namely healthy things, but instead because they all bear
some relation to health. Similarly, according to Aristotle, things in the world are not beings
because they stand under some genus, being, but rather because they all stand in a relation to
the primary being, which in the Categories he says is substance. This explains in part why he
says in the Metaphysics that in order to study being one must study substance (1004a32,
1028a10–1028b8).

Substances are unique in being independent things; the items in the other categories all
depend somehow on substances. That is, qualities are the qualities of substances; quantities are the
amounts and sizes that substances come in; relations are the way substances stand to one another.
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These various non-substances all owe their existence to substances—each of them, as Aristotle puts
it, exists only ‘in’ a subject. That is, each non-substance “is in something, not as a part, and cannot
exist separately from what it is in” (Cat. 1a25). Indeed, it becomes clear that substances are the
subjects that these ontologically dependent non-substances are ‘in’.

Each member of a non-substance category thus stands in this inherence relation (as it is frequently
called) to some substance or other—color is always found in bodies, knowledge in the soul. Neither
whiteness nor a piece of grammatical knowledge, for example, is capable of existing on its own.
Each requires for its existence that there be some substance in which it inheres.

In addition to this fundamental inherence relation across categories, Aristotle also points out another
fundamental relation that obtains between items within a single category. He describes this as the
relation of “being said of a subject,” and his examples make clear that it is the relation of a more
general to a less general thing within a single category. Thus, man is ‘said of’ a particular man, and
animal is ‘said of’ man, and therefore, as Aristotle points out, animal is ‘said of’ the particular man
also. The ‘said of’ relation, that is to say, is transitive (cf. 1b10). So the genus (e.g., animal) is
‘said of’ the species (e.g., man) and both genus and species are ‘said of’ the particular. The
same holds in non-substance categories. In the category of quality, for example, the genus (color) is
‘said of’ the species (white) and both genus and species are ‘said of’ the particular white. There has
been considerable scholarly dispute about these particulars in nonsubstance categories.

The language of this contrast (‘in’ a subject vs. ‘said of’ a subject) is peculiar to the Categories, but
the idea seems to recur in other works as the distinction between accidental vs. essential
predication. Similarly, in works other than the Categories, Aristotle uses the label ‘universals’ (ta
katholou) for the things that are “said of many;” things that are not universal he calls ‘particulars’
(ta kath’ hekasta). Although he does not use these labels in the Categories, it is not misleading to say
that the doctrine of the Categories is that each category contains a hierarchy of universals and
particulars, with each universal being ‘said of’ the lower-level universals and particulars that fall
beneath it. Each category thus has the structure of an upside-down tree.[2] At the top (or trunk) of
the tree are the most generic items in that category[3] (e.g., in the case of the category of substance,
the genus plant and the genus animal); branching below them are universals at the next highest
level, and branching below these are found lower levels of universals, and so on, down to the lowest
level universals (e.g., such infimae species as man and horse); at the lowest level—the leaves of the
tree—are found the individual substances, e.g., this man, that horse, etc.

The individuals in the category of substance play a special role in this scheme. Aristotle calls them
“primary substances” (prôtai ousiai) for without them, as he says, nothing else would exist. Indeed,
Aristotle offers an argument (2a35–2b7) to establish the primary substances as the fundamental
entities in this ontology. Everything that is not a primary substance, he points out, stands in one of
the two relations (inhering ‘in’, or being ‘said of’) to primary substances. A genus, such as animal,
is ‘said of’ the species below it and, since they are ‘said of’ primary substances, so is the genus
(recall the transitivity of the ‘said of’ relation). Thus, everything in the category of substance that is
not itself a primary substance is, ultimately, ‘said of’ primary substances. And if there were no
primary substances, there would be no “secondary” substances (species and genera), either. For
these secondary substances are just the ways in which the primary substances are fundamentally
classified within the category of substance. As for the members of non-substance categories, they
too depend for their existence on primary substances. A universal in a non-substance category, e.g.,
color, in the category of quality, is ‘in’ body, Aristotle tells us, and therefore in individual bodies.
For color could not be ‘in’ body, in general, unless it were ‘in’ at least some particular bodies.
Similarly, particulars in non-substance categories (although there is not general agreement among
scholars about what such particulars might be) cannot exist on their own. E.g., a determinate shade
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of color, or a particular and non-shareable bit of that shade, is not capable of existing on its own—if
it were not ‘in’ at least some primary substance, it would not exist. So primary substances are the
basic entities—the basic “things that there are”—in the world of the Categories.

The Categories leads us to expect that the study of being in general (being qua being) will crucially
involve the study of substance, and when we turn to the Metaphysics we are not disappointed. First,
in Metaphysics Γ Aristotle argues in a new way for the ontological priority of substance; and then,
in Books Ζ, Η, and Θ, he wrestles with the problem of what it is to be a substance. We will begin
with Γ’s account of the central place of substance in the study of being qua being.

As we noted above, metaphysics (or, first philosophy) is the science which studies being qua being.
In this respect it is unlike the specialized or departmental sciences, which study only part of being
(only some of the things that exist) or study beings only in a specialized way (e.g., only in so far as
they are changeable, rather than in so far as they are beings).

But ‘being’, as Aristotle tells us in Γ.2, is “said in many ways”. That is, the verb ‘to be’ (einai) has
different senses, as do its cognates ‘being’ (on) and ‘entities’ (onta). So the universal science of
being qua being appears to founder on an equivocation: how can there be a single science of
being when the very term ‘being’ is ambiguous?

Consider an analogy. There are dining tables, and there are tide tables. A dining table is a table in
the sense of a smooth flat slab fixed on legs; a tide table is a table in the sense of a systematic
arrangement of data in rows and columns. But there is not a single sense of ‘table’ which applies to
both the piece of furniture at which I am writing these words and to the small booklet that lies upon
it. Hence it would be foolish to expect that there is a single science of tables, in general, that would
include among its objects both dining tables and tide tables. Tables, that is to say, do not constitute a
single kind with a single definition, so no single science, or field of knowledge, can encompass
precisely those things that are correctly called ‘tables’.

If the term ‘being’ were ambiguous in the way that ‘table’ is, Aristotle’s science of being qua being
would be as impossible as a science of tables qua tables. But, Aristotle argues in Γ.2, ‘being’ is not
ambiguous in this way. ‘Being’, he tells us, is ‘said in many ways’ but it is not merely (what he
calls) ‘homonymous’, i.e., sheerly ambiguous. Rather, the various senses of ‘being’ have what
he calls a ‘pros hen’ ambiguity—they are all related to a single central sense. (The Greek
phrase ‘pros hen’ means “in relation to one.”)

Aristotle explains his point by means of some examples that he takes to be analogous to ‘being’.
Consider the terms ‘healthy’ and ‘medical’. Neither of these has a single definition that applies
uniformly to all cases: not every healthy (or medical) thing is healthy (medical) in the same sense of
‘healthy’ (‘medical’). There is a range of things that can be called ‘healthy’: people, diets, exercise,
complexions, etc. Not all of these are healthy in the same sense. Exercise is healthy in the sense of
being productive of health; a clear complexion is healthy in the sense of being symptomatic of
health; a person is healthy in the sense of having good health.

But notice that these various senses have something in common: a reference to one central thing,
health, which is actually possessed by only some of the things that are spoken of as ‘healthy’,
namely, healthy organisms, and these are said to be healthy in the primary sense of the term. Other
things are considered healthy only in so far as they are appropriately related to things that are
healthy in this primary sense.
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The situation is the same, Aristotle claims, with the term ‘being’. It, too, has a primary sense as
well as related senses in which it applies to other things because they are appropriately related
to things that are called ‘beings’ in the primary sense. The beings in the primary sense are
substances; the beings in other senses are the qualities, quantities, etc., that belong to
substances. An animal, e.g., a horse, is a being, and so is a color, e.g, white, a being. But a horse is
a being in the primary sense—it is a substance—whereas the color white (a quality) is a being only
because it qualifies some substance. An account of the being of anything that is, therefore, will
ultimately have to make some reference to substance. Hence, the science of being qua being will
involve an account of the central case of beings—substances.
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• Beings are as beings modally enmeshed.

They must be in this way modally enmeshed: Since being (to on) is said in one way with reference to what
something is, or some quality or quantity, and in another way with respect to potentiality and actuality
(entelecheia) and with respect to function, let us make determinations about potentiality and actuality—first
about potentiality most properly so called, even though this is not the most useful for what we want now
(Met. 1045b32–1046a1).

This passage, which introduces the subject matter of Metaphysics IX, yokes together two fundamental per se
attributes of being, that all beings, as beings, answer first to the theory of categories and then also to the
paired features of potentiality (being in dunamei) and actuality (being in entelecheia(i)).23 His point
here, as well as in the case of the principle of non-contradiction, is that it falls to the metaphysician to
investigate these modalities not as propaideutic to the epistêmê of being qua being, but rather as constituting
the very activity of this science. This is because every being, because it is a being and not because it is a
being belonging to this or that category or because within a given category it belongs to this or that
species or genus, but simply because it is a being, is something actual or potential. Being modally
enmeshed belongs per se to every being, just as a being.

We can now appreciate how Ross’s translation, if unduly periphrastic, is basically apt as a rudimentary
interpretation of Aristotle’s intended meaning: ‘There is a science which investigates being as being and the
attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature.’24 The epistêmê which studies being qua being
considers not the essence of being, in the Aristotelian sense of essence, because beings as beings have no
internal logical complexity. Rather this epistêmê explicates the nature of beings as beings, by charting
what pertains of necessity to all beings precisely and only as beings. What it uncovers is this: all beings,
insofar as they are beings, are logically circumscribed, categorially delineated, and modally enmeshed.
Explaining what each of these features is falls to the metaphysician, and this is why Aristotle engages in just
this sort of explanatory activity in the middle books of his Metaphysics. In explicating each feature, it
inescapably emerges that each of these features is itself a being—which is to say that each fits perfectly the
paradigm of the second form of per se predication identified by Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics.

Since we are investigating this kind of knowledge, we must consider what these causes and
principles are whose knowledge is Wisdom. Perhaps it will be clearer if we take the opinions which
we hold about the wise man.
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[1026a] [...] It is obvious, then, from these considerations, that physics is a form of speculative science.
And mathematics is also speculative; but it is not clear at present whether its objects are immutable and
separable from matter; it is clear, however, that some branches of mathematics study their objects qua
immutable and qua separable from matter. Obviously it is the province of a speculative science to
discover whether a thing is eternal and immutable and separable from matter;not, however, of physics
(since physics deals with mutable objects) nor of mathematics, but of a science prior to both. For physics
deals with things which exist separately but are not immutable; and some branches of mathematics deal
with things which are immutable, but presumably not separable, but present in matter; but the primary
science treats of things which are both separable and immutable.Now all causes must be eternal, but these
especially; since they are the causes of what is visible of things divine. Hence there will be three
speculative philosophies: mathematics, physics, and theology— since it is obvious that if the divine is
present anywhere, it is present in this kind of entity; and also the most honorable science must deal with
the most honorable class of subject.

The speculative sciences, then, are to be preferred to the other sciences, and "theology" to the other
speculative sciences. One might indeed raise the question whether the primary philosophy is universal or
deals with some one genus or entity; because even the mathematical sciences differ in this respect—
geometry and astronomy deal with a particular kind of entity, whereas universal mathematics applies to
all kinds alike. Then if there is not some other substance besides those which are naturally composed,
physics will be the primary science; but if there is a substance which is immutable, the science which
studies this will be prior to physics, and will be primary philosophy, and universal in this sense, that it is
primary. And it will be the province of this science to study Being qua Being; what it is, and what the
attributes are which belong to it qua Being.

[1028b] [...] rather than its quality or quantity or position; because we know each of these points too when
we know what the quantity or quality is.Indeed, the question which was raised long ago, is still and
always will be, and which always baffles us—"What is Being?"—is in other words "What is substance?"

‘There is a science (epistêmê),’ says Aristotle, ‘which studies being qua being (to on hê(i) on), and
the attributes belonging to it in its own right’ (Met. 1003a21–22). This claim, which opens
Metaphysics IV 1, is both surprising and unsettling—surprising because Aristotle seems elsewhere
to deny the existence of any such science and unsettling because his denial seems very plausibly
grounded. He claims that each science (epistêmê) studies a unified genus (APo 87a39-b1), but he
denies that there is a single genus for all beings (APo 92b14; Top. 121a16, b7–9; cf. Met. 998b22).
Evidently, his two claims conspire against the science he announces: if there is no genus of being
and every science requires its own genus, then there is no science of being. This seems, moreover,
to be precisely the conclusion drawn by Aristotle in his Eudemian Ethics, where he maintains that
we should no more look for a general science of being than we should look for a general science of
goodness: ‘Just as being is not something single for the things mentioned [viz. items across the
categories], neither is the good; nor is there a single science of being or of the good’ (EE
1217b33–35). How, then, does Aristotle come to speak of a science of being qua being? What is its
defining genus? Or, to put the qquestion more prosaically, just what does the science of being qua
being study?
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Aristotle’s description ‘the study of being qua being’ is frequently and easily misunderstood, for it
seems to suggest that there is a single (albeit special) subject matter—being qua being—that is
under investigation. But Aristotle’s description does not involve two things—(1) a study and (2) a
subject matter (being qua being)—for he did not think that there is any such subject matter as ‘being
qua being’. Rather, his description involves three things: (1) a study, (2) a subject matter (being),
and (3) a manner in which the subject matter is studied (qua being).

Aristotle’s Greek word that has been Latinized as ‘qua’ means roughly ‘in so far as’ or ‘under the
aspect’. A study of x qua y, then, is a study of x that concerns itself solely with the y aspect of x. So
Aristotle’s study does not concern some recondite subject matter known as ‘being qua being’.
Rather it is a study of being, or better, of beings—of things that can be said to be—that studies them
in a particular way: as beings, in so far as they are beings.

3. Em todo lugar, Aristoteles equates o estudo do ser enquanto ser ao estudo das causas e princípios primários. De
certo modo, isso parece um compromisso ontológico anterior até mesmo a ontologia. Na medida em que:

Conhecimento é conhecimento das causas e princípios.

Logo, só existe conhecimento se existem causas e princípios.

O conhecimento do ser enquanto ser é, assim, conhecimento das causas e dos princípios do ser enquanto ser.

[981b] The difference between art and science and the other kindred mental activities has been stated
before; the reason for our present discussion is that it is generally assumed that what is called Wisdom is
concerned with the primary causes and principles, [...]

[982a] Thus it is clear that Wisdom is knowledge of certain principles and causes.

"The metaphysician, on the other hand, studies them in a more general and abstract way—qua beings. So first
philosophy studies the causes and principles of beings qua beings.
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Ceci dit, dans la seconde partie de Gamma 1 , Aristote affirme donc que cette science de l'être en tant qu'être se
confond avec la science des principes et des causes premières, ou, pour le dire en termes modernes, que
l'ontologie s'identifie avec l'étiologie suprême.

La raison de cette identification se trouve dans le principe suivant 36: c'est que les causes propres d'une
essence, qui sont les causes de celle-ci en tant qu'elle est ce qu'elle est, sont toujours antérieures à ses causes
par accident, lesquelles sont les causes de cette même essence en tant qu'elle est autre chose, de plus
spécifique. Par exemple, les causes propres de l'animal, c'est-à-dire les causes de l'animal en tant qu'animal, sont
antérieures à ses causes par accident, qui sont les causes de l'animal en tant que chien ou cheval. Dès lors, il est
clair que, selon ce principe, les causes propres de l'être, qui sont les causes de l'être en tant qu'être, seront
antérieures à ses causes par accident, c'est-à-dire aux causes de l'être en tant que nombres, lignes ou feu.
Autrement dit, les causes de l'être en tant qu'être seront antérieures aux causes de l'être en tant que déterminé ou
spécifié comme telle ou telle sorte d'être. Mais il n'y pas de causes qui soient antérieures aux causes de l'être en
tant qu'être, car celui-ci est, pour ainsi dire, l'essence la plus universelle qui soit 37. Par conséquent, les causes de
l'être en tant qu'être sont bien les causes absolument premières, et la science des causes de l'être en tant qu'être se
confond nécessairement avec la science des causes premières.
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