Things to cover today:
Are you ready for your presentations?
Book Epsilon
Think of Aristotle’s four categories of being as being two sides of the subject-predication relationship.
Dante was to describe Aristotle as “The Master of Those Who Know,”
He is concerned not just with “being” that is meaningless because it has been stripped of everything that helps us make sense out of it. So…
- He is willing to consider “truth being” and accidental being, but puts them on the predication side of the equation. He is very concerned that we are able to speak meaningfully about the world – he wrote a whole book on “Categories”
- Substance is “primary” category of being
- Actual/Potential being becomes a kind of handmaiden to substance
It is helpful to think about these categories in terms of essential and non-essential properties
So, first philosophy enquires into the Primary
How many times has he made this point so far? Repeatedly
- Thoroughness, “let’s go back to the beginning”
Page 155 –First Science re: First Cause = Theology
Which leads to the quote on page 156; either first science or first philosophy
Epsilon 2 –
Wants to talk about “the thing that is”, not accidental qualities
Think about “to be” verbs
Strip away accidental properties and you are talking about “this”
White man, white is an accident.
Eliminates “accidental being” from primary consideration here and Epsilon 3 and “being as truth” from primary consideration in Epsilon 4
Next semester group projects will be Zeta, Eta and Theta together.
