Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s19.24

v2.c24.s19.24

The Vaiśeṣika categories include not only things predicable of another, but also subjects capable of having things predicated of them. Aristotle’s categories are a logical classification of predicates only, and not a metaphysical classification of all thinkable objects. The Vaiśeṣika thinkers, as much as Aristotle, seem to have been aware of the intimate relation between name and thing. Though Aristotle classifies words, it happens to be a classification of things as well, for whatever receives a separate name is a thing. “Of words expressed without syntax (i.e. single words), each signifies either substance, or quantity, or quality, or relation, or place, or time, or disposition (i.e. attitude or internal arrangement), or appurtenance, or action (doing), or suffering (being done to).”³ Of these ten categories the last nine are predicable of something else, while the first substance is *ens*, and cannot be predicated of anything, not even of itself, for then it is no more a substance but becomes an attribute. But Aristotle is not very strict in his usage. The forms of common speech determined his classification, and among words we have those which signify the substance of a concrete individual. When the substance is a concrete individual, we ask, What is it? and answer, a horse or a cow, which Aristotle calls a substance, though it is really a quality.⁴ He distinguishes first and second substances, and holds that the first are not properly used as predicates. The inclusion of the logical subject in a classification of predicates shows that Aristotle intended his categories to be also a list of existences or “kinds of being.” We have in Aristotle’s list substances and qualities which are either permanent or temporary. Almost all the commentators agree that the category of relation should be taken as including the last six of his scheme. We may therefore take substance, quality, temporary or permanent, and relation as exhausting all significations.