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ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS
A REVISED TEXT IT//TH ].\'TRODL'CTION AND COMMENTARY
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W. D. ROSS
FELI,OW OF ORIFL COI,LEGE IN TH8 DEPTITY PROFESSOR OF I\IORAI, PHILOSOPHY OF OXFORD T'NIVERSITY

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OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

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P R E FA C E
THe main object of this preface is to express my sincere thanks to those who have helped me in PreParing this edition of the tlletaphltsics, First I would thank the Trustees of thc Jowett Copyright Fund and the Master and Fellows of Balliol College,whose gcnerousfinancial help has made possible the is commemoratedby publication of the book ; their assistance Next I wish to exPress my cover. the thc Balliol arms on gratitude to the following friends,who have read Parts of the book in manuscriptand much assistedme by their comments: ProfessorsJ. A. Smith and C. C. J. Webb of this University ; Professor E. S. Forster of the University of Shefficld; ProfessorJ. L. Stocks of the Victoria University, Manchester; the late Mr. C. Cannan, Secretary to the Delegates of the P r e s s ; M r . R . G . C o l l i n g w o o d ,F e l l o w o f P e m b r o k e C o l l e g e ; Mr. H. A. Prichard, late Fellow of Trinity College; and particularly ProfessorH. H. Joachim of this University, who not only commented e-rhaustivelyon my treatment of Books ZH@ but allowed me to make rvhat use I pleased of his own valuable uotes on tsook Z, My alparatus critictts contains unpublished emendations (some of which I have adopted) by Professol'sForster, Joachim, and Smith, and Mr' Cannan' as well as 6ome by the late Professor I. Bywater, by the President of Corpus Christi College (lVIr. T. Case), arrd by Professor A, R. Lord of Rhodes University College, Grahams' town. On some points in the later Platonic theory I have had the,advantage of exchanging views with Professor A. E. Taylor of the University of Edinburgh. Mr. R. MoKenzie, liereday Fellow <-rf St. John's College, has helped me with

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INTRODUCTION

ARISTOTLE'S

METAPHYSICAL

DOCTRINE

cix

The chapter is clearly dialectical. The result it leads to is in one which Aristotle doesnot accept. He is no doubt in earnest refusingto find the substance ofany separately existingbeing in a universal characterwhich accordingto all his principles cannot exist separately. And he is in earnestin refusing to recognizethe present in the essenceof its speciesor universal as a substance of its individuals. But it is his own doctrine that in some sense the universal is present in the essenceof its particulars, and this will emergelater. Ch. r4 applies to the Platonic ldeas Aristotle's arguments against reducing the substance of individuals to anything universal. Ch. r5 carries on the thought of ch. 13. In that chapter Aristotle argued that no substance can consist of universals because every universalsignifiesnot a 'this' but a 'such'. He now draws the corollarythat since definition is an enunciationof universal marks, it can never adequately express the nature of an individual. The chapter argues that (r) individuals are indefinable,and (z) in particular the ldeas are so since they are thought of by the Platonists as individuals, having separate existence. Individuals are indefinable (a) becausethey contain matter and are therefore perishable. A definition which was at one time true might therefore ceaseto be true, and thereforecould only have been opinion, not knowledge. (6) In the discussionof the definability of Ideas the further point, which is applicableto a// individuals,comesout, that any definitionis bound to name only cummonqualities and therefore not to state the unique nature of the individual. The conclusionthat individualscannotbe subjects of definition nor of demonstration createsa serious difficulty for Aristotle, of which much has been made by Zeller. (r) On the one hand, for Aristotle only individuals are really substances, The only forms which have separatesubstantial existence apart from matter are individuals-God and the intelligencesthat move the spheres; the mistake of the Platonists according to Ar.istotle is not that they believe in irimaterial entities but that they identify them rvith universals.' And, at a lower level, the individuals concrete of forrn and matter are more real, more substantial than the universals in which their common qualities are abstracted
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hand' from those peculiar to the individuals'' (z) On the other knowledge' definition and demonstrationare the very tyPes of starts Science,or knowledge(Aristotle has one word for both), demonstrates it with definition and proceedsby demonstration; This universalpropertiesas flowing from universal definitions' Now Analytics' $) that is the consistentteachingol thePosterior knowable' fully most Aristotle for which is most real stroula be of and therefore most strictly the subject of definition and that once than more and explicitly sald has demonstration. He primarily, is definable't alone,or substance substance hints at a solution of this Aristotle passages various In not definable,are known.by though individuals, difficulty. 1r) or of perception-intelligible the aid tf i.,tuitiu. thotrght (r6,1o,sl ,this circle ' by the former, sensibleindividuals individuals like pro' by the latter.s Apart from the abstractiveand discursive modes direct and of sciencethere are other more concrete actually "!dur" of knowledge (of which one-v6'7ots-is conceived as of the nature individual whole the superior toiciencel by which to appears Aristotle act' single in a individual is grasped -be knowledge that our the-fact importanifact, an pointing hers to in the ol inaiuiau"ls, e. g. of persons or of places,is not held combe form of a set of universal propositions' and could not h,e that stated in such a form. But it is to be regretted pletely 'aia this in which not work out more fully a theory ol v67cc to itfunctionwas correlatedwith the other functionshe assigns knowledge the and the knowledgeof the first principlesofscience, and of incompositesubstances'' of essences 3 (z) Aristotle has elsewhere a different solution' It is only (i' e' as it is in the mind of potentially knowledge as existing of the object of his thinking is not a man oJ sciencewhJn-he is of theknowledge actual universal; of the science)that is is directly of just sight as it, puts aiso he as Or, individual. ' this' colour, and only incidentallyof colour in generalbec-a1t1e thiscolourisacolour,sogrammaticalscienceisdirectly.ofthis 'of alpha This contention also alpha', and only incidentally of the science.of " has truth, To take Aristotie's own example cannot be knowledge grammar, the actuality of grammatical 19-24' I' to35b r4, L' roTrN 2 7 ,r o 3 6 b 6 -t o 3 9 " , r o i o . z t - b 7 , t o 3 t t1 3 ,r o 3 9 c 19.
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5 II. Io87" to-25 : cf' De An' 4t7n2t-29'