Aristotle Substance
This paper will derive Aristotle’s notion of substance and discuss its key characteristics as well as the subcategories that exist within it. ... Aristotle, in his piece The Categories, set out to organize things in the world on the basis of linguistic considerations. ... Substance, the first category, is the most important in Aristotle’s ontology, because, for him, substances are fundamental entities, and without them nothing else could exist (Ackrill 6). ... Aristotle defines the condition for something to be a primary substance as not being ‘said of’ or ‘present in’ anything (Strange 78). In order to understand this statement, we must examine the nature of ‘said of’ and ‘present in’ a subject, as well as the definition of a subject itself, as characterized by Aristotle. ... For Aristotle, a subject is what we talk about, not the word. Thus, if a sentence contains a subject where no physical being corresponds to the word, it is not a subject according to Aristotle’s definition. ... For instance, human is ‘said of’ Aristotle, since both its name and its definition can be predicated of him. Aristotle is a human, thus human is predicated of Aristotle. ... Aristotle is an animal, thus animal is predicated of Aristotle. Since both human and its definition, animal, are predicated of Aristotle, human is ‘said of’ Aristotle. ... Although human is said of Aristotle, it is not ‘in’ him, because humans can exist apart from him. Aristotle’s white hair is not ‘said of’ Aristotle, as he could exist if he were to dye his hair brown. His white hair, however, is ‘in’ him, because his white hair cannot exist separately, apart from Aristotle. If Aristotle did not exist, he would not have white hair. There may be white hair existing on the head of some other being, but it is a separate instance of white hair, not the white hair belonging to Aristotle.