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Aristotle - Metaphysics
Atec Февраль 16 2008 19:57:08
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. Now it is strange to inquire how being in the
sense of the 'what' is many, and not how either qualities or
quantities are many. For surely the indefinite dyad or 'the great
and the small' is not a reason why there should be two kinds of
white or many colours or flavours or shapes; for then these also would
be numbers and units. But if they had attacked these other categories,
they would have seen the cause of the plurality in substances also;
for the same thing or something analogous is the cause. This
aberration is the reason also why in seeking the opposite of being and
the one, from which with being and the one the things that are
proceed, they posited the relative term (i.e. the unequal), which is
neither the contrary nor the contradictory of these, and is one kind
of being as 'what' and quality also are.
They should have asked this question also, how relative terms
are many and not one. But as it is, they inquire how there are many
units besides the first 1, but do not go on to inquire how there are
many unequals besides the unequal. Yet they use them and speak of
great and small, many and few (from which proceed numbers), long and
short (from which proceeds the line), broad and narrow (from which
proceeds the plane), deep and shallow (from which proceed solids); and
they speak of yet more kinds of relative term. What is the reason,
then, why there is a plurality of these?
It is necessary, then, as we say, to presuppose for each thing
that which is it potentially; and the holder of these views further
declared what that is which is potentially a 'this' and a substance
but is not in itself being-viz
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