The Categories, Plato, The Academy

This article discusses the Platonic and Early Academic background of Aristotle’s Categories. Plato’s dialogues and the extant fragments of the Early Academics contain concepts, terms, and problems also prominently featured in the Categories. In this work, however, Aristotle rethinks them entirely, thereby drawing conclusions which often contrast with the views of Plato and the Early Academics. The article is divided into four sections. The first makes some general remarks on Aristotle’s relationship to Plato and the Early Academy. The second focuses on Categories 1–3 and mainly deals with the Platonic-Academic background of the so-called ‘onymies’ (‘homonymy’, ‘synonymy’, and ‘paronymy’), the notion of ‘combination’ (symplokē), and those of ‘being-said-of a subject’ and ‘being-in a subject’. The third section is concerned with Categories 4–9 and focuses on the Platonic-Academic background of the ten categories, both as a unitary list and individually, with special emphasis on substance (ousia) and its priority. Finally, the fourth section tackles some of the Postpraedicamenta (chs. 10–5) and centres around the Platonic-Academic background of the notions of opposition and contrariety.