11/23/2023 0 Comments Diogenes laertius ethics![]() The Categories is particularly effective in this introductory capacity because it offers only ὑπογραφαί, ‘sketch accounts’ or ‘delineations’, of each genus rather than attempting to offer formal definitions (which would be difficult for the beginner, and impossible to provide for the highest genera). Andronicus found the Categories to be suitable to beginners in philosophy, because on Andronicus’ view the descriptions of the ten κατηγορίαι in the central chapters of the Categories articulate the beginner’s innate preconceptions (προλήψεις) of the most general kinds of being. In addition, there is some practical dialectical value in the Categories: its ὑπογραφαί provide simple heuristics for checking the genus to which a given term belongs, enabling us to defeat various sophistical arguments that turn on equivocation by distinguishing clearly between essential and accidental modes of predication. Andronicus believed that the Categories helps us to distinguish per se predications in the first category (τί εστι) from per accidens predications in the non- substance categories the former can be used to construct good definitions and so to engage in the rudiments of demonstration by way of division (διαίρεσις), while the latter cannot. ![]() In particular, I suggest the following: 1. Andronicus sought to breathe new life into Aristotle’s vision of demonstrative science, and he found the Categories especially useful for this function. ![]() ![]() "In this chapter, I argue that a late ancient interpretation of the Categories – according to which the treatise helps to train us in the demonstration of truth (ἀπόδειξις), and not merely in the practice of persuasive rhetoric – can be traced to Andronicus of Rhodes in the first century BCE. ![]()
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