Since the publication of The verb “be” in Ancient Greek by Charles Kahn, people have put a lot of emphasis and invested too much labor in all kinds of historico-philological analyses in order to resolve philosophical questions regarding the concept of existence in Greek thought. Useful as these analyses might be, they cannot provide us with conclusive answers to the specific philosophical questions under scrutiny, and, perhaps, it is time for us to abandon the overwhelming optimist motivating the pioneers behind (...) these attempts. I use the Sophist as a case study. I conclude that whether the Form of Being represents existence or predication cannot be settled on speculation regarding the syntax of the verb εἶναι; absolute εἶναι need not be existential in meaning, and complemented εἶναι may be existential in meaning. (shrink)

Simplicius reports that Xenocrates and Andronicus reproached Aristotle for positing an excessive number of categories, which can conveniently be reduced to two: τὰ καθ᾽αὑτά and τὰ πρός τι. Simplicius, followed by several modern commentators, interprets this move as being equivalent to a division into substance and accidents. I aim to show that, as far as Xenocrates is concerned, this interpretation is untenable and that the substance-accidents contrast cannot be equivalent to Xenocrates’ per se-relative one. Rather, Xenocrates aimed to stress the (...) primacy of Plato’s binary distinction of beings, as presented at Sophist 255c13–4, over Aristotle’s list of the categories. (shrink)

The paper argues that Motion and Rest are “greatest kinds” and not just convenient examples, since they are all-pervading. Thus Motion and Rest can be jointly predicated of a single subject and can be predicated of each other, just as Sameness and Otherness can. While Sameness and Otherness are opposites, a single subject may be the same in one respect, namely, the same as itself, and other in another respect, namely, other than other things. Thus they can be predicated of (...) a single subject, and they can be predicated of each other, as well, since Sameness is other than other things and Otherness is the same as itself. The same explanation applies to Motion and Rest, as the paper demonstrates: a given subject may be in motion in one respect while being at rest in another respect. This distinction is made in the Sophist itself, right in the passage concerning the greatest kinds. Thus Motion and Rest should be considered greatest kinds on par with Being, Sameness, and Otherness, and each of these kinds pervades all other kinds. (shrink)