Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy [161-162]
135
ἀναλογίὰ καὶ ομωνυμίᾳ λαμβάνειν ["yet it is necessary to take the same thing both analogously and homonymously"].77
Deus ist ens realissimum ["God is the most real being"],78 summum ens ["supreme being"],79 ens infinitum ["infinite being"] over and against ens finitum creatum ["finite, created being"] Indeed Being, but not univoce. οὐσία: the most proper being, in the sense of infinite, which creates what is finite. The created is also substance, but finita, and, ontologically, of it once again an analogy holds.
The modes of Being, their multiplicity and the type of their unity and appurtenance. The first and original: πολλαχῶς. The second: the simple meaning of Being, to this meaning the Being of the categories is related. In what way?
Regarding the second: τὸ ὂν τὸ ἁπλῶς λεγόμενον ["Being as said simply"],81 Being pure and simple, not this or that Being, not the Being of a definite being, not Being and this being, but sheer Being. The basic directions of questioning within the problematic of Being are first clarified on the basis of their connection with the Being of the categories, and thereby the concrete idea of the science of Being in general is determined. Then the question arises: how does the second concept of the science of Being, theology, relate to that?
From what has been said: presence-at-hand-a preeminent category. οὐσία: it expresses the original Being, and in relation to it there is co-presence-at-hand, modes. Presence-at-hand-co-presence-at-hand. "Co-"—λόγος—presence. To be sure, nine categories are founded in the first but, by essence, are given along with it. Being of the categories:82 present-at-hand in itself, co-present-at-hand; καθ᾽ αὐτό ["in itself"], always, constantly, there of itself and in accord with its essence. What is to be present-at-hand as something produced. Being: presence,83 and indeed of a multiplicity. Co-presence of something with something; i.e., in presence itself a reference from one to another. The totality of the peculiarities, meaningfulness, world (inter alia, especially in the phenomenon of οὐσία in general, παρουσία ["co-presence"]); i.e., a being is συγκείμενον ["something combined"]. Categories are conditions of possibility, basic modes of possible co-presence-at-hand.
Categories applicable to every being that is to be. Supervenience
77. Plotinus, Enn. 6, 3.1, 11. 6-7.
78. Cf. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 576/B 604.
79. Cf. Anselm of Canterbury, Monologion 16; Descartes, Meditationes deprimaphilosophia. Oeuvres, ed. Adam and Tannery (henceforth, Meditationes), 7 vols., Paris, 1904, vol. 4, 4; vol. 5, 11.
80. Meditationes 3, 22-24.
81. Met. E 2, 1026a33. See supplement no. 22, p. 164.
82. See supplements no. 23, p. 164f., and no. 24, p. 165.
83. See Morchen transcription, no. 75, p. 222f.