as something.” In this “as something,” the being that is there is explicated on the basis of that which is not explicated in a definite regard. When Aristotle designates the categories simply as διαιρέσεις, he means that they are that speaking that makes the beings that are there of the world visible in basic possibilities, as what can show itself.
As that which primarily shows the beings of the world: this ‘as what’ in the originary sense is itself not what is meant, when I live in a concrete λόγος. The concrete λόγος always means, for example, the being-red of this garment, and only when I inquire back into the how of the being-there of the being-red, do I come upon the ποιόν. Accordingly, the ποιόν, thus seen, is the stem, in a certain sense the kind, from which every property is derived with regard to its being. Thus the categories are also γένη,75 the “stems” of that which I assert of a concrete being as being according to various possibilities.
Aristotle also designates the categories as the ἔσχατα κατηγορούμενα,76 the “outermost,” in the sense of the “ultimate.” If I follow a being back to the end, to its being, to what it genuinely is, then I come upon the categories; in fact, these categories are ἐπὶ τῶν ἀτόμων [εἰδῶν]:77 the εἶδος as that which cannot be gone beyond, as that which is not analyzable through words, the εἶδος that λόγος as διαίρεσις comes up against, where natural speaking with the world is primary, so that the εἶδος is itself not further analyzed into an ‘as what’; what in a certain sense resists διαίρεσις. Appearing itself cannot be analyzed in λόγος if λόγος still wants to have anything there at all. This ἄτομον εἶδος means nothing other than the closest there of the look of the world, which are the things that I possess in use, οὐσίαι. If I would like to analyze the appearing of a chair or a table in a certain sense, then I no longer have the primary being that is there, the chair, but a piece of wood. Therefore, in order to understand these being-categories, one must, from the beginning, bring it about that one sees that the beings that are meant here are the beings of the surrounding world.
Furthermore, Aristotle designates the categories as the πτώσεις78—the Latin casus, but with a narrower meaning. Πτῶσις has the still wider meaning: every linguistic modification and change of meaning. The κατηγορίαι are simply the πτώσεις, the primary inflections of speaking in the world.
De Anima Α, 1 shows that, for Aristotle, these categories are not simply fixed schemata that in themselves would already be exempted from investigation, but instead the categories only indicate in a certain way one of the closest characters of the being of beings that are there.79 In relation to the topic of De Anima, ψυχή: for the answer to the question thereof, one can simply refer to the categories, and inquire with the categories as guiding clue. But with
75. Met. Β 3, 998 b 28.
76. Met. Β 3, 998 b 16.
77. Ibid.
78. Met. Ν 2, 1089 a 26.
79. Cf. De an. Α 1, 402 a 11 sqq.