Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
Thus the Notion (λόγος) is opposed to the homonym; and since Aristotle
deduces herefrom τὰ λεγόμενα, of which the second chapter treats, it is
clear that this last expression indicates more than mere predication,
and is here to be taken as determinate Notions. “Determinate
conceptions are either enunciated after a complex (κατὰ συμπλοκήν)
or after an incomplex manner (ἄνευ συμπλοκῆς); the first as ‘a man
conquers,’ ‘the ox runs,’ and the other as ‘man,’ ‘ox,’ ‘to conquer,’
‘to run.’” In the first rank of this division Aristotle places τὰ ὄντα,
which are undoubtedly purely subjective relations of such as exist
_per se_, so that the relation is not in them but external to them.
Now although τὰ λεγόμενα and τὰ ὄντα are again distinguished from one
another, Aristotle yet again employs both λέγεται, and ἐστί of the
ὄντα, so that λέγεται is predicated of a species, in relation to its
particular; ἐστί is, on the contrary, employed of a universal, which
is not Idea but only simple. For Aristotle says, “There are predicates
(ὄντα) which can be assigned to a certain subject (καθ̓ ὑποκειμένον),
yet are in no subject, as ‘man’ is predicated of ‘some certain man,’
and yet he is no particular man. Others are in a subject (ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ
ἐστί) yet are not predicated of any subject (I mean by a thing being
in a subject, that it is in any thing not as a part, but as unable
to subsist without that in which it is), as ‘a grammatical art’ (τὶς
γραμματική) is in a subject, ‘the soul,’ but cannot be predicated
of any,’ or related as genus to a subject. Some are predicated of
a subject (λέγεται) and are in it; science is in the soul and is
predicated of the grammatical art. Some again are neither in, nor are
predicated of any subject, as ‘a certain man,’ the individual, the
one in number; but some of them can be in a subject like ‘a certain
grammatical art.’” Instead of subject we should do better to speak of
substratum, for it is that to which the Notion necessarily relates,
_i.e._ that which is neglected in abstraction, and thus the individual
opposed to the Notion. We can see that Aristotle has the difference of
the genus or universal and the individual present to his mind.