Questions on Aristotle's Categories

Question Forty-Four

332 [QUESTION FORTY-FOUR Whether Aristotle Suitably Distinguishes the Species of Motion] There are six species of motion, etc.1 t is asked whether Aristotle suitably distinguishes the species of motion. 1. It seems that he does not. Since those into which it is distinguished are in diverse genera , for example “alteration is in quality and augmentation is in quantity”;2 therefore, nothing is univocal to them. Therefore, they are not species of motion, since everything having a species is univocal to them. 2. Second, Aristotle proves in Bk. V of the Physics,3 that generation is not a motion; with equal reason, neither is corruption ; therefore, etc. 3. Third, Aristotle shows here4 that those motions are distinct , since they do not happen simultaneously to the same , of which the opposite seems , since alteration is always joined with augmentation. Nor is that a true objection (instantia) that he posits in the text concerning the square and the gnomon.5 For many conditions6 of augmentation cannot be saved there, since not every part of increased is increased from such an addition. Similarly, such an 1. Categories, Ch. 14 (15a 14–15). 2. Physics, Bk. V, Ch. 2 (226a 24–33). 3. Physics, Bk. V, Ch. 1 (225a 26–27). 4. Categories, Ch. 14 (15a 15–33). 5. Categories, Ch. 14 (15a 29–31). 6. Cf. On Generation and Corruption, Bk. I, Ch. 5 (321a 18–22). QUESTION 44 333 addition is only a juxtaposition, as Aristotle says in Bk. I of On Generation,7 and not an augmentation. 4. Similarly, an alteration is joined with every generation and corruption, since the substantial form is not an immediate principle of acting, but only active and passive qualities ; and according to them there is an alteration to which a change follows according to a substantial form, of which form those qualities are proper. 5. Fourth, everything increased occupies a greater place than it did previously, since it is greater; and “a place is equal to what is in the place”;8 therefore, everything increased changes place. 6. Fifth, in the genus of quality there is only one motion, namely, alteration; and in the genus of place, there is only one ; therefore, there will only be one in the genus of quantity and only one in the genus of substance; therefore, there will not be unless there are only four motions. 7. Also, it can be argued that in the other genera than four, there is some essential (per se) motion. But there is a concatenation of speaking (anxioma).9 Nevertheless, this seems to hold through the one saying of Aristotle in Bk. III of the Physics,10 that “there are as many species of motion as there are of being”; therefore, there is motion in every genus. 8. To the opposite is Aristotle.11 [I. To The Question] 9. One can say that motion––according to that notion (rationem ) which is assigned in Bk. III of the Physics,12 that is, “the act of being in potency insofar as it is in potency”––pertains to all 7. On Generation and Corruption, Bk. I, Ch. 9 (327a 24–26). 8. Physics, Bk. IV, Ch. 4 (211a 1–2). 9. Cf. Lexicon Latinitatis Nederlandicae Medii Aevi (ed. J. Fuchs and O. Weijers, I, 411a): Anxioma: concatenatio loquendi ut sophisma ut aliquod insolubilia seu aliquod problema difficile. 10. Physics, Bk. III, Ch. 1 (201a 9). 11. Categories, Ch. 14 (15a 14–15). 12. Physics, Bk. III, Ch. 1 (201a 10–11). 334 JOHN DUNS SCOTUS these six equivocally, just as both the definition and the defining , which are “act” and “potency,” pertain to them equivocally. But motion is taken more properly in Bk. V of the Physics,13 because “motion is from a contrary to a contrary, and it is in time.” And in that mode it is distinguished in contrast to sudden change, which is in an instant. Nor, as it is thus taken, can it be suitably divided into those six modes, but only into four of them. Therefore, it is taken here in the first mode, and so the division is suitable, as of an utterance into its significations . [II. To The Principal Arguments] 10. To the first argument,14 I say that “species” is not taken there as Porphyry15 takes it, but for a mode or a special significate , just as in that authoritative quotation of Aristotle in Bk. III...