The Doctrine of the Indefinite Terms in the Ancient Commentators of Aristotle :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

The Doctrine of the Indefinite Terms in the Ancient Commentators of Aristotle ABSTRACT: The ancient commentaries on Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias (De Interpretatione) give us important elements to understand more clearly some difficult passages of this treatise. In the case of the indefinite names and verbs (i.e. 'not-man', and 'does not recover', respectively), these commentaries reveal a doctrine which explains not only the nature of the indefinites, but also why Aristotle introduces these kinds of term in Peri Hermeneias. The coherence and explanatory capacity of this doctrine is entirely absent in modern exegesis of Peri Hermeneias. This fact has important implications: it can make us to think whether there will be another topics in which the ancient commentators are still indispensable to understand Aristotle. It can also make us to think to what extent a profounder reflection of the ancient commentators can modify our idea of Aristotle and the ancient world. I. The labour of translation of and comment on the ancient interpreters of Aristotle, which in our days have been edited by Professor R. Sorabji,(1) has put modern readers in contact with new dimensions of Aristotle's thought. In these ancient commentaries, many of the traditional and well-known doctrines of Aristotle find not only theoretical basis, but also a number of obscure and condensed texts reach an important and valuable elucidation and explanation. The subject-matter that I would like to discuss today is a sample of how these commentators can still contribute to understand Aristotle. I would like to warn, however, that the theme of the indefinite terms is especially illustrative of what I indicate, for the modern comments on this topic have been made without a profounder consideration of the ancient teaching. In my opinion, however, a more reliable and complete explanation about this difficult subject is to be found in the analysis of the ancient view. II. The commentaries of Boethius(2) and Ammonius son of Hermeias(3) contain in a slightly different manner the ancient doctrine of indefinite names and verbs. They explain some questions whose answers are not evident in Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias (= PeriH.):(4) namely, (i) why does Aristotle introduce indefinite names and verbs after defining name and verb? I.e. Why does Aristotle consider adequate to define expressions like 'not-man', 'does not recover', etc., once he has defined 'man' and 'recovers' as name and verb respectively? Even more, (ii) why does Aristotle in Chapter 10 of PeriH. leave indefinite verbs aside and introduces only indefinite names in simple (= categorical) propositions?