Aristotle, The Categories, chapters 1-4

[@conduite6721]

i know this video is old but THANK YOU SO MUCH MY PROFESSOR DOESNT EXPLAIN ANYTHING WELL THIS IS SAVING ME

[@GregoryBSadler]

Sorry to hear that about your professor

[@lucasdarianschwendlervieir3714]

Chapter 1: 7:07 Chapter 2: 19:57 Chapter 3: 33:30 Chapter 4: 42:20

[@daily6633]

Ur a god

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

thx!

[@AMCmusicofficial]

Thanks man. I appreciate you taking the time to delve into it and making the ancients more accessible.

[@GregoryBSadler]

+AMCmusicofficial You're welcome!

[@GregoryBSadler]

starting a new series of course videos on Aristotle's Category. Maybe I can adequately cover the whole text in 3 videos. . . or maybe 4

[@ismailelkorchi]

+Gregory B. Sadler Thank you for the effort you devote to knowledge sharing. This is a very noble and sublime thing, and it's good to see that there are still people like you in a world increasingly inclined towards materialism and selfishness. As an autodidact, your KZbin channel helped me a lot to enter the world of philosophy, taking you as my master and my teacher, and I continue to learn from you every day. Your video helped me a lot understanding the first part of Aristotle's categories, and I hope that you will cover the remaining parts as you said in your comment. And if you have time and desire, maybe you could cover the rest of the Organon namely On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics and sophistical Refutations, as it would be helpful for me and for too many people. Anyway, thank you very much for your efforts and your channel.

[@GregoryBSadler]

ismail el korchi I'm glad to read that the videos have been so helpful for you! I'm going to be covering Aristotle's logical works - once I find the time - in my Critical Thinking, Logic, and Argumentation channel

[@howardglantz]

Did you mean UNinclined towards materialism and selfishness. The remainder of your comment seems so complimentary and appreciative, Gregory's response seems so appreciative I'm concerned I'm missing something but then were it not for Gregory's KZbin I would be completely lost reading Aristotle and ill-prepared for my next Medieval philosophy​ class.

[@AirIsTotal]

Aristotle's works are coming to me at a sensitive time in my life. I really appreciate how you break major concepts down so I can understand them better when I read the actual text. Many props my dude!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you find it helpful

[@matthewchambers9428]

I love that he is a philosopher and professor but so genuinely likeable due to his lack of pride. Learning alot...very helpful.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I can still be prideful at times, but I'm glad to read it's not in the videos

[@dustinsavage2832]

Thanks for the video, Prof. Sadler! My book club is starting Aristotle next month (yes, with the Categories) and my early attempts at reading were leaving me befuddled. I'll be sending out your videos to the the rest of my group!

[@FreedomandRights4US]

Mr Sadler you are awesome, thanks for keeping philosophy alive and providing lectures for everyone to receive in a friendly format

[@miraygozukara4229]

Bless your soul!!! I was having the hardest time trying to understand this book! Read it like 10 times, and still made 0 sense to me! But after i watched your video, now that i read it, it all makes so much more sense. Thank you sooo much!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome. I'm hoping this coming year to actually do a full series on the work, over in my History of Ideas channel

[@dellh86]

Thank you Dr. Sadler! This video was an excellent companion to my independent study of Aristotle.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You'll find core concept videos covering the text in my channel

[@pawbard]

Absolutely riveting, thank you Gregory. How many people have read this text without understanding the three kinds of meaning, four kinds of predications, and ten categories? and here it is all laid out. Great work.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@selmanakarsu1185]

Thank you so much, you videos helped me while studying for my Ancient Philosophy final. You make the concepts so understandable, unlike some other philosophy professors, I wouldn't even call them a professor, they don't deserve it, some can't even form a simple context to which one can look into while observing a philosophical claim. I had one professor who could't even back up their claim with an example. It shows so much how little they can actually teach philosophy, let alone grasp it in its fundamental form. It so easy to access philosophy these days, but so hard to find someone who can actually understand and teach it correctly. Thank You...

[@GregoryBSadler]

+selman akarsu You're very welcome - glad it was useful for you

[@tethyn]

Categories was always a odd duck for those first introduced to Aristotle. My first introduction was the Nicomachean ethics and the when I took a metaphysics class we came back to pieces of the categories.

[@JudgeSabo]

This is fantastic! I'm reading this now, and sure enough chapter 2 tripped me up. You definitely helped me to understand what he meant by predicate! Do you have any suggestions for commentaries on the Organon?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you found this useful. I'm going to be doing more of these on the Categories, but in the new Critical Thinking, Logic and Argumentation channel I'll be rolling out this Fall

[@Volcarion]

i've spent 3 days trying to figure out the first 4 chapters and getting no where. this is very helpful!

[@GregoryBSadler]

+Colin Baxter Glad you found it useful. I'm going to be shooting a series of videos on this work -- but over in one of my other channels

[@GregoryBSadler]

Good question -- in this piece, Aristotle isn't using that term of "analogy" (i.e. kat'analogian), but. . . yes, you are on the right track. The examples he's using make it clear that he does have something similar in mind. In the Categories, he's more interested in the language itself than the metaphysics, so he thinks in terms of derivation -- "healthy" from "health", etc. Those sorts of terms are typically related by structures of analogy of one form or another.

[@GreggMikulla]

So predicable is almost like an attribute. But white, as in what makes the chalk white, cannot exist without existing in a subject. Is this correct?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Predicable means exactly what it says, able to be predicated. And yes, whiteness, as opposed to white, need to be in a subject

[@GreggMikulla]

@GregoryBSadler thank you. I've spent a week pondering this, and your description knocked something loose in my head.

[@bilalmirza6309]

I came here primarily for Chapter 3 since it's not in your other playlist discussing the Categories. This was all very helpful, thank you! Do you have a recommended order through which to go through Aristotle (and by extension Plato and Socrates) for someone more logic and philosophy oriented? You mentioned in this in other videos that categories is usually what students are first ushered toward, and you mentioned his Metaphysics and the Art of Rhetoric(which I'm currently reading). Any direction would be helpful! Thanks again! :)

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome I don't have such a recommended order.

[@lee_dias3830]

Thanks a lot for the lecture. Could you expand on what you say at 45:00, about the reverse order of Substance-QUALITY-Quantity versus Substance-QUANTITY-Quality in Modern Philosophy? What do you mean?

[@GregoryBSadler]

early modern philosophy focused on quantity as basic

[@Biyer11]

Hello! Thanks a lot Prof. Gregory Sadler for this amazing introduction to the first 4 parts of the Categories of Aristotle which has have been made very easy to read by your effort. I have a suggestion to make. I am a teacher of English Grammar and I really think that language and logic and their rules are closely connected (it is interesting that in Arabic the word 'mantiq' is used both for logic and for speech). I think it would be useful if you could use concepts from Grammar to explain difficulties like the one regarding, as for example, knowledge being 'in' a subject and knowledge being predicated 'of' a subject. The noun 'subject' is, in the first case, in possession of an abstract noun called Knowledge. And so in this case there are ultimately two nouns, one being the subject and the other the possessed abstract noun object. In the second case, the noun 'subject' is being qualified by an attribute called 'knowledgeable' and thus the predicate here works as an adjective, and hence attributes the one and only noun in the statement. So in one case the situation generates two nouns: the subject that possesses, and the abstract object that is being possessed. And in the other, there is only one noun, the subject, which is being qualified by an adjective and so the attribute merely colours the subject (the adjective, as we know, cannot exist on its own and needs a noun to qualify). Wouldn't this grammatical approach help people better understand these complications?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well, I typically stick to explaining what's going on in the text in these sorts of videos

[@voiceintheopen345]

thanks a lot professor for your hard work, hopefully you will keep uploading material of this type. great, great job sir.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I actually produced an entire series of core concept videos on the Categories a few years back

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome. Glad the videos are useful for you

[@joaomarcelobritodasilva2248]

It is very interesting the way you explain what Aristotle actually mean with the categories. I really appreciate your job!!!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You'll find a number of core concept videos going through the whole of the Categories in a few playlists in my channel

[@garrettdyess1110]

Dr. Sadler, this is so helpful. Thank you! I can’t make heads or tails on Prior Analytics as well. Do you have any recommendations on how to read that specific text? Is it possible for it to be self taught?

[@GregoryBSadler]

It's always possible to study a text on one's own. But if you say you're running into problems doing so, then you probably want to find a guide or tutor.

[@alexnelson7744]

How is "predicable of" different from set membership? I'm thinking of "predicable of" as specifying "[the subject] belongs to [the category]", e.g., "Gregory Sadler belongs to (the class of) humans" means the same as "Gregory Sadler is predicable of humans", or am I mistaken? (Is there some immediate or latent danger of this anachronistic thinking?) (Edit: Thanks again for this video! I thought it would go without saying to thank you for it, but I thought I should be explicit in my gratitude.)

[@GregoryBSadler]

+Alex Nelson Well, if you adopt the late modern framework of set-theory as your basic metaphysics, I suppose then you won't see any difference, and predication will simply mean inclusion in a set. There is a danger - leaving everything else out that's not adequately captured by a set-theoretical approach. It's not that predicating that Sadler is a human doesn't mean Sadler is one of the members of a set of things called "humans". But that's certainly not all that it means. Nor is predication for someone like Aristotle just about meanings, whatever they are. Notice, though that your example - "Gregory Sadler belongs to (the class of) humans" means the same as "Gregory Sadler is predicable of humans" - you've got it backwards in the second part. It would be "human" is predicable of Sadler

[@alexnelson7744]

+Gregory B. Sadler Thanks for your reply, and thanks for pointing out that thinking about it in terms of set-theory implicitly is a metaphysical decision...I actually never thought about that!

[@samtukidia7173]

thanx so much Professor Sadler for this video, really helped me in understanding better the first 4 chapters....

[@GregoryBSadler]

+sam tukidia Glad it was useful for you!

[@TheMusicalStylingsofBrentBunn]

This helps a lot, though I think I must study more to fully understand. I'm told it's helpful to study grammar before tackling Categories.

[@GregoryBSadler]

No idea who told you that, but you can study however you like

[@garypayne5078]

This video helped me a great deal, but I noticed that there were no other videos explaining chapters 5+. Thanks for the video and I hope there will be more in the future.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Gary Payne Read down in the comments and replies

[@mamafossil1003]

Thank you so much for your videos! I don't learn so well by text and hearing and watching your videos helps me a lot!!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad they're helpful for you

[@lucasdarianschwendlervieir3714]

Concerning chapter 3, how about the differentium 'is liked by Jennifer'? It seems that this judgement can be used to categorize both Animal and Knowledge, and a similar argument can be made about other judgements as well. Btw thanks for this video Gregory, it really helped me understand the first four chapters of Categories.

[@ACHILLESPRIZE]

Very good. It would be nice to see a breakdown of the chapters of Aristotle's books in the Metaphysics. A lot of work, I know. But, hey, if you are up to it. Anyway, thanks for the work you put into this. It helped.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes, that would be a monumental undertaking

[@gottgainz6477]

@@GregoryBSadler that would be awesome 👍

[@Pynchon2766]

Prof. Sadler, this is great. You really demystified Chapter 2 and "of" and "in" for me. But where are the rest of the videos on the Categories? I can't find any of your videos on Chapt 5+. Given the high quality of your teaching I'd love it if you finished the set. Promises were made.... see your own comment below.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yep. I haven't made them yet -- and probably won't make them in this channel. I've got a new Critical Thinking, Logic, and Argumentation KZbin channel coming out this Fall. That's where I'll load new videos on the Categories, as well as the other "organon" works.

[@danwroy]

Thanks, I'm having trouble with Aristotle and glad to know it comes together

[@GregoryBSadler]

You know, I have about 33 core concept videos on this text in the channel

[@danwroy]

​@@GregoryBSadlerI'll be checking it out, thanks!

[@zameer9164]

My professor loves to beat around the bush. So this video has helped me a lot!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You'll find an entire set of videos going through the whole work here - kzbin.info/aero/PL4gvlOxpKKIiPLaS968IJzLNLNwGmqPb7

[@gastoncavalleri8560]

Thank you legend.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Gaston Cavalleri You're welcome, myth

[@Qweluana2]

Thank you so much! This will help me a ton on my essay, but more importantly you made this subject fun to learn!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@Adam0804]

Greg Sadler smashes it again.

[@GregoryBSadler]

+Adam0804 Nice!

[@MrScrollboy]

I really enjoyed watching a video of someone who reads Aristotle's "Categories" and, I suppose, other works of him in general, to actually comprehend them, and not only to approach them, like many scholars, in the same monotonous dogmatic manner which is so widespread, though completely non-instructive. Thanks for that. My point is: Aristotle stated the definition of what he meant by something being present in a subject, which, despite its lack of precision, at least is something. But what do you think he exactly denoted by something being predicated of another? In other terms: in your opinion, what would, for Aristotle, a cat being a animal, a rose being a flower, the Earth being a planet etc. practically stand for?

[@GregoryBSadler]

+Vittor Lucena Well, that's sort of the point of distinguishing different categories of predication -- there's not just one thing "exactly denoted by something being predicated of another". It depends on the case. The examples you're asking about all have to do with saying that a thing is a member of a species or a genus - a class of things

[@josefvissarionovitchstalin1329]

Could you open automatically generated captions? My understanding of spoken English is limited. Thank you!

[@GregoryBSadler]

I went in took a look. Seems like I'd have to upload some - not something I have the time for doing

[@pawbard]

Gregory, I notice there don't seem to be other organon videos. I like how you explain the purpose and meaning of the Categories, and I think a more general exploration of the overall significance of the Organon might be fascinating. Just a suggestion.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Already addressed in a previous comment and response

[@theyazzyshow5652]

What is substance and what is he meaning of the distinction between primary and secondary substance? How do the two varieties of substance fit in the fourfold classification of beings set out in chapter 2? How do the other forms of being enumerated in chapter fourrelate to substance and how do they fit into chapter two’s classificatory scheme? the prof that gave me this question should be anything but a prof at a university. He explained nothing to me. Do you mind briefly answering as much as possible just to be sure that i am on the right track? ps: I got through the first two years of university with a 3.0 gpa thanks to your videos. Thank you!! :)

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad that the videos have been helpful to you. You're probably looking for this passage: It is a common characteristic of all substance that it is never present in a subject. For primary substance is neither present in a subject nor predicated of a subject; while, with regard to secondary substances, it is clear from the following arguments (apart from others) that they are not present in a subject. For 'man' is predicated of the individual man, but is not present in any subject: for manhood is not present in the individual man. In the same way, 'animal' is also predicated of the individual man, but is not present in him. Again, when a thing is present in a subject, though the name may quite well be applied to that in which it is present, the definition cannot be applied. Yet of secondary substances, not only the name, but also the definition, applies to the subject: we should use both the definition of the species and that of the genus with reference to the individual man. Thus substance cannot be present in a subject.

[@theyazzyshow5652]

Thank you! you're so helpful :)

[@SanctumZero]

This is my new "smart break" from the daily humdrum ;D love it

[@Donaldl121]

7:20 ur welcome

[@samisiddiqi7814]

I was so confused on chapter 2(in a subject, predicated of a subject etc.), but then I realised that I was overthinking it lol. I was personally dragged into the Categories in an effort to understand Aristotle's Metaphysics. I am yet to find a reason why Aristotle makes a seemingly peculiar distinction in the second chapter, but I am sure it is important. Why does Aristotle even bring up the topic of "In a subject, predicated of a subject"?

[@GregoryBSadler]

You'll see him using it in other parts. Really, though, I suppose, you could say he's just being thorough. . .

[@Gracebrokenmastermended]

Thanks you my friend.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Well that would make sense. Aristotle's works made their way into Islamic civilization fairly early on, and then got translated into Arabic.

[@GayForJohnnyDepp93]

Thanks Gregory, this is really great.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome -- need to get back and shoot the rest of the vids for this work!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad to read it.

[@bannedfashion4938]

Could you make video of chapters 5+

[@GregoryBSadler]

I've actually made videos for all of the chapters. A google search would help you find them

[@MattHerrettMusic]

Great lecture. Don't drop that ashtray on your foot! Looks super heavy!

[@GregoryBSadler]

I think I dodged that bullet

[@Salim54321]

Thank you so so much this is great help

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad it's useful for you

[@mixhoaionabadze2904]

Quantity @ 48:29

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

50:46 - in case you need some love!

[@trainingaccount7528]

Professor, do you understand Arabic?

[@GregoryBSadler]

No

[@Alejandro-Te]

I appreciate this lectures, but the background noise is unbearable.

[@GregoryBSadler]

First complaint of that sort.

[@ronruddick2972]

In... the book, the man

[@addda1899]

2020🤪

[@FacebookIL]

Thank you very much, Dr.Sadler, I have watched this video I think like 8 times... but still have problems understanding some of its concepts When we say not in a subject and not predicable of a subject: this man, I can say that this man actually belongs to the category of animal? so why is it not in a subject? it is in the subject of animal, isn't it?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Animal isn't a subject

[@FacebookIL]

​@@GregoryBSadler Animals are alive, there it is, animals are a subject, everything that can be said in words can be a subject isn't it? every predicate can be a subject because I can talk about the predicate which means that every predicate is potentially a subject if it is talked upon. Animals are breathing, same thing animals right now are a subject, breathing is the predicate animals the subject and now I can say breathing is the function of taking air into the lungs and so on, and make breathing a subject and predicate on it, so subject is basically that which can be talked upon, something must be wrong with my understanding or something else. Also if there were no animals there was no man, so it depends upon animals, no?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Nope. Animals is not a subject, though an individual animal is a subject. Not everything that can be said in words is a subject. That's about as much time for clarifications that I'm putting in here pro bono. Good luck with your studies

[@horsymandias-ur]

The key word that you used is “this” (“this man”). My lazy answer due to time constraints is that a subject is something you can point to, precisely a “this;” it is an individual instantiation or actualization of a species and is radically particular.