tle's categories never mentions Plotinus' many objections at least in the extant Com-
would be unfair to say that Plotinus was always negative. At times he proposed alternative solutions to the problems which Aristotle discussed. For instance, in his criticism of the fourfold division of quality he first objects to the Aristotelian distinctions and then he tries to answer the question: "But if one does not think it proper to divide the quale in this way, in what way could one divide it?" (VI. 1. 12, 1-2).
Plotinus' proposal provides for a distinction between those qualities which pertain to the body and those which pertain to the soul. There are also subdivisions of each kind in accordance with the sense organ or the psychic faculty which is involved in each type of quality. All these pro posals, however, constitute a distinct Plotinian doctrine the merit of which cannot be examined and assessed here. I should like to mention only one point of importance before I close the discussion of this category.
As we have seen, Aristotle gathered both the different kinds of qualities as well as the things qualified and paronymously called after them in one and the same category, ποιόν. In reference to this treatment Plotinus remarks: "But we must consider also how the qualified by the quality is in the same category [as the quality]: for there is certainly not one genus for both" (Ibid. 13-15). For Plotinus, it is inconceivable that one can bring under the same head the qualified sensible so-called substances, the sensible qualities and Quality per se, that is, an entity of the intelligible realm. Even the qualified sensible so-called substance would seem to belong to two different categories, substance and quality. Thus once again the problem whether or not one and the same entity can be placed in two different categories is to be faced. As we saw, Aristotle's position on this issue was that it is possible to classify one thing in two categories provided that each time we consider a different aspect of the item under consideration.58 Accordingly, a colored object, for example, qua object
belongs to the category of substance, though qua colored, i.e. qualified in a certain way, it belongs to the category of quality, more precisely to
qualia.
But Aristotle was concerned with this sensible world, while for all gen uine Platonists beyond the sensible realm (κόσμος αισθητός) which is quasi-real, there is the intelligible realm (κόσμος νοητός) which is really real. The relation between these two realms had been somehow problem atic since Plato's time. In this respect it is understandable that Plotinus found it necessary to emphasize the following point in closing this discussion:
PLOTINUS' CRITICISM OF ARISTOTLE'S CATEGORIES 1 1 5
But one must enquire here also if the qualities here and those in the intelligi ble world come under one genus: this is directed to those who posit qualities in the intelligible world as well: or even if someone does not grant that there are Forms, all the same when he speaks of intelligence, if he is speaking of a state, he certainly [implies that there is] something common to the state in the intelligible world and this one here: and it is agreed that there is wisdom. Now if the term ''wisdom*' is used of it equivocally in relation to the wisdom here below, it is clearly not counted among the things of this world: but if it is used univocally then the quale will be common to both worlds, unless someone says that all the things in the intelligible world belong to the category of substance: in which case being intelligent will be substance there too. But this is a general question about the other categories as well, whether there are two genera here and there, or whether both fall under one. (VI. 1. 12, 45-54)
It seems, then, that for Plotinus homonymy is involved in this category as was the case with the other previously discussed categories. How to keep together and in harmony the two spheres, the sphere of real Being and the sphere of mere becoming, and how to discourse about them meaningfully was a read problem for any pure Platonist, like Plotinus.
e. The Other Six Categories
The four cardinal categories in the Aristotelian list, with which we have dealt thus far, will be reconsidered by Plotinus in the third tract of the sixth Ennead. With some important qualifications and with the additional non-Aristotelian category of κίνησις they will be finally accepted by Plotinus as the set of categories which adequately accounts for the realm of becoming and numerically corresponds to the set of five highest genera of the realm of Being. As to the remaining six categories in Aristotle's list, it must be said that (1) they are severely criticized and rejected here in the first tract on the ground that they, like the others, are not authentic "genera;'' and (2) they are not reconsidered in the third tract because they are viewed by Plotinus as reducible to other basic categories, as we shall see in the next chapter. To the treatment of each of them Plotinus devotes a short chapter except for the pair of action and passion. These two are treated extensively because Plotinus tries to show that they can be subsumed under the new ''genus" of κίνησις.
In this connection it should be mentioned that Porphyry's extant Com
mentary on the Categories had little to say with regard to these six last
categories.59 Even Aristotle did not discuss these categories as extensively