But except as an exercise in subtle distinction for its own sake, all that falls to be said about the Predicables might be given as a simple appendix to the chapter on Definition.
It is sometimes said that Aristotle showed a more scientific mind than Porphyry in making the Predicables four instead of five.
That is to say he describes them as Predicables simply by contradistinction from Singular names.
The reader may be referred to Mansel's Notes A and C for valuable historical notices of the Predicables and Definition.
But, in truth, the five so-called Predicables were never meant as a division of predicates in relation to the subject: it is only the title that makes this misleading suggestion.
Let it be allowed me to call these pure, but deduced conceptions of the understanding, the predicables of the pure understanding, in contradistinction to predicaments.
Moreover, each of the four Predicables must fall under one or other of the ten Categories or Predicaments.
The Heads of Predicables are a classification of the various things which can be stated of a subject, viewed in their relation to it.
Thus Aristotle's four heads of predicables may be split up, if we please, into nine-- 1.
We have seen already, in treating of the Heads of Predicables (ยง 325), that the difference between genus and difference on the one hand and property on the other is wholly relative to some assumed definition.
Species, in its now accepted meaning, signifies the relation of a smaller class to a larger one: as it was originally intended in the heads of predicables it signifies a class in reference to individuals.
To which of the heads of predicableswould you refer the following statements?
The heads of predicables are commonly reckoned as five, namely, (1) Genus.
It is sometimes treated under the first part of logic, as though the heads of predicables were a classification of universal notions, i.
The list of heads of predicables which we have been discussing is not derived from Aristotle, but from the 'Introduction' of Porphyry, a Greek commentator who lived more than six centuries later.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "predicables" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
