Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE DEFENCE OF PNC 149contradictions. What is intended to disturb the disputant is rather thatdenying PNC commits them to the impossibility of thought and languageabout things. The disputant cannot seriously accept this commitment, anymore than they can seriously think of themselves as being as mindless anddumb as a vegetable.The first premise (P1 ‘PNC is not true of things if, and only if, thingsare indeterminate’) we have already considered at some length (see §6 of thischapter). We will return to it later (§§8–9 of this chapter) and inChapter 6.The second premise (P2) says that ‘If things are indeterminate, then it isimpossible to think and speak about things’. This central premise meansthat if we are to think and speak about things at all, things must bedeterminate. Thus <strong>Aristotle</strong> says:For not to signify one thing [hen, a unitary thing, a determinatething] amounts to not signifying anything at all.(1006 b 7)In other words, to signify something at all, i.e. to think and speak aboutsomething at all, we must signify one thing as opposed to another: wemust signify something determinate. But what does <strong>Aristotle</strong> mean whenhe says that if we are to think and speak about something at all, then wemust think and speak of it as something determinate? He means that wemust think and speak of it as being, simply in virtue of being the verything it is, F as opposed to not-F. For example, to think that clouds aresomething determinate is to think that a cloud, simply in virtue of beingthe very thing it is, namely, a cloud, is condensed vaporous water, asopposed to something else. Or, in <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s example, to think that ahuman being is something determinate is to think that a human being,simply in virtue of being the very thing it is, namely, a human being, is atwo-footed animal, as opposed to something else (see 1006 a 31–34 and b 13–14; we may note that the content of the particular example does notappear to matter to him, for he hardly thinks that this, a two-footed animal,is what a human being essentially is). This is also what he means when hesays that to think and speak of something is to think and speak ofsomething as having an essence (see 1006 b 32–34); for in general when hesays that the essence (to ti ēn einai) of a thing, x, is F, he means that thething, x, is, simply in virtue of being the very thing it is, F. (We willconsider his conception of essence in a moment; see §8 of this chapter.)If we ask why <strong>Aristotle</strong> thinks that to think and speak about somethingis to think and speak about something determinate, the reason is,