Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

232 THE SEARCH FOR PRIMARY BEINGThis may be just how <strong>Aristotle</strong> proceeds. He begins (in V. 8) by arguingthat we need to distinguish two senses of the term ousia: ousia in the senseof ‘the ultimate subject of predication’ and ousia in the sense of ‘essence’.But he goes on (in book VII) to argue that if something is an ousia (aprimary being) in the sense of an ultimate subject of predication, then it(the very same thing) must also be an ousia (a primary being) in the senseof an essence, and conversely.It may certainly be true that if two senses of a term, n, are whollyunrelated, or if they are related in a particular way, namely, as a primarysense and a non-primary sense, then what is strictly one and the samething cannot at once satisfy both senses. For example, one and the samething cannot be both a river bank and a financial bank; for these twosenses of the term ‘bank’ are wholly unrelated. Or, one and the same thing(e.g. an apple) cannot, in the same respect, be both healthy in the sense of‘conducive to the health of the organism that eats it’ and healthy in the senseof ‘a healthy organism’. Of course, the apple that is conducive to the healthof the organism that eats it may itself be a healthy organism. The point isthat its being conducive to the health of the organism that eats it and itsbeing itself a healthy organism will be different properties of the apple or willdepend on different properties of the apple. In general, it certainly appearstrue to say that if a term, n, has both a primary and a non-primary sense,then what is strictly one and the same thing cannot at once satisfy bothsenses.But what is noteworthy is that neither of these conditions, i.e. conditionsfor arguing that if a term, n, has two different senses, then what is strictlyone and the same thing cannot at once satisfy both senses, applies to<strong>Aristotle</strong>’s two senses of ousia. Evidently the two senses of ousia are notwholly unrelated. But just as evidently, they are not a primary sense and anon-primary sense; on the contrary, they are both senses of primary being—ousia. But then the fact that <strong>Aristotle</strong> distinguishes two senses of ousiagoes no way towards showing that he thinks that it is not strictly one andthe same thing that is ousia in both senses, i.e. that it is not strictly one andthe same thing that is both an essence and an ultimate subject ofpredication.viPrimary being is changeless being (VII. 7–9)<strong>Aristotle</strong>’s main aim here (in VII. 7–9) is to argue that the form of achanging, material thing (e.g. Socrates) is itself changeless, and inparticular it is not subject to generation and destruction. So a changing,