In this chapter, Aristotle speaks of the primary substance being a composite of predicates, the essences of which are apparent of the subject, and while each can be affirmed of the substance individually, they retain their distinction essentially; and, while the particulars are accidental to the substance itself, they are, like the predicates, distinct from other particulars, and not accidental to each other.
What is the implication here? It seems that we keep returning to what was taught in the Categories, that nothing holds, or makes any sense without the primary substance. I think Aristotle is implying that if we are talking of essential things, then we are merely defining the subject in question, but if we are talking of particular things, then we are describing that same subject in motion. None of the particulars seem to make any sense without the subject, and certainly truth cannot be found without the noun. Likewise, none of the essentials seem to make sense without a subject either. I tried to abstract and imagine these predicates, and particulars, detached from the primary substance, and simply could not do it. My intellect is unable to see the genus animal without thinking of a species within it; and, I cannot imagine an attribute, like running, being removed from some kind of substance to animate the action. Inductively starting from the particulars leads to infinite possibilities, and deductively starting from the predicates leads to an indefinite mess of forms that are not distinct.
My mind is seeing the substance as a kind of hinge, or convergence point where the defining predicates, and describing particulars, seem to exist instantaneously as the substance does:
They don’t seem to flow into, or flow out from the substance. What is generated, or corrupted of the substance seems to existentially, and directly, effect both predicates and particulars. As we speak of these things, I reason that interpreting what is apparent of what we speak of, is knowing rightly what can be said of it, or about it.
E.g. “What is this animal? A Tiger. Where is it? In the wild. Doing what? Hunting for prey. When did you see it? Yesterday. So, now we have something to ascertain the truth of viz. ‘yesterday, we saw a tiger in the wild, hunting for prey’. If you subvert the tiger, then ‘yesterday’, ‘wild’, ‘hunting for prey’ are no longer apparent and subverted.
EAR