Aristotle Categories Ch. 8 - Quality

Definition of Quality 

The definition given by Aristotle is: "By a quality I mean that in virtue of which things are said to be qualified somehow. But quality is one of the things spoken of in a number of ways." 

The word Aristotle uses for quality is "poiotes" or "poion". This is the key intrinsic category that contributes to making a thing what it is. 

Example 1 - States and Conditions 

"826. One kind of quality let us call states and conditions. A state differs from a condition in being more stable and lasting longer. Such are the branches of knowledge and the virtues. For knowledge seems to be something permanent and hard to change if one has even a moderate grasp of a branch of knowledge, unless a great change is brought about by illness or some other such thing. So also virtue; justice, temperance, and the rest seem to be not easily changed. It is what are easily changed and quickly changing that we call conditions, e.g. hotness and chill and sickness and health and the like. For a man is in a certain condition in virtue of these but he changes quickly from hot to cold and from being healthy to being sick. Similarly with the rest, unless indeed even one of these were eventually to become through length of time part of a man’s nature and irremediable or exceedingly hard to change— and then one would perhaps call this a state. It is obvious that by ‘a state’ people do mean what is more lasting and harder to change. For those who lack full mastery of a branch of knowledge and are easily changed are not said to be in a state of knowledge, though they are of course in some condition, a better or a worse, in regard to that knowledge. Thus a state differs from a condition in that the one is easily changed while the other lasts longer and is harder to change.  

g#10. States are also conditions but conditions are not necessarily states. For people in a state are, in virtue of this, also in some condition, but people in a condition are not in every case also in a state."

In another translation "state" is called habit, but in the Greek the word used is "hexis". Hexis is a quality which is more stable over time, as opposed to "condition" (also called disposition in another translation) which is a more unstable state that can come and go much faster than habit. In the Greek condition/disposition is "diathesis," from "diatithemi," which means to arrange or set something in order. Hence one can draw the connotation of something which is arranged temporarily only to be changed later, rather than something which is built and hardened in a particular way. 

The Key Insight - Substance Versus Quality 

Even though it is quality which most goes into us knowing what a thing is, quality (except in God) does not say that a thing is. And here is one of the most important concepts in all of logic. When people confuse substance and quality they make an error from which follows grave consequences. It may seem that the identity of a thing is simply the collection of its qualities, as quality is key to making a thing to be this type of thing. But to reduce the identity of something to its qualities leads to moral atrocities which are ubiquitous in the modern world. 

For example, to identify a human being solely by the amount of human qualities they possess at any given time can lead to people losing their personhood because of one reason or another. Like in the case of euthanasia, many might advocate that those who lose their "quality of life" ought to end their lives, as if their identity was totally tied to something like their memory and now they have dementia. There are countless other examples one could go into. 

So what is the distinction between substance and quality if qualities are that which tells us what type of substance we are dealing with? The difference is that substances exist on their own naturally as unified wholes, while no accident can do this. Human beings exist, "rationality" or "memory" will never be found on their own, but only in a human being. And so substance has a coherent existence that quality does not, and thus the identity of a thing comes from this coherent actual existence, not just the individual parts that make it up.

Example 2 - Natural Capacity and Incapacity 

"9714. Another kind of quality is that in virtue of which we call people boxers or runners or healthy or sickly— anything, in short, which they are called in virtue of a natural capacity or incapacity. For it is not because one is in some condition that one is called anything of this sort, but because one has a natural capacity for doing something easily or for being unaffected. For example, people are called boxers or runners not because they are in some condition but because they have a natural capacity to do something easily; they are called healthy because they have a natural capacity not to be affected easily by what befalls them, and sickly because they have an incapacity to be unaffected. Similarly with the hard and the soft: the hard is so called because it has a capacity not to be divided easily, the soft because it has an incapacity for this same thing."

A second example of quality Aristotle gives is that of natural abilities. Here one could also think of other natural abilities, as for man, rationality. The main point is that these qualities are not based on situations or acquired through habit, but natural faculties of abilities that are present in the nature of the type of thing that the subject it. 

Example 3 - Affective Qualities and Affections 

"9*28. A third kind of quality consists of affective qualities and affections. Examples of such are sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and all their kin, and also hotness and coldness and paleness and darkness. That these are qualities is obvious, for things that possess them are said to be qualified in virtue of them. Thus honey because it possesses sweetness is called sweet, and a body pale because it possesses paleness, and similarly with the others. They are called affective qualities not because the things that possess them have themselves been affected somehow— for honey is not called sweet because it has been affected somehow nor is any other such thing. Similarly, hotness and coldness are not called affective qualities because the things that possess them have themselves been affected somehow, but it is because each of the qualities mentioned is productive of an affection of the senses that they are called affective qualities. For sweetness produces a certain affection of taste, hotness one of touch, and the rest likewise." 

The third example of quality that Aristotle gives is that of affective qualities and their affections. In so many words this is the reality present in a thing which conveys some being to another thing it comes into contact with. The possession of an affective quality would be something akin to the causal power of a thing, such as the example here of honey being sweet. The affections would be the effect caused in another, such as sweetness caused in the person eating the honey. 

Difference Between Quality and Passion

"g>g. Paleness and darkness, however, and other colourings are not called affective qualities in the same way as these just mentioned, but because they themselves have been brought about by an affection. That many changes of colour do come about through an affection is clear; when ashamed one goes red, when frightened one turns pale, and so on. And so if somebody suffers by nature from some such affection it is reasonable that he should have the corresponding colouring. For the very same bodily condition which occurs now when one is ashamed might occur also in virtue of a man’s natural make-up, so that the corresponding colouring too would come about by nature. 

gb1g. When such circumstances have their origin in affections that are hard to change and permanent they are called qualities. For if pallor or darkness have come about in the natural make-up they are called qualities (for in virtue of them we are said to be qualified) ; and if pallor or darkness have resulted from long illness or from sunburn, and do not easily give way—or even last for a lifetime—these too are called qualities (since, as before, in virtue of them we are said to be qualified). But those that result from something that easily disperses and quickly gives way are called affections; for people are not, in virtue of them, said to be qualified somehow. Thus a man who reddens through shame is not called ruddy, nor one who pales in fright pallid; rather he is said to have been affected somehow. Hence such things are called affections but not qualities. 

9°33. Similarly with regard to the soul also we speak of affective qualities and affections. Those which are present right from birth as a result of certain affections are called qualities, for example, madness and irascibility and the like; for in virtue of these people are said to be qualified, being called mad and irascible. Similarly with any aberrations that are not natural but result from some other circumstances, and are hard to get rid of or even completely unchangeable; such things, too, are qualities, for in virtue of them people are said to be qualified. But those which result from things that quickly subside are called affections, e.g. if a man in distress is rather bad tempered; for the man who in such an affection is rather bad-tempered is not said to be bad-tempered, but rather he is said to have been affected somehow. Hence such things are called affections but not qualities."  

Now the affections that are received from affective qualities present in things, if they something that is received and passes away in a quick fashion, more properly would be considered under the category of passion than of quality. If they are more permanent then they could fall under state or condition, but something that passes away so quickly as a received affection (for example the taste of sweetness on the tongue) is more properly considered something happening to one in that particular moment. 

Similarly too the example Aristotle gives of someone who has a temperament of being angry versus someone who becomes angry temporarily in a very stressful situation. 

Example 4 - Shape and the External Form of Each Thing 

"10411. A fourth kind of quality is shape and the external form of each thing, and in addition straightness and curvedness and anything like these. For in virtue of each of these a thing is said to be qualified somehow; because it is a triangle or square it is said to be qualified somehow, and because it is straight or curved. And in virtue of its form each thing is said to be qualified somehow. 

10416. “Open-textured’ and ‘close-textured’ and ‘rough’ and ‘smooth’ might be thought to signify a qualification; they seem, however, to be foreign to the classification of qualifications. It seems rather to be a certain position of the parts that each of them reveals. For a thing is close textured because its parts are close together, open-textured because they are separated from one another; smooth because its parts lie somehow on a straight line, rough because some stick up above others. 

10425. Perhaps some other manner of quality might come to light, but we have made a pretty complete list of those most spoken of." 

A fourth example of quality has to do with shape. Now this seems to be referring to shape in a more permanent sense and shape in a more temporary sense. An example could be the more permanent shape of "the human form" or "the female form", but also in a more temporary sense of someone having a more round shape or a more straight shape for one reason or another, like obesity. 

Paronymous use of Quality 

"1027. These, then, that we have mentioned are qualities, while things called paronymously because of these or called in some other way from them are qualified. Now in most cases, indeed in practically all, things are called paronymously, as the pale man from paleness, the grammatical from grammar, the just from justice, and so on. But in some cases, because there are no names for the qualities, it is impossible for things to be called paronymously from them. For example, the runner or the boxer, so called in virtue of a natural capacity, is not called paronymously from any quality; for there are no names for the capacities in virtue of which these men are said to be qualified—as there are for the branches of knowledge in virtue of which men are called boxers or wrestlers with reference to their condition (for we speak of boxing and of wrestling as branches of knowledge, and it is paronymously from them that those in the condition are said to be qualified). Sometimes, however, even when there is a name for a quality, that which is said to be qualified in virtue of it is not so called paronymously. For example, the good man is so called from virtue, since it is because he has virtue that he is called good; but he is not called paronymously from virtue. This sort of case is, however, rare. Things then that are called paronymously from the qualities we mentioned, or called from them in some other way, are said to be qualified."

Aristotle makes the point here that we often call someone by a quality even though that is, properly speaking, not their substance. And so we say that we use quality paronymously to talk about a subject. 

Contrariety 

"10612. There is contrariety in regard to qualification. For example, justice is contrary to injustice and whiteness to blackness, and so on; also things said to be qualified in virtue of them—the unjust to the just and the white to the black. But this is not so in all cases; for there is no contrary to red or yellow or such colours though they are qualifications. 

10°17. Further, if one of a pair of contraries is a qualification, the other too will be a qualification. This is clear if one examines the other predicates. For example, if justice is contrary to injustice and justice is a qualification, then injustice too is a qualification. For none of the other predicates fits injustice, neither quantity nor relative nor where nor in fact any other such predicate except qualification. Similarly with the other contraries that involve qualification."

Here Aristotle point out that qualities can have opposites, though not all qualities do. This also means that the opposite of a quality is itself a quality. 

Admitting of More and Less

"10°26. Qualifications admit of a more and a less; for one thing is called more pale or less pale than another, and more just than another. Moreover, it itself sustains increase (for what is pale can still become paler)—not in all cases though, but in most. It might be questioned whether one justice 1s called more a justice than another, and similarly for the other conditions. For some people dispute about such cases. They utterly deny that one justice is called more or less a justice than another, or one health more or less a health, though they say that one person has health less than another, justice less than another, and similarly with grammar and the other conditions. At any rate things spoken of in virtue of these unquestionably admit of a more and a less: one man is called more grammatical than another, juster, healthier, and so on.  

1145. Triangle and square do not seem to admit of a more, nor does any other shape. For things which admit the definition of triangle or circle are all equally triangles or circles, while of things which do not admit it none will be called more that than another—-a square is not more a circle than an oblong is, for neither admits the definition of circle. In short, unless both admit the definition of what is under discussion neither will be called more that than the other. Thus not all qualifications admit of a more and a less.  

11415. Nothing so far mentioned is distinctive of quality, but it is in virtue of qualities only that things are called similar and dissimilar; a thing is not similar to another in virtue of anything but that in virtue of which it is qualified. So it would be distinctive of quality that a thing is called similar or dissimilar in virtue of it."  

Some qualities also admit of more and a less, but not all. This will have to be distinct, though, from relatives because while relatives depend on their opposites to be what they are, qualities do not. It is possible to have one without the other. And so they admit or more or less in relation to some objective standard. 

When it comes to calling something similar and dissimilar, though, this is solely in reference to some quality. 

Difference Between Qualities and Relatives 

"11420. We should not be disturbed lest someone may say that though we proposed to discuss quality we are counting in many relatives (since states and conditions are relatives). For in pretty well all such cases the genera are spoken of in relation to something, but none of the particular cases is. For knowledge, a genus, is called just what it is, of something else (it is called knowledge of something); but none of the particular cases is called just what it is, of something else. For example, grammar is not called grammar of something nor music music of something. If at all it is in virtue of the genus that these too are spoken of in relation to something: grammar is called knowledge of something (not grammar of something) and music knowledge of something (not music of something). Thus the particular cases are not relatives. But it is with the particular cases that we are said to be qualified, for it is these which we possess (it is because we have some particular knowledge that we are called knowledgeable). Hence these—the particular cases, in virtue of which we are on occasion said to be qualified—would indeed be qualities; and these are not relatives. 

11437. Moreover, if the same thing really is a qualification and a relative there is nothing absurd in its being counted in both the genera."  

Another reason why qualities are different from relatives is that in their particular instantiations in subjects the qualities are not only existing in relation to something else. While in the abstract they may seem to require some relation to another.