Book 14
6
However, (i) in the first place, if being has several meanings (for sometimes it means substance, sometimes quality, sometimes quantity, and so on with the other categories), what sort of unity will all the things that are constitute, if not-being is not to be? Will it be the substances that are one, or the affections (and similarly with the other categories), or all the categories together? in which case the this and the such and the so great, and all the other categories which denote some sense of Being, will be one.
7
But it is absurd, or rather impossible, that the introduction of one thing should account for the fact that what is sometimes means so-and-so, sometimes such-and-such, sometimes of such-and-such a size, sometimes in such-and-such a place.
8
(2) Of what sort of not-being and Being do real things consist? Not-being, too, has several senses, inasmuch as Being has; and not-man means not so-and-so, whereas not straight means not such-and-such, and not five feet long means not of such-and-such a size. What sort of Being and not-being, then, make existing things a plurality?
9
This thinker means by the not-being which together with Being makes existing things a plurality, falsity and everything of this naturePlat. Soph. 237a, 240; but Aristotle’s statement assumes too much.; and for this reason also it was saidPresumably by some Platonist. that we must assume something which is false, just as geometricians assume that a line is a foot long when it is not.
