Kitap 5
4
(c) Any attribute which a thing has received directly in itself or in any of its parts; e.g., the surface is white in virtue of itself; and man lives in virtue of himself, because the soul is a part of the man, and life is directly contained in it. (d) That which has no other cause. Man has many causes: animal, twofooted, etc.; but nevertheless man is in virtue of himself man. (e) All things which belong to a thing alone and qua alone; and hence that which is separate is in virtue of itself. This seems to be a slightly irrelevant reference to καθ’ ἁυτό in the sense of independent; but corruption in the text has made the true reading uncertain.
1
Disposition means arrangement of that which has parts, either in space or in potentiality or in form. It must be a kind of position, as indeed is clear from the word, disposition.
1
Havingἕξις means not only having but habit or state. Cf. Latin, habitus. means (a) In one sense an activity, as it were, of the haver and the thing had, or as in the case of an action or motion; for when one thing makes and another is made, there is between them an act of making. In this way between the man who has a garment and the garment which is had, there is a having. Clearly, then, it is impossible to have a having in this sense; for there will be an infinite series if we can have the having of what we have.
2
But (b) there is another sense of having which means a disposition, in virtue of which the thing which is disposed is disposed well or badly, and either independently or in relation to something else. E.g., health is a state, since it is a disposition of the kind described. Further, any part of such a disposition is called a state; and hence the excellence of the parts is a kind of state.
