Kitap 7
1
The question arises: If one denies that a formula involving an added determinant is a definition, how can there be a definition of terms which are not simple but coupled? Because they can only be explained by adding a determinant.
2
I mean, e.g., there is nose and concavity and snubness, the term compounded of the two, because the one is present in the other. Neither concavity nor snubness is an accidental, but a per se affection of the nose.Snubness is a per se affection of the nose, because it applies only to the nose and cannot be explained apart from it, but the same can hardly be said of concavity. Aristotle himself uses the word (κοιλότης) elsewhere in other connections. Nor are they attributes in the sense that white is of Callias or a man, because Callias is white and is by accident a man; but in the sense that male is an attribute of animal, and equality of quantity, and all other attributes which we say belong per se.
3
That is, all things which involve the formula or name of the subject of the affection, and cannot be explained apart from it. Thus white can be explained apart from man, but not female apart from animal. Thus either these terms have no essence or definition, or else they have it in a different sense, as we have said.
4
But there is also another difficulty about them. If snub nose is the same as concave nose, snub will be the same as concave. But if not, since it is impossible to speak of snub apart from the thing of which it is a per se affection (because snub means a concavity in the nose), either it is impossible to call the nose snub, or it will be a tautology, concave-nose nose because snub nose will equal concave-nose nose.
