SOURCE: "Aristotle's Theory of Categories," in Aristotle: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by J. M. E. Moravescik, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967, pp. 125-48.

In the following essay, Moravcsik examines the categories devised by Aristotle and offers an explanation regarding their role in Aristotle's theories. Moravcsik maintains that the nature of the list of categories demonstrates Aristotle's views regarding the structure of language and regarding the relationship between the structure of language and the structure of reality.

In several of his writings Aristotle presents what came to be known as a "list of categories." The presentation of a list, by itself, is not a philosophic theory. This paper attempts a few modest steps toward an understanding of the theory or theories in which the list of categories is embedded. To arrive at such understanding we shall have to deal with the following questions: What classes of expressions designate items...