ABSTRACT
In “Aristotle’s Categories and the Nature of Categorial Theory,” Abraham Edel advances a bold hypothesis for interpreting Aristotle’s brief exposition of the categories. Edel’s treatment of Aristotle also takes the naturalistic conspectus. But there is a further point of scholarly lineage to be noted. Woodbridge had a remarkably acute sense of the formative role that certain terms, locutions, and uses of language play in Aristotle’s way of directing questions and reaching conclusions. The nature and function of the network of primary and subsidiary concepts in its relevance and application to the various writings and inquiries undertaken by Aristotle is the main object of Edel’s study. In all this he is sensitive to the philosophic distance and intervening currents of thought and historical tradition that situates to negate the distance and understand Aristotle directly.
