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The Discovery of Things
Aristotle's Categories can easily seem to be a statement of a naïve, pre-philosophical ontology, centered around ordinary items. Wolfgang-Rainer Mann argues that the treatise, in fact, presents a revolutionary metaphysical picture, one Aristotle arrives at by (implicitly) criticizing Plato and Plato's strange counterparts, the "Late-Learners" of the Sophist. As Mann shows, the Categories reflects Aristotle's discovery that ordinary items are things (objects with properties). Put most starkly, Mann contends that there were no things before Aristotle.
The author's argument consists of two main elements. First, a careful investigation of Plato which aims to make sense of the odd-sounding suggestion that things do not show up as things in his ontology. Secondly, an exposition of the theoretical apparatus Aristotle introduces in the Categories --an exposition which shows how Plato's and the Late-Learners' metaphysical pictures cannot help but seem inadequate in light of that apparatus. In doing so, Mann reveals that Aristotle's conception of things--now so engrained in Western thought as to seem a natural expression of common sense--was really a hard-won philosophical achievement.
Clear, subtle, and rigorously argued, The Discovery of Things will reshape our understanding of some of Aristotle's--and Plato's--most basic ideas.
The author's argument consists of two main elements. First, a careful investigation of Plato which aims to make sense of the odd-sounding suggestion that things do not show up as things in his ontology. Secondly, an exposition of the theoretical apparatus Aristotle introduces in the Categories --an exposition which shows how Plato's and the Late-Learners' metaphysical pictures cannot help but seem inadequate in light of that apparatus. In doing so, Mann reveals that Aristotle's conception of things--now so engrained in Western thought as to seem a natural expression of common sense--was really a hard-won philosophical achievement.
Clear, subtle, and rigorously argued, The Discovery of Things will reshape our understanding of some of Aristotle's--and Plato's--most basic ideas.
- GenresPhilosophy
224 pages, Hardcover
First published February 22, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 23, 2019
This work is most likely not intended for readers like me but reading it challenged, intrigued, and in the end rewarded me. What we often assume is obvious, is not obvious. This is fundamental reading beyond but not entirely beyond my keen. Why not that human beings came for find objects? The theory deserves attention and followup.
January 30, 2026
Wolfgang-Rainer Mann has a controversial thesis in his book: Aristotle discovered things. Heidegger has a famous saying where he basically says that we have forgotten the struggle of the beginning and take it for granted. Mann takes that idea and applies to ancient philosophy. Radical as the thesis is, Mann's position is pretty simple: Plato had much more in common in the Pre-Socratics (Anaximander especially) and Aristotle was the first to articulate "things" in the real sense.
To distill a very complex idea, Mann argues that Plato focused on beings and participants. This is mirrored in Plato's focus on being and becoming. What we would call a thing, x in this case, it is for Plato a participant in being (the famous Forms.) What that means for us, however, is that strictly speaking x is not a thing but rather a collection of participations. Participants of Forms do not have natures in the way we think of them as having. Mann goes from the middle dialogues to explicate this and goes on to show that Plato adjusted his system in the later dialogues (to an extent.)
So, while the subtitle is "Aristotle's Categories & Their Context" the book is truly a commentary on Platonic ontology. Of course, we get a lot of Aristotle but most of the text is dedicated to unveiling the Platonic system. Mann argues that the categories is the first robust defense of things as such. Here Mann doesn't have to be as novel as the critiques Aristotle levels at Plato are the same (roughly speaking) as they've always been. What has changed, however, is the context and depth of Aristotle's movement away from becoming to being.
Mann writes well and his position is very strong. It's not surprising that people haven't come up with this before as Aristotle has so dominated the philosophical scene that we even read his predecessors under his light. As Mann says: "we can no longer embrace the metaphysical picture of the presocratic. This is not because they are false... given the subsequent history of metaphysics, we either simply project later view onto the presocratic, or we need to recover what they were trying to say." At the start of the text, Mann rags on Heidegger yet it's humorous because this is precisely the mission of the later Heidegger. Regardless, this is a wonderful book if not exactly what the title promises. An exceptional read and one well worth coming back to.
To distill a very complex idea, Mann argues that Plato focused on beings and participants. This is mirrored in Plato's focus on being and becoming. What we would call a thing, x in this case, it is for Plato a participant in being (the famous Forms.) What that means for us, however, is that strictly speaking x is not a thing but rather a collection of participations. Participants of Forms do not have natures in the way we think of them as having. Mann goes from the middle dialogues to explicate this and goes on to show that Plato adjusted his system in the later dialogues (to an extent.)
So, while the subtitle is "Aristotle's Categories & Their Context" the book is truly a commentary on Platonic ontology. Of course, we get a lot of Aristotle but most of the text is dedicated to unveiling the Platonic system. Mann argues that the categories is the first robust defense of things as such. Here Mann doesn't have to be as novel as the critiques Aristotle levels at Plato are the same (roughly speaking) as they've always been. What has changed, however, is the context and depth of Aristotle's movement away from becoming to being.
Mann writes well and his position is very strong. It's not surprising that people haven't come up with this before as Aristotle has so dominated the philosophical scene that we even read his predecessors under his light. As Mann says: "we can no longer embrace the metaphysical picture of the presocratic. This is not because they are false... given the subsequent history of metaphysics, we either simply project later view onto the presocratic, or we need to recover what they were trying to say." At the start of the text, Mann rags on Heidegger yet it's humorous because this is precisely the mission of the later Heidegger. Regardless, this is a wonderful book if not exactly what the title promises. An exceptional read and one well worth coming back to.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews