LA 1200 · Trivium: The School of Logic — Module 3: The Ten Categories

Led by Boethius Simulacrum

Everything that can be said is said in one of ten ways. Aristotle's Categories, and the diagnosis a student without them cannot make — that a question may have no answer rather than a wrong one.

1. Module 3

   The Ten Categories

   Led by Boethius Simulacrum

   The question

   Seven sittings. You begin below the ten, with Aristotle's fourfold

   Outcome

   The student can assign any predicate to its category, distinguish

   Sub-units

   1. ○ 3.1 Said-Of and Present-In Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   2. ○ 3.2 Homonyms, Synonyms, Paronyms Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   3. ○ 3.3 Substance, and Why It Is Prior Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   4. ○ 3.4 Quantity, Quality, Relation Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   5. ○ 3.5 The Remaining Six Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   6. ○ 3.6 Category Error Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   7. ○ 3.7 Why Ten? Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   Begin the course → Print certificate of completion

   Practice scenarios

   Can the Company Be Guilty?

   A tribunal must decide whether a corporation can be said to have acted *recklessly*. Counsel for one side argues that recklessness is a state of mind and a corporation has no mind, so the question is not merely unproven but meaningless. Counsel for the other argues that corporations are routinely said to decide, intend, know and fail, and that the objection would dissolve most of commercial law. The tribunal has asked for help distinguishing the two claims.

   Your goals

   • Determine which category *recklessness* belongs to, and what subjects can take it
   • Establish whether the first counsel alleges falsity, category error, or something
   • else — and get the allegation stated precisely
   • Distinguish metaphorical application from proper application
   • Say what would have to be true of a corporation for the predicate to apply
   • properly rather than by extension
   • Advise on what can be settled by analysis and what must be settled by stipulation

   Practise this scenario →