Kitap 4
16
If this is not so, who is it who in will investigate whether Socrates and Socrates seated are the same thing; or whether one thing has one contrary, or what the contrary is, or how many meanings it has?Cf. Aristot. Met. 10.4. and similarly with all other such questions.
17
Thus since these are the essential modifications of Unity qua Unity and of Being qua Being, and not qua numbers or lines or fire, clearly it a pertains to that sciencei.e., Philosophy or Metaphysics. to discover both the essence and the attributes of these concepts.
18
And those who investigate them err, not in being unphilosophical, but because the substance, of which they have no real knowledge, is prior. For just as number qua number has its peculiar modifications, e.g. oddness and evenness, commensurability and equality, excess and defect, and these things are inherent in numbers both considered independently and in relation to other numbers; and as similarly other peculiar modifications are inherent in the solid and the immovable and the moving and the weightless and that which has weight; so Being qua Being has certain peculiar modifications, and it is about these that it is the philosopher’s function to discover the truth. And here is evidence of this fact.
