Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Posterior Analytics

Translated by G. R. G. Mure

Book II

Chapter 1

The kinds of question we ask are as many as the kinds of things which we know. They are in fact four: – (1) whether the connexion of an attribute with a thing is a fact, (2) what is the reason of the connexion, (3) whether a thing exists, (4) what is the nature of the thing. Thus, when our question concerns a complex of thing and attribute and we ask whether the thing is thus or otherwise qualified – whether, e.g. the sun suffers eclipse or not – then we are asking as to the fact of a connexion. That our inquiry ceases with the discovery that the sun does suffer eclipse is an indication of this; and if we know from the start that the sun suffers eclipse, we do not inquire whether it does so or not. On the other hand, when we know the fact we ask the reason; as, for example, when we know that the sun is being eclipsed and that an earthquake is in progress, it is the reason of eclipse or earthquake into which we inquire.

Where a complex is concerned, then, those are the two questions we ask; but for some objects of inquiry we have a different kind of question to ask, such as whether there is or is not a centaur or a God. (By ‘is or is not’ I mean ‘is or is not, without further qualification’; as opposed to ‘is or is not [e.g.] white’.) On the other hand, when we have ascertained the thing’s existence, we inquire as to its nature, asking, for instance, ‘what, then, is God?’ or ‘what is man?’.

Book I Chapter 34

Book II Chapter 2