The Practice of ὀνοματοποιεῖν : Some Peculiar Statements in the Ancient Neoplatonic Commentators on Aristotle

By ὀνοματοποιεῖν we usually mean the practice of impositio, which is required when sciences and arts lack specific names for phenomena they are examining. Of course, this is a practice different from the natural impositio, which came about through the organizing of individual human beings into social groups: a common language was undoubtedly essential for building any kind of relationship.1 The verb ὀνοματοποιεῖν itself means

creating a new name from a model and that is why this practice belong to arts like grammar and linguistics, dispositions towards production and innovation. The easiest application of ὀνοματοποιεῖν is to be found in poetry: by their very nature, poets capture the undefined and give it a recognisable image. 2 Aristotle refers to this practice in Rhetoric III 2, 1405a35-37, while exemplifying the metaphor. Sometimes we use metaphor to name nameless things, in order to indicate immediately what we have in mind. 3 There is a riddle that goes: «I saw a man gluing bronze with fire to another man's body». 4 In this statement 'gluing' is used as a metaphor to mean a particular nameless process, the application of cupping-glasses (ἡ τῆς σικύας προσβολή -1405b3), an ancient medical treatment. 5 The verb κολλήσαντα in the riddle metaphorically means the sticking of the bronze glass to the body. Here Aristotle advises us to choose a name for what is nameless from akin and similar things in order to be as clear as possible. As already noted, the metaphorical ὀνοματοποιεῖν is the easiest, because it occurs in poetry, where the poetic translation of meaning is allowed. 6 In science and arts, metaphor, as a homonymy, is dangerous and discouraged since it often causes fallacies. 7 Hence, when sciences discover new elements and perspectives on reality that need to be named, ὀνοματοποιεῖν must be used carefully 8 and literally means the creation of a brand new name, signifying a brand new thing, through a brand new thought: in a word, it is a technical impositio. Aristotle was the first philosopher to codify this practice, because his conceptual system was much more complex than his predecessors' ones. 9 In Aristotle, this practice was twofold: on the one hand, ὀνοματοποιεῖν was meant to re-semanticize words well-known in IV century BC Greek, so as to lend them a new meaning and role in philosophy; on the other hand, it was meant to create ex novo a name for something that hadn't been discovered or studied yet.
The first case is illustrated, for example, by the name κατηγορία: well before Aristotle, 10 this term in ancient Greek had entered the legal language, where it meant the charge brought against a defendant, as opposed to ἀπολογία, the speech by which the latter defended himself. The legal origin of that name is studied with great care by Richard Bodéüs. 11 When examining the most general genres, those only said-of, Aristotle had to find a name to signify them; and instead of coining one ex novo, he chose to re-semanticize the name κατηγορία (and the verb κατηγορέω). 12 Aristotle's reasoning is, in my opinion, the following: the act of bringing a charge against someone in court simply consists in attributing a crime to a person (the defendant); Aristotle extends the meaning of these σήματα beyond the legal field, so that κατηγορεῖν comes to mean giving any property to the subject and the passive form, κατηγορεῖσθαι, means that these properties are predicated of the subject. All predicates, then, are by definition κατηγορίαι inasmuch as they are said of subjects. 13 The second case is rarer in Aristotle's corpus, but highly revealing. Here ὀνοματοποιεῖν truly shows its potential, becoming essential for arts and sciences, which discover new subjects of study and have to name them to clarify the study itself. John Philoponus, a Neoplatonic commentator on Aristotle's logics and physics, persuasively explains this practice  <human> convention imposes names on those things it knows, but because by their nature they discover new things, arts are obliged to impose names in relation to their significance on the things discovered by them, as in the case of the geometer discovering that one of the triangles has two equal sides, one three equal sides and one three unequal sides, called them isopleurus, isosceles and scalene 14 and likewise the musician imposed names on different sounds and called one chromatic, another diatonic and in every other way <in which sounds are called>.
That's what happens sometimes to philosophers themselves. Aristotle needs ὀνοματοποιεῖν in EN II 7, 1108a16-19 to name the praiseworthy and virtuous dispositions to choose the right medium between two extremes. Most of these medietates are unnamed and the philosopher has to give them a name for the sake of clarity: towards the truth, the extremes will be boastfulness and irony, while the medium is truthfulness (1108a19-23). 15 Concerning the distinction between dialectical προβλήματα and θέσεις in Top. I 11, 104b36-105a2, Aristotle justifies this distinction as part of his noble search for difference and not as something established for the sake of ὀνοματοποιεῖν, which amounts to a rhetorical abuse, if it is not justified. Later in the Topics (VIII 2, 157a18-33), Aristotle acknowledges how difficult it is to talk with most people, who proceed only by induction. Therefore, most people have an imprecise awareness of universals, mainly because observing the similarities 'in the many' in such a way as to draw the universal from them is not a method suitable for all. So, the philosopher must attempt to name (157a29-30) universals in order to avoid misunderstanding and cheating. Nevertheless, it is in the Categories that this practice acquires a leading role, expressis verbis in Cat. 7, the chapter about relatives and, on closer examination, in other chapters where Aristotle discusses the opposites and quality. I therefore wish to analyse these texts and, in order to show how and when ὀνοματοποιεῖν is appropriate, I will draw upon the Greek commentaries on Aristotle's Categories, and specifically Philoponus' one.

2.
Let us set out from the explicit text of Cat. 7: in order to establish the reciprocation of relatives -the correct relation between two πράγματα which, according to the first definition of relatives (Arist. Cat. 7, 6a36-37), are said of each other -the philosopher sometimes may need to create and impose a new name that is properly given to one of the two terms in a relation. Aristotle's example is clear: rudder isn't said rudder of boat, since not every boat has a rudder and hence there's no reciprocation; imposing a new name (because there's no name yet) to every boat with a rudder allows us to give the name properly (οἰκείως ἀποδιδόναι -Cat. 7, 7a14): ruddered is said of rudder and, in reciprocation, rudder is said of ruddered (Cat. 7, 7a5-15). Aristotle briefly comes back to this argument (Cat. 7,: if the name of a correlative already exists, it's easy to properly establish the relation and ensure reciprocity between the two terms, whereas, if there's no name, it may be necessary to impose a new name. In relation to the aforementioned text 2), Philoponus notes the two kinds of impositio: the one based on the original human convention and the scientific and technical one. The most important thing to note, however, is the doubt Philoponus raises against Aristotle: This objection is actually invalidated by Aristotle's own words: sometimes human convention hasn't imposed names and it's the duty of arts and sciences duty to do so instead. Aristotle, according to Philoponus, also recommended a canon, a general rule, to properly ὀνοματοποιεῖν (Cat. 7, 7a18-22): it's correct to impose a paronymous name, deriving from the first term of the relation (114.2-13). Philoponus' subtle question is answered, nevertheless the core problem remains: in the case of relatives, the practice of ὀνοματοποιεῖν might seem more rhetorical than logical. The first definition of relatives (Cat. 7, 6a36-37), based on a pure linguistic bond between the two, will be rejected at the end of chapter 7 along with this kind of discourse: 16 words like ruddered, winged and headed will appear, if not meaningless, at least unnecessary and empty. Aristotle actually mentioned these words as relatives in order to reject (κακίσαι -114.14) the first definition of relative, because it is quite clear that rudder, wing and head are in no way relatives, things which substantially are of something, but they are rather mere substances, which are mistaken as relatives for their being parts of a substance (114.13-29). 17 In the other chapters Aristotle doesn't discuss ὀνοματοποιεῖν but the πράγματα studied are nameless. Philoponus, and some other commentators, consider these cases to show how impositio works. In Cat. 8, 10a29-32 Aristotle notes that in most cases the qualified, as it participates in quality, is called paronymously from the quality, however some qualified things, while participating in qualities, aren't called paronymously from those, because there are no names for those qualities (Cat. 8, 10a32-b5). The qualities of the second species have no name: we call 'good at running' and 'good at boxing' those having a predisposition to running and boxing, respectively; we don't call them runner and boxer, because they don't participate in the form of the runner and boxer yet; they aren't called from a quality they participate in, which is nameless, but from a quality they will participate in by passing from potentiality to actuality. 18 Other qualified things, in the end, aren't called paronymously from the qualities they participate in, even though those qualities participated in aren't nameless (Cat. 8,. 19 Philoponus accurately argues that in the first case there are no names for this kind of quality, i.e. powers (δυνάμεις), because human convention appropriately gives names to concrete things in actuality: the sciences are called from what is in actuality, like the science of boxing and that of running (In Cat. 157.9-13). 20 16 See Mignucci (1986).
17 Philoponus resorts to the 'principle of homonymy' to show that, while father and son are relatives because, if one is removed, there is not even the name of the other, head and rudder, even when not exercising their functions and detached from the body and ship, respectively, they are still called head or rudder homonymously. Philoponus' application of this principle (Arist. Meta. Z 10, 1035b23-25; DA II 1, 412b20-22) is a smart one; contra Zucca (2011) 18 The English text in Ackrill (2002: 25) isn't correct: Ackrill translates πυκτικός and δρομικός, both with the potentiality suffix -ικ, as "boxer" and "runner" (which would be πύκτης and δρομεύς).
19 Σπουδαῖος isn't said paronymously from ἀρετή. 20 See Olymp. In Cat. 125.17-19: names signify something in actuality and certainly not in potentiality, while predisposition is unnamed (ἀκατονόμαστος). See also  In chapter 10 Aristotle (Cat. 10, 11b38-12a5) distinguishes between different kinds of contraries: some have an intermediate, for example, between black and white there are gray, yellow and the other colours; some have no intermediate, like odd and even, health and sickness . Aristotle (Cat. 10, 12a21-25) further distinguishes different kinds of contraries with intermediates (ὑποδιαίρεσις): 21 some contraries have intermediates whose names are known, like gray and red between black and white; some have intermediates which are named only on the basis of their relationship with the extremes and the negation of the latter, as in the case of the intermediate between good and bad, which is named the neither good nor bad  This argument about names also concerns another species of opposites: habitus and privation . In order to demonstrate that these opposites are different from relatives, Philoponus notes that privation is often named after habitus, by its negation: it must be said that the privation opposed to knowledge (γνῶσις) isn't nominally determined (ὠνομασμένην -178.27), while the privation opposed to sight is called blindness. We name this privation from the negation of knowledge ignorance, incompetence and illiteracy (ἀγνωσίαν καὶ ἀμαθίαν καὶ τὸ ἄσοφον): in each case we don't say that the privation is a privation of knowledge, but rather a privation of the soul. 23 Let's recapitulate what we have inferred from these passages: names are imposed only on self-consistent things, which have substantiality on their own and in actuality. When we name correlatives in order to create a properly given relation, we grant ontological existence to new and non-natural classes of πράγματα. Worse still, we have to ὀνοματοποιεῖν in order to give substantiality to intermediate qualities (contradicting the extremes) and to the privation of habitus (by means of a privative alpha). Also, we apply names deriving from a quality in actuality even to a quality in potentiality, which -properly speaking -hasn't got a name of its own. In Aristotle's logical-ontological system (Int. 1, 16a3-8), things that are not concretely existent obviously do not have a proper name: names signify a πράγμα through the affection of the soul (παθήματα τῆς ψυχῆς) and if there's no well established and knowable πράγμα in actuality human convention doesn't 21 Philoponus (In Cat. 172,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21] initially distinguishes between contraries that must be in the subject, like hotness in fire and coldness in snow, and contraries that may not be in the subject, like black, white, gray and other colours (Arist. Cat. 10, 12a5-20).
23 Philoponus continues the argument by proving that even if you could say blindness of sight (privation of habitus), and similarly for the other species of privation, privation and habitus would never be relatives because while the privation is of the habitus, habitus is certainly not of the privation. impose a name. 24 Then, ὀνοματοποιεῖν is a rhetorical practice that helps to make up for the shortcomings of natural impositio. Philoponus, nevertheless, recommends that this practice follow strict logical guidelines (113.14-114.3) in order to avoid meaningless words: for these are meaningless when there aren't any concepts or πράγματα to be signified. Now, we have to inspect the general position of the Neoplatonic commentators, as they decreed universal rules on impositio and ὀνοματοποιεῖν.

3.
The most general position is found in Olymp. In Cat. 125.18-19. The commentator clearly says that there are names of things in actuality, while things predisposed to be something in actuality are nameless. Like Olympiodorus, Elias explicitly endorses this position . The lesson of Aristotle's De intepretatione must have been of central importance for all subsequent philosophers, but by exploring other texts in addition to In Categorias we find that the logical question is, as is usually the case, linked with physical and metaphysical inquiries. Philoponus, in his In Physicorum libros commentarium, while discussing Aristotle's criticism of Plato's two indefinite principles, the Great and Small, in Arist. Phys. III 6, attacks 'those people' who claim matter to be a whole and perfect because of its being τὸ ἄπειρον. 25 The commentator argues that matter is not a whole, because it's limited by form and that it is not the limit that encompasses everything (475.32-476.4); also, matter is part of the composite of matter and form, and hence, as a part, it cannot be a whole (476.4-6). Nevertheless, before rejecting this theory, Philoponus explains the linguistic reasons that led 'those people' to affirm that matter, qua infinity, is a whole and perfect . Matter is ἀόριστος and τὸ ἄπειρον and part of the composite with form, which, instead, is ὅρος and πέρας. Matter is the form it can take in potentiality and «we often call things in potentiality with the names of things in actuality (475.24-25)»: we call statue the bronze still without form and in the same way we call bed the wood, food the wheat, man the seed. Because of being everything in potentiality, matter is called infinite and indefinite, bond and limit. Philoponus illustrates the method of impositio, which -as we have seen -concerns quality in potentiality: a name properly belongs to things in actuality, but it can be bestowed also to things in potentiality, by common usage.
To take a different example, we are used to bestowing the name of a finished product on the producer's activity. In Proclus' In Parmenidem (1168.27-1169, the first principle is beyond and before ἐνέργεια and produces ἐνέργεια, however if someone were to call the first principle ἐνέργεια, there would be nothing wrong with this: in our world (ἐπὶ τῶν τῇδε πραγμάτων -VII 1168.33) we commonly assign the names of ἀποτελέσματα to the ἐνέργειαι producing them. Furthermore, for the first principle we use verbs such as ὑπέστησε καὶ παρήγαγεν, which properly belong to ἐνέργεια, giving the name of actualized things to the first principle in order to signify the non-actualized manifestation of beings from it. Let me try to exemplify this linguistic practice: we properly call 'construction' the finished product of building, but we bestow this name also to the act of building itself. Similarly, we call 'design' the product of drawing and the art of drawing itself. The act of building and the act of drawing are not accomplished things but movements towards πράγματα and their names are bestowed from the finished products of these activities. Proclus is right, then, when he justifies an improper use of language to describe the first principle, which is, in itself, indescribable by human words.
Given this particular practice in the Neoplatonic commentaries on Aristotle and Plato, according to which names and the signification of things depend on their being in actuality, we have to consider how Aristotle's theory of signification became an ontological theory. Someone might say -and rightly so, I would argue -that De interpretatione 1, 16a was already a key passage to interpret reality by means of language, by establishing connections between different levels of being, things, concepts and words. 26 However, the application of the potentiality/actuality pair in linguistics and semantics is a worthy innovation. Only things that are well established in their own nature deserve a name, maybe because giving a name to a thing in potentiality could result in a mistake: we could call 'bed' a piece of wood that, instead, will become a chair. For this reason, signification had to be regulated in such a way as to understand the πράγματα in Int. 1 as real existing πράγματα in actuality, thereby excluding things such as the goat-stag, τραγέλαφος. In my opinion, the ontological roots of this precise innovation are to be found in the strict theory of definition expounded in Aristotle's Metaphysics H 2-3: 27 here the philosopher discusses whether a definition is said of the composite of matter and form, of matter or of form. 28 In substances, what is predicated of matter is form and actuality, so in definitions what is predicated is actuality (Metaph. 2, 1043a5-7). A definition cannot be said of matter, because matter is potentiality and if we define 'house' from matter we only say it's stones, bricks and wood, and that's clearly not enough to differentiate this being from that being (Metaph. 2, 1043a14-16). Instead, by saying it's a shelter, we define 'house' from its actuality, differentiating the house from other products made by stones, bricks and wood (Metaph. 2, 1043a16-21). 29 Excluding matter and potentiality, Aristotle notes that names are used sometimes to signify the sensible composite of form and matter, other times to signify only form and actuality (Metaph. 1043a29-36): in saying 'human' we could be referring to both the sensible human composite and the form 'human' that 26 See Bolton (1985) and Noriega-Olmos (2013).
27 See Bolton (1993) and Charles (2010). 28 Multiple definition is possible as testified by Arist. DA I 1, 403a31-b31 and his commentators, such as Philoponus, shapes its matter. Definition can't help to determine being without form: definition is a discourse about τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, 30 the true substance of beings, which lies in εἶδος and ἐνέργεια (Metaph. 3, 1043b1-2). While the soul and soul's being are the same thing, human and human's being aren't, unless we say that human is the soul, but Aristotle does not inquire any further (Metaph. 3, 1043b2-4). Alexander of Aphrodisias, in his In Metaphysicam commentaria, proves a fine reviser of this theory, paving the way for Neoplatonic positions about names and their impositio. Alexander wonders whether names are signs of composite things or of forms (551.11). Aristotle didn't provide a solution, but it's clear that names are τῶν εἰδῶν σημαντικά, signifying forms (19)(20). The name of what the definition is δηλωτικός is σημεῖον and definition shows the being, so the name must signify the being, that is the εἶδος and ἐνέργεια. 31 Definitions are said of forms (51-22) also because if the name meant the composite, we would say the substances πρὸς ἕν, because the animal composite has certain desiderative powers belonging to the soul, the form 'animal' (25)(26)(27). 'Animal', signifying the composite, is a homonym of the true 'animal' from which the composite derives its features. Alexander specifies that proving whether a definition means the composite or only the form is the aim of the dialectical conversation, διαληκτικὴ συνουσία, 32 searching for the difference among beings and for methods to justify that difference; but for metaphysics it's enough to say that definition is a discourse pertaining to τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι and that this latter belongs to form and actuality (34-35).

Conclusions
This brief survey has showed at least two things. The first: linguistics and the theory of signification in Neoplatonism are firmly bound to ontology. Names aren't mere products of the conventional interaction between humanity and nature: all the previous linguistic theories recognised the value of words in understanding and interpreting reality, but failed to establish a solid theoretical perspective. Of course, by setting out from the uncertainty of Plato's Cratylus, Aristotle had a primary role in determining the right relation between words, meanings and concrete things. However, he wasn't clear enough, maybe because of the heterogeneous nature of its works, from the conciseness of De  Ackrill (2002: 113) is contemptuous towards the incipit of De interpretatione: «this account of relation of things in the world, affections in the soul, and spoken and written language is all too brief and far from satis-point illustrated by this paper -that Aristotle missed the point. In commenting upon Metaphysics H, he suggested a neat theory of ontological signification, which earned him a following. Names signify the real being of things and this has to be the form acquired in actuality, because form is clearly more being than matter. Imposing names starting from potentiality could be misleading and philosophers must avoid fallacies and misunderstandings, but common people must avoid them too. The practice of ὀνοματοποιεῖν, despite its rhetorical origin, finds some philosophical applications, under the guidance of logic, which includes an ontological way of observing reality. A lot of nameless things should remain nameless, as in the case of some 'hypothetical' relatives, some intermediates between opposites or qualities as powers, because they still don't have a recognisable nature. In other words, they're not definable and in late-antique philosophy, after centuries of research into τί ἐστι, it would have been unthinkable to theorise or even communicate with ambiguous words. factory. (…) there are grave weaknesses in Aristotle's theory of meaning». Walz (2006) defends the value of the incipit, reading Aristotle in a subtler way.

The Practice of ὀνοματοποιεῖν: Some Peculiar Statements in the Ancient Neoplatonic Commentators on Aristotle
This paper shows the role of ὀνοματοποιεῖν in Neoplatonism and how this practice is ruled by an onto-logical canon. While ὀνοματοποιεῖν itself means the making of a brand new name, its usage is manifold.
As Aristotle explains in Rh. III 2, poets take advantage of ὀνοματοποιεῖν to catch the undefined and give it a recognisable image, by means of a metaphorical name. In science, this practice, codified by Aristotle, is twofold: ὀνοματοποιεῖν meant both to re-semanticize words wellknown and to create names ex novo for things not discovered or studied yet. After analysing ὀνοματοποιεῖν's recurrence in Aristotle, I illustrate that, according to Neoplatonic Commentators, impositio can be, both natural and technical, only of things in actuality, having a solid consistency. Intermediates between contraries, presumed relatives and powers as qualities are nameless -as Philoponus notices in his In Categoriassince they haven't an independent status and aren't definable. This bond between the original rhetorical practice and the ontological perspective, sketched in Int. 1, was strengthened by Alexander, who filled Aristotle's gaps, stating that names signify things' being, i.e. the form acquired in actuality.