Part II: Examples

1. We must remember that, no matter how long and complex a term is, as long as it can neither be true nor false it remains a term. The term, “ant” is just as much a term as the term, “The ant which walked along the ground in a quick fashion”.

Neither of these terms are making an assertion. We have already seen why this is the case for “ant.” However, it may be more tempting to think that “The ant which walked along the ground in a quick fashion” is making a claim. It seems that we are saying there is an ant that walked along the ground quickly. But in fact, we are saying only what it means to be in the category “The ant which walked along the ground in a quick fashion”. Namely, in order to be a member of this category, an object must be a particular ant that walked along the ground in a quick fashion. 

We are not stating anything about this ant; not even that this ant exists. It is in this sense that we are not predicating anything of it. It might be helpful to compare “The ant which walked along the ground in a quick fashion” with the following proposition: “The ant which walked along the ground in a quick fashion is over there”. Only the second of these predicates something of a subject, this particular ant; accordingly, only the second of these can be true or false.

2. Let us take the term “larger”. At first glance, this does not seem like it would be a term at all. Rather, it seems to be a word which only relates terms to each other, such as “the dog is larger than the cat.” Without the terms “dog” and “cat”, it would seem that “larger” has no meaning.  However, philosophers do consider words like “larger” as terms: they are a special kind of term known as a relational term, which you will learn about later. Note that this type of term, however, is not categorematic. 

“Expressions which are in no way composite signify substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, or affection… ‘Double,’ ‘half,’ ‘greater,’ fall under the category of relation.”

Aristotle, Categories (W.D. Ross, 1952)