Δ11 - 4 Senses of Priority and Posteriority 

 

1] Priority and Posteriority in Nature 

• Priority in Genus 

  • ​The member of the genus is prior or posterior based on a starting reference point that is defined necessarily by nature

• Priority in Space 

  • An object can be prior, or closer to some designated object (either naturally and essentially designated point of reference or arbitrarily and relative to perception), or posterior from the object 

• Priority in Time 

  • Prior, is a past event relative to the present

  • Posterior, future event yet to happen 

• Priority in Movement 

  • Prior- what is closer to the necessary First Mover in the causal chain (this may coincide but isn’t necessarily synonymous to chronological priority)

• Priority in Capacity 

  • Superior capacity is prior, inferior capacity is posterior 

  • The starting point of reference is the activity, the deliberate choice of the holder of the capacity 

  • The prior in capacity’s deliberate choice becomes necessary for the movement of the posterior in capacity 

  • If the former moves, so does the posterior, they don’t? Neither does the posterior 

• Priority in Order 

  • Where a definite member in some arrangement in intervals stands in the arrangement. For example in a chorus or a line of groomsmen, the first in line is prior to the second in line which is posterior 

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2] Priority and Posteriority in Knowledge 

• “What is prior in knowledge is treated as also unconditionally prior” (1018b30)

• Priority is based on the tool of apperception/perception

  • If the account is the frame of epistemic reference 

    • Universals are prior to particulars 

    • The per accidens quality of a being is prior to the whole account of the being (potentially), whereby the musical is prior to the musical human, because the whole account wouldn't be whole without the part even iff the musical means nothing as an attribute without a subject to attribute musicality to 

    • [From the starting point of perception is the whole account prior to the accidental part of the whole?]

  • If perception is the starting point of reference in the acquirement of knowledge, particulars are prior to the universal (and i take it that the actual is prior to the potential from this frame of reference) 

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3] Priority and Posteriority of attributes of prior Objects

• “The attributes of what is prior are said to be prior”

  • ​The intrinsic characteristic of straightness in a line is prior to its surface 

  • [Full disclosure: I didn’t understand this]

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4] Priority and Posteriority in Nature and Substance

• What is more essential to the functional nature of a being is prior to what is accidental about this being 

  • If you can’t be as a human being without your heart but you can be a human essentially without your hat, the heart is prior to the hat in this sense of priority 

• There are many ways of being tho 

  • The underlying subject is prior and thus the substance too 

  • Potential cases and actual cases take turns in their priority 

  • Potentially 

    • The half line is prior to the whole segment 

    • The part is prior to the whole 

    • Matter is prior to substance [thats curious that he places this in potentiality]

  • Actuality 

    • It's the other way around and what is prior potentially is posterior in actuality 

    • The part is only separate and distinct when it is taken apart from a whole that was prior to the part