Aristotle: Categories, Universals, Particulars, Predicates

Aristotle’s discussion of Categories, Subjects, and Predicates is about ontology not grammar.  Predicates are said ‘of something’.  This is a reversal of Plato’s ontology where the general or universal is the real, existing in a higher plane.  Aristotle thinks the subject is the real thing, the general category cannot exist without a subject.  Fido is a dog.    The just itself will be set of the many just things. The pious itself will be set of the many pious things. Note how this Aristotelian picture inverts the relation of priority between forms and sensibles that Plato insisted ons more real than the particular objects that depend on them for their being. Aristotle has the dependence relation going in the other direction. For the many beautiful things will be the subjects for the beautiful itself. And then many just things will be the subjects for the just itself, and so on. And the subjects are more fundamental, more real than the items that are predicated out of them.” From Susan Suave Meyer, Ancient Philo Pt 2 on Coursera