[B-Greek] Question about essence

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu May 4 23:09:17 EDT 2006


Werner Jaeger used to English it as "being what it is." I suppose  
that if one wanted to be very precise about the imperfect tense of HN  
one might say "being what it has been (i.e. has continued to be)."

I suppose that the Latin scholastic term 'quidditas" from which comes  
the English "quiddity" derives from the TI in the Aristotelian phrase.

On May 4, 2006, at 11:02 PM, Octavio Rodriguez wrote:

> In Aristotle Met. VII appears the structure :
>
> "TO TI HN EINAI " , the orthodox translation is "essence", however  
> i would
> like to know of a literal translation.

Just so long as it's not a heretical translation? ;-)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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