Abstract

Brentano’s dissertation "Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles" (On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle) (1862) is examined in the light of the nineteenth-century debate on the Aristotelian categories. After providing an exposition of the conceptions of the main representatives of this debate, Adolf Trendelenburg and Hermann Bonitz, this paper assesses Brentano’s point of view on the meaning and origin of the Aristotelian categories. It shows (i) that Brentano assumes non-Aristotelian elements in his reading of the Aristotelian categories, (ii) that this depends on the fact that he shares Bonitz’s thesis, and (iii) that his reading is incomplete in the light of certain Aristotelian statements about non-being.