The question which seeks the essence of something,(ti ēn einai), according to the argument of this thesis,was fashioned by Aristotle because of ambiguity or'homonymy' inherent in the nature of universal predicates.However successful the conceptual analysis of universalsmay be as such, their meaning or significance cannot befully fixed or determined except as a function of thesubjects to which they are applied. The distinctionbetween understanding a universal predicate as such andunderstanding its application to a particular subjectmay be roughly expressed as that between the ability torecognize the presence of an attribute in a subject andthe knowledge of what the predicate says about the subject.It is in order to transform knowledge of the first kindinto knowledge of the second that the 'essence-question'is asked.It is shown that the Aristotelian notion of anessence (to ti ēn einai) is explained through the notionsof a subject (ypokeimenon) and of an actuality (energeia).Aristotelian 'essences' express the actuality or activityof a substance conceived from the 'categorical' point ofview as the subject of qualities and universal predicatesin general. An 'essence', insofar as the term appliesto sensible substances, is the being of something as thesubject of qualities and material predicates, i.e.universal predicates in general. Entailed is the denialthat an essence in Aristotle's sense is constituted byattributes, characteristics, or universal predicates ofany sort whatsoever. The argument exploits the distinctiondrawn by Aristotle on a number of occasions in theMetaphysics between material substrata of a substance andthe subjects of qualities. The development of theposition hinges on an analysis of matter and form interms of the relations of potentiality and actualityconceived as contemporaneous modes of existence.
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