Metaphysics book4 c2

Any thing that can be studied will involve being. And independent beings will have a list of incidental parts that exist because of the independent thing. The philosophy of thinghood rests in independent things. Knowledge of the independent thing is primary to it's incidental attributes. Philosophy will also have many ways to discuss being such as examining opposites; however, opposites do not cause being. Saying opposites cause being proposes opposites are primary to being.

An independent thing is not incidentally an independent thing. Or it might be better put, the fact that it is independent is not incidental. Considering something as an independent thing is as primary as reason goes and is what all incidental things spring from. Expressing this idea in language can be deceiving because words might suggest that being is an attribute of 'one-ness' if we say being is one and not many parts. But the being is not the words. The words are referring to the being in a backwards way (i.e. being is primary to the knowledge of grammar).