Robert Adamson

“ But the understanding in the process of knowledge makes use of the universal form of synthesis, the judgment; intellectual function is essentially of the nature of judgment or the reduction of a manifold to unity through a conception. The specific or type forms of such function will, therefore, be expressed in judgments; and a complete classification of the forms of judgments is the key by which one may hope to discover the system of categories. ”

“ Individuality, found only in substance, is that by which a thing is self-existent and marked off from others. Concretion or Co-inherence denotes inseparable or necessary connection, such as that between substance and quality. Under these six classes, γένη τοῦ ὄντος, Kanada then proceeds to range the facts of the universe. [1]
Within Greek philosophy itself there were foreshadowings of the Aristotelian doctrine, but nothing so important as to warrant the conclusion that Aristotle was directly influenced by it. ”

“ The first principle then must be that the Ego posits itself as the Ego, that Ego = Ego, a principle which is unconditioned both in form and matter, and therefore capable of standing absolutely first, of being the prius in a system. Metaphysically regarded this act of self-position yields the categories of Reality. ”

“ This is in entire harmony with the Aristotelian doctrine, the categories of which may with truth be described as significations of simple terms, τὰ κατὰ μηδεμίαν συηπλοκὴν λεγόμενα. The six categories of Kanada are Substance, Quality, Action, Genus, Individuality, and Concretion or Co-inherence. To these is added Non-Existence, Privation or Negation. Substance is the permanent substance in which Qualities exist. Action, belonging to or inhering in substances, is that which produces change, Genus belongs to substance, qualities and actions; there are higher and lower genera. ”

“ From this point Trendelen-burg.onwards are developed the mathematical (point, line, &c.) and real (causality, substance, quantity, quality, &c.) categories which appear as involved in the notion of motion. Matter cannot be regarded as a product of motion; it is the condition of motion, we must think something moved. All these categories, “under the presupposition of motion as the first energy of thought, are ideal and subjective relations; as also, under the presupposition of motion as the first energy of Being, real and objective relations.” ”

“ Trendelenburg solves the difficulty only empirically, by pointing to the insufficiency of the merely mechanical to account for the organic. The consideration of Modality effects the transition to the forms of logical thought. On the whole, Trendelenburg’s unique fact of motion seems rather a blunder. There is much more involved than he is willing to allow, and motion per se is by no means adequate to self-consciousness. His theory has found little favour.
Hermann Ulrici works out a system of the categories from a psychological or logical point of view. ”

“ Reality, Space, Modern psychologists.Time, Causality and “Thinghood” from the standpoint of the perceptual consciousness; showing in what sense the categories of causality, substance and the rest exist in the sphere of perception. As contrasted with the ideational, the perceptual consciousness is concerned with practice. Perception tells the child of things as separate entities, not in their ultimate relations as parts of a coherent whole. ”

“ From these two propositions, involving absolutely opposed and mutually destructive elements, there results a third which reconciles both in a higher synthesis. The notion in this third is determination or limitation; the Ego and Non-Ego limit, and are opposed to one another. From these three positions Fichte proceeds to evolve the categories by a series of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
In thus seizing upon the unity of self-consciousness as the origin for systematic development, Fichte has clearly taken a step in advance of, and yet in strict harmony with, the Kantian doctrine. ”

“ Plotinus, after a lengthy critique of Aristotle’s categories, sets out a twofold list. τὸ ἔν, κίνησις, στάσις, ταὐτότης, ἑτερότης are the primitive categories (πρῶτα γένη) of the intelligible sphere. οὐσία, πρός τι, ποιά, ποσόν, κίνησις are the categories of the sensible world. The return to the Platonic classification will not escape notice.
Modern philosophy, neglecting altogether the dry and tasteless treatment of the Aristotelian doctrine by scholastic writers, gave a new, a wider and deeper meaning to the categories. ”

“ They are not summa genera of existences, still less are they to be explained as a classification of namable things in general. The objections Mill has taken to the list are entirely irrelevant, and would only have significance if the categories were really—what they are not—an exhaustive division of concrete existences. Grote’s view (Aristotle, i. 108) that Aristotle drew up his list by examining Various popular propositions, and throwing the different predicates into genera, “according as they stood in different logical relation to the subject,” has no foundation. ”

“ To him the fundamental fact of philosophy is the distinguishing activity (unterscheidende Tätigkeit) of thought. Thought is only possible by distinction, difference. The fixed points in the relations of objects upon which this activity turns are the categories, which Ulrici.may be called the forms or laws of thought. They are the aspects of things, notions under which things must be brought, in order to become objects of thought. They are thus the most general predicates or heads of predicates. The categories cannot be completely gathered from experience, nor can they be evolved a priori ”

“ They are our own notions resulting from co-operation of imagination and judgment, concerning the ultimate and unanalyzable forms of our own existence and development.” In other words, the categories are highly abstract, have no content, and are realized as a kind of thinking which has for its object all the other mental processes. ”

“ The form of the proposition in which this second act takes to itself expression, the Ego is not = Not-Ego, is unconditioned, not derivable from the first. It is the absolute antithesis to the primitive thesis. ”

“ It becomes apparent also why the analysis of the categories starts from the singular thing, for it is the primary form under which all that is becomes object of knowledge, and the other categories modify or qualify this real individual. ”

“ One naturally turns to Plato when endeavouring to discover the genesis of any Aristotelian doctrine, and undoubtedly there are in the Platonic writings many detached discussions in which the matter of the categories is touched upon. ”

“ F. A. Trendelenburg, Geschichte der Kategorienlehre (1846) ; P. Ragnisco, Storia critica delle categorie (2 vols., Florence, 1871) ; W. Windelband Vom System der Kategorien (Tübingen, 1900) ; R. Eisler, Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe (Berlin, 1899) , pp. ”

“ Max Müller, Sanskrit Literature, and particularly his appendix to Thomson’s Laws of Thought. ↑ The supposed origin of that theory in the treatise περὶ τοῦ παντός, ascribed to Archytas (q.v.) , has been proved to be an error. ”