Abstract
There is little doubt that the problem of categories has been among one of the most frequently discussed topics in philosophy ever since Aristotle. Important as it was, the problem of categories has however become in the eyes of todays’ students of philosophy an old-fashioned or even out-dated problem. If philosophy itself is for most people a marginal discipline of little practical value, then the problem of categories would turn out to be the most abstract and most detached issue of all. But is the problem of categories really that abstract?
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Notes
Aristotle, De Interpretationen, translated by Harold P. Cooke, in: Aristotle in Twenty-three Volumes, Vol. 1. (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1973), 16a4–a9.
See Wilhelm von Humboldt, Über das vergleichende Sprachstudium in Beziehung auf die verschiedenen Epochen der Sprachentwicklung [1982], in: Werke in fünf Bänden, Band III (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1963), pp. 19–20. English translation see Robert Miller, The Linguistic Relativity Principle and Humboldtian Ethnolinguistics: A History and Appraisal (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), p. 29.
F. de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, ed. by Ch. Bally and A. Sechehaye, transi. by Wade Baskin (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959), pp. 111–112.
See Leo Weisgerber, Das Menschheitsgesetz der Sprache als Grundlage der Sprachwissenschaft (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1964), p. 16.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1960), p. 423; English translation Truth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), p. 405.
See Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1972), 12. Auflage, pp. 155–160.
For general information on this topic, please refer to N. Trubetzkoy, Principles of Phonology. See also Roman Jakobson, Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning, prefaced by C. Lévi-Strauss (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978); also Jakobson and Morris Halle, Fundamentals of Language (The Hague: Mouton, 1971).
In his regard, I am very much stimulated by Lévi-Strauss’ comparison between phonology and mythology. Just as “mytheme” stands in relation to “phoneme”, we can append “category” to form a triad. Unlike mythology, whose internal structure is somewhat irrational, the internal structure of categorical systems is in most cases the result of rational deliberation. Nevertheless, once explicitly formulated and handed down as part of a tradition, a categorical system can become part of the unconscious in culture, thus performing a function comparable to that of myths. Lévi-Strauss depicts this function this way: “a myth sets up a grid, solely definable in terms of the rules by which it is constructed. For the members of the culture to which the myth belongs this grid confers a meaning not on the myth itself but on everything else: i.e., on the picture they have of the world, on the society and its history about which the group members might be more or less accurately informed, and on the ways in which these things are problematic for them.” See, Lévi-Strauss preface to Roman Jakobson’s Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978), p. xxiv. The preface is now also available as “The Lessons of Linguistics”, in: The View from Afar (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), pp. 138-147.
For a detailed discussion of Aristotle’s philosophy of change and movement, see Walter Bröcker’s Aristoteles: Die Aristotelische Philosophie als Frage nach der Bewegung (Frankfurt/M: Klostermann, 1964).
See C. M. Gillespie, “The Aristotelian Categories”, in: Classical Quarterly 19, 1925), pp. 75–84. Original paper not to hand, quotation reconstructed with the help of the German translation of the paper. See, F.-P. Hager (hrsg.), Logik und Erkenntnislehre des Aristoteles (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1
See Wilhelm Windelband, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, hrsg. v. Heinz Heimsoeth (Tübingen: Mohr, 1957), p. 121, English translation, A History of Philosophy. translated by James H. Tufts, p. 142.
See Aristotle’s Categories, translated by Harold P. Cooke, Aristotle in Twenty-three Volumes, Vol. 1; The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1938/1973), pp. 16–19.
See Adolf Trendelenburg, Geschichte der Kategorienlehre (Berlin: Verlag Bethge, 1846), pp. 23–24.
See Émile Benveniste, “Categories of Thought and Language”, in Problems in General Linguistics, transl. by Mary E. Meek (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1971), p. 58.
Parmenides, Proem, in Diels-Kranz, Fragmente der Vor-Sokratiker. Vol. 1 (Zürich: Weidmann, 1989). pp. 217ff.
For this point, refer to Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory (New York: Braziller, 1968), especially the concluding chapter on “The Relativity of Categories”, p. 223.
For this context, see Heinrich Scholz, Abriss der Geschichte der Logik (Freiburg/ München: Alber, 1931); English translation by Kurt F. Leidecker, Concise History of Logic (New York: Philosophical Library, 1961).
Leo Weisgerber, Das Menschheitsgesetz der Sprache als Grundlage der Sprachwissenschaft, 2]., neubearbeitete Auflage (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer Verlag, 1964), p.
See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A36/B53. For a more detail discussion of this problem, see Tze-wan Kwan, “On Kant’s Real/Problematic Distinction between Phenomenon and Noumenon”, in: Tunghai Journal 26, Taichung, 1985, pp. 171–210.
Kant, Preischrift über die Fortschritte der Metaphysik, in KGS, Band XX (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1942), p. 275.
See Kant, Logik. Ein Handbuch zu Vorlesungen, Einleitung, in KGS, Band IX (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1968), p. 25.
See Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, KGS, Band V (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1968), pp. 65–67.
Wilhelm Dilthey, Der Aufbau der Geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (Stuttgart: Suhrkamp, 1970), p. 235.
Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 12. unveränderte Auflage (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1972), p. 12.
See Heidegger, Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, Marburger-Vorlesung SS-1927 (Frankfurt/M: Klostermann, 1975), p. 377. English translation by A. Hofstadter (Bloomington: indiana UP, 1982).
Heidegger, Piatons Lehre von der Wahrheit. Mit einem Brief über den “Humanismus” (Bern: Francke, 1975), p. 70.
Bing-he Shang, Zhou-yi Shang-shi-xue (Beijing: Zhonghwa, 1980), pp. 9–10.
In this paper, I am using the translation by Richard Wilhelm rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, The I Ching or Book of Changes, Foreword by C. G. Jung, in two Volumes (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951/1965). Hereafter cited as The I Ching.
I am using the term “regional” in the sense used by Husserl who differentiates ontology into “formal ontology” and “regional ontologies”. See Husserl’s Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1950), pp. 23–39. Here Husserl also puts forward the idea that for each “region”, regional categories can be established.
See Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, in KGS, Band V (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1908, 1968), p. 372, p. 389. English translation by Werner S. Pluhar, Critique of Judgment (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), pp. 251, 269.
See Lao Szekwang, Zhongguo Zhexueshi, Vol. 1 (Hong Kong: Chung chi College Press, 1971), p. 47.
See S. Radhakrishnan and Charles Moore, A Source Book in Indian Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957), pp. 273–274.
For the translation of the five skandhas Stefan Anacker’s work is most reasonable. See Stefan Anacker, Seven Works of Vasubandhu. The Buddhist Psychological Doctor (Delhi: Motilal, 1984), p. 65.
T. R. V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. A Study of the Madhyamika System (London: Allen and Unwin, 1970), p. 272.
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Kwan, TW. (1995). The Doctrine of Categories and the Topology of Concern. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) The Logic of the Living Present. Analecta Husserliana, vol 46. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0463-0_5
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