Abstract
Metaphysics is one branch of Philosophy, but arguably more fundamental than other branches such as Epistemology (the Theory of Knowledge), Philosophy of Mind or Moral Philosophy. Sometimes it has received disparaging attacks as a noncognitive and hence nonsensical enterprise, a fate suffered notoriously during the present century at the hands of the philosophical movement known as ‘logical empiricism’. Whether any such charge against it is just and fair depends however on quite what metaphysicians are up to, and it must be admitted that many such philosophers have had greater ambitions for their subject than seem in retrospect to be prudent. To reveal the true nature of reality, its contents and structure, to place man within the cosmos in his relation to other kinds of things and to his creator, to determine man’s duty to himself and to God, and the true route to happiness — those are common enough ambitions, exhibited in the works of Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Bradley and so on. No wonder its advocates have exalted the metaphysical pursuit!
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Notes and References
Aristotle, Categories 1b25: the quotation is taken from the translation, with notes, by J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione (Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 5.
J. L. Ackrill, op. cit., p. 78.
I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd edn (J. F. Hartknoch, Riga, 1787). These categories are listed in the first chapter of the section called ‘Analytic of Concepts’.
Ibid.
R. G. Collingwood, Essay on Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 1940).
I. Kant, op. cit., ‘Analytic of Principles’.
P. F. Strawson, Individuals (Methuen, London, 1959) p. 9.
Ibid., pp. 9–10.
Ibid., p. 10.
I. Kant, op. cit., ‘Analytic of Concepts’.
R. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Paris, 1641).
References are to the translation of the 2nd edition (1642) included in E. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, translators and editors, Descartes: Philosophical Writings (Nelson, London, 1964).
R. Descartes, ibid., p. 67.
B. Williams, Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1978) p. 112.
R. Descartes, op. cit., p. 61.
R. Descartes, op. cit., p. 114.
E. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, op. cit., pp. 193–4.
A category account of facts is presented in D. W. Hamlyn, ‘The Correspondence Theory of Truth’, Philosophical Quarterly, XII (1962), pp.193–205.
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge University Press, 1903).
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© 1987 Brian Carr
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Carr, B. (1987). Categorial Description. In: Metaphysics: An Introduction. Modern Introductions to Philosophy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18852-9_1
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