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Plan

Immediate

Raise ‘plan’ a level and take it above the title.

Sep.

Complete the import

Simplify, complete titles

Alternate title possibilities

Categories

Categories, values, and cosmology

Plan outline

Needs > outline > write / defer > repeat

Needs

Keep it simple, write with deferment

The meaning of the subheads

The subheads are abstract; identity and change, so far as present, are implicit

The disciplines and their use

The disciplines and their use – knowledge, philosophy, metaphysics, dimension, category

On meaning

1.    Meaning as process and therefore indefinite;

What things are vs what they do

2.    Here, a major issue is what the concepts do;

Our too close to home conception of knowledge as a thing

3.    Thus knowledge is part of ‘the world’ and demand for pre-defined perfection is not realistic

Categories, value, and ethics

4.    However, we have found (i) perfection at the level of being as being (ii) pragmatic perfection of knowledge relative to the values of living in the world for itself and toward the ultimate.

Categories and cosmology

Why, how?

What categories ‘are’ vs ‘what they do / what we would do with them’

General: language for metaphysics

1.    Generally—they round out metaphysics by providing a language—vocabulary, grammar, and logic.

Here—make the metaphysics systematic, comprehensive, and effective
We deploy definite metaphysics (vs general wobbly metaphysics)

2.    Here, since there is a definite metaphysics—they are an expression of the metaphysics which, in use, is systematic, comprehensive, and effective

Classical high level genera vs categorial levels and its justification

That there should be levels follows from the present metaphysics as leveled / layered

3.    Since the metaphysics is at a range of levels—so, there are categorial levels (from high / abstract to low / detailed) and categorial expression at each level. Knowledge of the levels is (necessarily) mutually conditioning—

How the levels are mutually conditioning

a.     The lower are expressions of the higher and so satisfy any logic or grammar of the higher,

b.    As closer to ordinary experience, the lower (may) provide analogy for the higher (to go beyond analogy will require justification).

Categories supplemented by dynamics and paradigms

On experiential being

The main point

Being is relational, which is effectively an experiential relation

Synthesis via the concept of experience

Experience including choice and agency are synthesizing—agency captures all

Kinds of category study—Aristotle, Kant and the moderns, category difference (SEP)

Begin here

Aristotle—the idea

Start with the idea of the most general way to say things about the world—per Aristotle

1.    Analysis of language—since Aristotle thinks predication is necessary for intelligibility, he asks about kinds of predicates and arrives at… quality, quantity, relation, place, time, etc

2.    Logic—what kinds of terms must exist for syllogisms to work—substance, quantity, quality, relation.

3.    Metaphysics—what else must exist from substance as primary (which he held)—accidents, states, activities, passivities.

Aristotle—his best known system

The doctrine of the categories (also part of his metaphysics): categories are the fundamental, indivisible concepts of thought: the most fundamental and universal predicates that can be affirmed of anything, not mere forms of thought or language but also predicates of reality…

Ten questions and ten categories—

1.          What? Substance (e.g., man)

2.          How large, how much? Quantity (e.g., four foot, five people)

3.          What are its characteristics or properties? Quality (e.g., loud, white).

4.          What are its relations? Relation (e.g., double, faster)

5.          Where is it? Place (e.g., here, on Earth)

6.          When does it occur?  Point in time (e.g., today)

7.          What is its configuration? Posture (e.g., is standing)

8.          What is its state or condition? State (e.g., has shoes on).

9.          What it does? Action (e.g., crushes, burns)

10.     What is done to it? Passion (e.g., is crushed)

A thought—we must build up categories > metaphysics in a process that begins (i) simply (ii) from a place where the subject-object divide dissolves—that is, based on earlier conceptions (in the chapter on being / beings) the concept-object is the fundamental high level / low level / relational-experiential category and the rest – the sub categories – are made of logic / science / ordinary experience and language. This enables, given IM and TM, construction of the categories from above, below (sameness and difference), and perhaps the middle.

Kant—the idea

For Kant, bare reality is not apprehended. Rather, in an interpretation of Kant, reality-as-experienced (as conceived, where conception is understood to include perception), is reality-as-best-understood, especially where ‘as-experienced’ includes reality-as-experienced. Kant, in the interpretation, then analyses reality-as-experienced / as-best-understood, into the forms of space and time (which he thought rendered necessary by Euclidean Geometry and Newtonian Mechanics), and the forms of fact, i.e., judgment in propositional form. For the forms of judgment he appeals to Aristotle’s fact as subject-predicate or subject-judgment, and his forms of judgment to yield a system of categories as follows.

Kant—the system

JUDGMENTS

CATEGORIES

I. Quantity

I. Of Quantity

1. Universal

1. Unity

2. Particular

2. Plurality

3. Singular

3. Totality

II. Quality

II. Of Quality

4. Affirmative

4. Reality

5. Negative

5. Negation

6. Infinite

6. Limitation

III. Relation

III. Of Relation

7. Categorical

7. Inherence and Subsistence (substance and accident)

8. Hypothetical

8. Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)

9. Disjunctive

9. Community (reciprocity)

IV. Modality

IV. Of Modality

10. Problematic

10. Possibility—Impossibility

11. Assertive

11. Existence—Nonexistence

12. Apodictic

12. Necessity—Contingency
Modern systems
Category differences

Stepping back—what we have learned

Outline

1.    The fundamental existent is the concept(-relation-)object.

2.    Level being-as-being

a.     Intrinsic dynamic: ¿meaning?, logic

3.    Our world and its forms

a.     Its levels or modes—physical etc. (as below)

b.    Its paradigms—mechanism, form, etc.

4.    Intermediate—form and formation

Generating the categories

They are the categories of knowledge / understanding

1.    Embraced – synthesized – by agency.

2.    Top down > inherits logic.

3.    Bottom up > begins with (experience of) sameness-difference (perception) and ordinary language (conception).

Generating the categories—to incorporate

A genetic set (an initial pass)

1.    Sameness – Difference > Identity >

2.    Experiential being as being

a.     Approach from above > Logic and down,

b.    Approach from below > ordinary experience (language…, logic) and up

Specifying the categories—a minimal set

Specifying the categories—a minimal set

Up > down logic (in principle: ­ ¯ ; in fact:  P) (i) begin with highest / most inclusive—being and (dialetheic) nonbeing (ii) consider a low level – a cosmos / world / particularly, our world and note its dynamics which include mechanism with indeterminism and incremental variation and selection (residual) (iii) which call for the intermediate level of formation (e.g., of worlds) and the logic of their forms.

Up and downward influence and specification as follows (from 1 to n is ‘high’ to ‘low’, i.e., more to less inclusive) in which items ii and iii above are ‘naturally’ interchanged.

1.    A super level of being and nonbeing

a.     Being (¿being-knowing?) and nonbeing

b.    (Experiential and agentive­¯) Being

2.    Form (and formation)

a.     Single step (as allowed and required by IM)

b.    Incremental variation and selection; origin of mechanism and causation (fp as cause of causation) with indeterminism for worlds; origin of physics

c.     Can pure mechanism be given an incremental formulation (e.g., path integral)?

3.    Our world

a.     Physical level

b.    Complexity, reproduction, and life

c.     Mind or psyche and universal

a.   Place of being, meaning, and value (though not source),

b.    U-map.

d.    Society

                                                             i.      Culture

                                                           ii.      Technology

IM –what, where go?

Precise.

TM – what, where go?

Allows rough.

Where to put unition and should that name be kept

Categories and cosmology

Comment 1.  Alternate title—Cognition, categories and cosmology (one aim for this being that we ought not regard perception and free-conception as entirely distinct—i.e., do we need categories as such in the sense of Aristotle / Kant?)

Introduction

Origins

Dimensions and categories

In using TM to negotiate paths for and from worlds, I found that it would be effective to recognize levels of inclusivity and abstraction, dimensions or aspects of being or description at each level, and paradigms or dynamics of behavior at the levels.

It became apparent that the dimensions were similar to what, in metaphysics, are called categories and are seen as (i) the highest genera or kinds of being (perhaps the highest kinds, just under being, if we see being as a kind), or (ii) from a descriptive point of view, the most general kinds that could be predicated of a being (or the most general kinds, just under being if we see being – existence – as a kind).

So, since there is a history of reflection on categories, it seemed effective to join the study of categories to my study of dimensions.

However, despite similarities, there were also differences between dimensions and categories.

Differences between dimensions and categories in works on metaphysics

Kind of difference

Categories

Dimensions

Purpose or function

Primarily to establish kinds or ways to describe or conceptualize the world. A part of general metaphysics whose main aim is (putatively) knowing and understanding. But action could be taken to be an aim of many systems, particularly that of Hegel.

Descriptive and explanatory, with prediction if it is possible. Application and negotiating the world is an explicit aim, not just as application but also because knowing and being are ‘one’.

Real vs conceptual (i.e., of being itself – and beings – vs of our understanding of being)

There are realist systems (e.g., from Aristotle’s to some modern systems) and conceptual systems (e.g., Kant’s).

Since the twentieth century skepticism about the possibility of any system of metaphysical categories led to a study of categorical differences, of which an aim was to avoid ‘category errors’ such as – e.g., according to Gilbert Ryle – thinking that having mental activity equates to mind being a separate substance or ‘thing’.

Since the most general being is the concept-object, the real and the conceptual are fused.

This work has not yet explicitly taken up ‘category differences’, which may be a project for the future.

However, some errors that may be categorial have been avoided (i) from as-if substance to universal substance and from form to particular substance (ii) from concept – relation – object as a unity to mind – relation – matter as objective of being (iii) content and method as essentially distinct (iv) temporal distinction among beings (or worlds or beings-and-words) as absolute (v) limits of our experience as absolute limits (and the related trivial but frequent fallacy of conflation of possibility and necessity) (vi) conflation of levels of description as absolute (this needs to be worked out).

Role of experience

Suppressed in the realist systems, explicit as the medium of the conceptualist, and probably explicit as nature of the real in idealist systems such as Plato’s and Hegel’s.

The universe – reality – is relational, which is experiential at minimum at the level of animal being and experiential at all levels provided the concept of experience is extended as explained in the sections on being and on experience.

Role of agency

Explicitly present with Plotinus, Schelling, Fichte, Hegel, Whitehead, and Heidegger.

Explicitly present as most significant; without experience, the universe (being) has no meaning (as in the meaning of life / significance); without agency the universe is listless. However, agency and experience need not be assumed—they must emerge.

Thus, while agency is of crucial significance, it need not be assumed, for it arises out of nothingness (it must do so); however intelligence and agency make the universe ‘more efficient and more significant).

Sources

Mainly prior western thought.

Western and Eastern thought, especially Advaita Vedanta with its reflections on Brahman. I find that world thought – Asian, African, Western and more – is rife with Brahman like ideas, however my source is Indian thought, which is not limited to Advaita Vedanta.

Cognitive

Conceptual (in a limited sense that excludes perception).

In standard treatments, perception may be treated prior to the categories.

Conceptual and perceptual (i.e., conceptual in the sense that includes perception).

Level of abstraction

Generally, as a requirement for metaphysics, a level just under being itself that is pure, i.e., free of distortion.

Multiple levels from pure to pragmatic.

Specifically, (i) a level above being – relational or experiential being and nonbeing (perhaps with being as a sub-level) (ii) an intermediate level of form and formation (e.g., of worlds) and (iii) worlds, especially our world (iv) sub-levels may be entertained.

Interaction among levels

Not in that the categories are regarded as at the same (highest) level; however in some systems, e.g., Aristotle’s, the categories are not all at a given level of abstraction or inclusivity.

Yes, (i) lower levels cannot fail to exemplify logic, which is the ‘dynamic’ at the level of being-as-being, (ii) the laws or paradigms of our world serve as analogy for higher levels, where they must obtain with significance though not with necessity.

Value criterion

No, for object and value are separable at this level (unless value or imperative is taken as categorial).

Yes, which renders TM perfect in a value sense.

Dynamic, law, or paradigm

No, for dynamic may follow or be in addition to the categories.

Yes.

Language and logic an aspect

No, for categories are at least in part derivative from language and logic.

Yes, as seen in earlier development.

Logic is given new interpretations including one of logic as a grammar of compound assertions or facts.

How to generate

High level appeal to language, logic, and metaphysical knowledge.

As for the categories supplemented by analysis of perception and conception at an elementary level.

Comment

The significance of categories is not minimized in the foregoing, for the categories are but an aspect of metaphysical study.

In integrating the levels, value, epistemology, and dynamic, the power of metaphysics is advanced and philosophy and knowledge are given unification.

In developing an effective account toward the purposes of knowing and realizing the ultimate in, for, and from our world, the word ‘categories’ will be used in an extended sense that accounts for these differences. The system that follows is designed to reflect those differences.

 

From categories to categorial levels, their categories, and patterns (efficient description, laws, dynamics, paradigms…)

Categories

What
How

Categorial levels

The categories

Being and nonbeing

… and agency

… fact and value separable

Form

Worlds