THE CATEGORIES OR PRAEDICAMENTA &quot;. 147 



without^ from the extramental domain (if there be such), into the sphere of 

 conscious sense experience. But perhaps Kant is wrong, and the realist 

 assumption in question well grounded : the assumption that the determina 

 tions of our thought are objective in the sense that they represent the nature 

 of real being ? We think so, ourselves. This, however, is not the place to 

 argue the question (which belongs properly to Criteriology or the Theory of 

 Knowledge^ cf. 77), but merely to show how an attempt to classify the 

 fundamental concepts that enter into our judgments in other words, to 

 draw up a scheme of categories is perhaps even more metaphysical than 

 logical in character : a circumstance which, however, in no way forbids its 

 treatment in logic, or lessens in any way its utility towards a better under 

 standing of the &quot;logical &quot; or &quot; truth &quot; aspect of the mental act of judgment. 



The determination of the categories in their metaphysical aspect, i.e. as 

 modes of real being, is one of the most fundamental problems of philosophy. 

 That there are certain ultimate categories of thought is a generally admitted 

 fact. Whether any of these, or which of them, represent ultimately irreduc 

 ible modes of real being, has been always a matter of dispute. The solution 

 of this problem demands a deep and prolonged analysis of man s internal 

 and external mental experience. And it is because philosophers have 

 derived conflicting results from this analysis that the history of philosophy 

 sets forth so many conflicting philosophical systems. The adherents of one 

 system will not admit as ultimate the categories accepted as such by the 

 adherents of another system. Thus, the philosophers known as Atomists, 

 who endeavour to explain all human experience on purely mechanical prin 

 ciples, endeavour to eliminate the category of Quality by reducing it to other 

 categories to Quantity and Motion. &quot; That a quality is not a quantity, 

 writes Mr. Joseph, 1 is a truth which those overlook who think that sound can 

 be a wave-length in the vibration of the air ; they forget that it is not pos 

 sible to define terms of one category by another.&quot; To which he adds : 

 &quot; Except as terms in a derivative category involve terms in those from which 

 it is derived &quot;. 2 And this, precisely, is what these philosophers maintain 

 that the category of quality is derivative, not ultimate and irreducible. 



The philosophy of Hegel is an attempt to show that all categories are, 

 identically, categories of thought and of being, and that all are gradually 

 worked out in a process of self-evolution of Thought or Idea which is the one 

 and only reality. 



76. LIMITATIONS AND MODIFICATIONS OF ARISTOTLE S 

 SCHEME. Some of the logical divisions of terms in Chapter I. 

 for example the divisions into concrete and abstract, into general 

 and singular are partial anticipations of the attempt to make 

 out a classification of the highest categories of thought : like the 

 latter, they are based on more or less fundamental differences in 

 the ways in which we conceive things to exist. The differences 

 between the various categories in Aristotle s scheme are more 

 fundamental in some cases than in others. Thus, Actio and 



l op. cit., p. 46. Cf. JOYCE, op. cit., pp. 143-4. z ibid. n. 3. 



10 * 



