THE CATEGORIES OR &quot; PRAEDICAMENTA &quot;. 



product, not objective contributions ; that they come from the mind within, 

 and are imposed by it on the reality which comes Irom without. They are 

 endowments which he argues to be antecedent conditions necessary for any 

 act of conscious cognition whatsoever, though we are not conscious of pos 

 sessing them until we actually make use of them by applying them in our 

 acts of sense intuition and intellectual judgment. With space and time, the 

 two supposed &quot; forms &quot; of sense cognition, we have no further concern here. 

 Of the &quot; forms &quot; or &quot; categories &quot; of the understanding Kant enumerates 

 twelve. These he professes to reach by an analysis of the various possible 

 modes of interpreting reality, or, in other words, of the various forms of the 

 judgment. Though they cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of 

 some of the subsequent chapters on Judgment, it will be convenient to enumer 

 ate them here. 



Judgments may be divided, according to Kant, by reason of their 

 (a) quantity, (b} quality, (c) relation, (d} modality. Under each of these 

 heads we find three distinct forms of predication, to each of which there cor 

 responds a category of i the understanding. We thus reach the following 

 twelve categories : 



Forms of Judgment. 



(a) QUANTITY. 



(1) Singular . . This S is P 



(2) Particular . . Some S is P 



(3) Universal . . All S is P . 

 (b} QUALITY. 



(1) Affirmative . . S is P . . 



(2) Negative . . S is not P . 



(3) Infinite . . . S is non-P . 

 (c) RELATION. 



(i) Categorical 



(2) Hypothetical 



(3) Disjunctive 

 (if) MODALITY. 



(1) Problematic 



(2) Assertoric . 



(3) Apodeictic 

 or Necessary 



S is P .... 

 If A is B, Sis P . 

 S is either P or Q 

 S may be P . 

 S is P . . . . 



S must be P 



Categories. 



(a) QUANTITY. 



(1) Unity. 



(2) Plurality. 



(3) Totality. 

 (b} QUALITY. 



(1) Reality. 



(2) Negation. 



(3) Limitation. 



(c) RELATION. 



1 i ) Substantiality ; S u b- 



stance and Attribute. 



(2) Causality ; Cause and 



Effect. 



(3) Reciprocity ; Interaction. 



(d] MODALITY. 



(1) Possibility and Impossi 



bility. 



(2) Existence and Non- 



Existence. 



(3) Necessity and Contin 



gency. 



Those twelve categories are represented in the Kantian philosophy as so 

 many mental forms or moulds in which the understanding grasps, synthesizes, 

 and interprets the data of sense intuition. We reach the first three, for 

 instance, by reflecting that the understanding may contemplate those data 

 from three distinct points of view : &quot; as a single object, as distinguished from 

 other objects, and as forming in conjunction with those others a complete 



