Categories

This paper examines a prosaic subject - cheques - in order to illustrate two different theories of categorization. The Canadian law of cheques is set out in the Bills of Exchange Act (BEA) and the hundreds of cases interpreting and applying its provisions. The law is unpredictable and indeterminate when applied to variations of the basic form of cheques, such as post-dated, certified, post-dated certified, and double-dated cheques. My thesis is that the cause of this uncertainty is the theory of
categorization embodied in the BEA. That statute attempts to precisely
delineate the legal category of cheques definitionally, by setting out the singly necessary and jointly sufficient properties of cheques. However, the existence and use of variations such as post-dated, certified, post-dating certified and double-dated cheques illustrates that we do not categorize in that fashion. Instead, we take a typical case - the ordinary cheque on a bank-provided form - and extend its salient properties in various directions. These extensions are neither predictable nor arbitrary. They are systematic and coherent elaborations of the typical cheque. An explanation of ordinary cheques and their variations that is based upon a cognitive theory of categorization provides a better way to understand these complexities.

Las observaciones que Kant formula en sus obras críticas acerca de la existencia de la cosa en sí han dado lugar a importantes objeciones y agudas discusiones entre los intérpretes. En este trabajo proponemos una reflexión acerca de la posibilidad de establecer el estatus epistemológico correspondiente a dichas observaciones, haciendo uso del concepto kantiano de creencia doctrinal.

Properly executed, metaphysics consists in part of painstaking ontological detail and in part of grand systematic speculation. The distinction between these two aspects is not new: it is inspired by Wolff's distinction between metaphysica generalis sive ontologia and metaphysica specialis, Husserl's distinction between formal and regional ontology, and finally D. C. Williams's distinction between analytic ontology and speculative cosmology. 1 The detail concerns the basic kinds of entity and the ways in which they are discerned, analysed, fitted together and wielded in explanation. In this, analytic philosophy excels, but it cannot take place in a speculative vacuum. The speculation concerns hypotheses for which evidence is partial and inadequate to ground them without demur or risk. The classic metaphysical positions of Platonism, Aristotelianism, Cartesian dualism, Leibnizian monism, and Hegelian idealism all unabashedly adopt such metaphysical speculations. Analytic philosophers have tried generally to steer away from grand speculation because it got a bad name with Hegel and because it tends to undermine their self-sought credentials as "scientific". The upshot has been that their cosmological positions have been largely tacit or shamefaced: commonsense ordinary-language Moorean realism, Carnapian disavowal, Wittgensteinian quietism. But several significant twentieth century philosophers have been unafraid to speculate: Alexander, Whitehead, Quine and Lewis being examples. In my view it is part of a metaphysician's-nay any philosopher's-responsibility, to articulate the speculative hypothetical framework within which his or her detailed work takes its place. 2

This encyclopedia entry (co-authored with W.H. Walsh) focuses on Kant’s main doctrines of transcendental idealism and theory of knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason. Topics covered: Kant’s Copernican revolution, types of judgment (including synthetic a priori judgments), space and time as forms of intuition, the unity of experience (apperception), the role of the twelve categories, the transcendental deduction, schemata, appearances or phenomena, and the thing-in-itself.

Il saggio offre un’attenta ricostruzione delle varie interpretazioni (linguistica, ontologica, semantica, evolutiva, storicistica) che sono state date della dottrina aristotelica delle categorie; esamina le questioni relative alla loro completezza, deduzione e origine storica; colloca le tesi di Otto Apelt all’interno del dibattito ottocentesco e ne ripercorre le vicende nella letteratura successiva.

This research examines intermediary use of categories at the micro-social level, highlighting the links between categories and gatekeeping. Use of membership categorization analysis (MCA) concepts with ethnomethodology helps to show categorical micro-foundations of intermediation in talk and text. In the case of gatekeepers (gallerists) in the high value art market, thematic analysis highlights ideal-type "good collectors" and newer "good investors," and gallerist strategies to push buyers to conform to one of these categories, often with the goal of discouraging disruptive speculation. The findings show: first, how ideal categories serve as reference points for legitimate and even "valorous" behavior, providing a discursive socialization tool; second, illegitimate categories and problem behaviors provide a moral basis for value-protecting gatekeeping, and; third, how recognized categories underlie dealers' gatekeeping, sorting and allocation, practices seen as fair and necessary for professional practice in value-enhancing gatekeeping. The paper extends our understanding of intermediaries at a micro-social level, identifies productive connections between categories and gatekeeping research, and provides exciting methodological suggestions for micro-social categories research.

This paper examines the methodology employed by Thomas Aquinas in his two derivations of the categories, or sufficientiae. In these accounts, he shows the distinctiveness of the ten Aristotelian categories as modes of being (modi essendi) through an analysis of modes of predication (modi praedicandi).  The paper considers why Aquinas sees this logical method of predication (via praedicationis) to be an appropriate tool for the metaphysician.  Similarities between Aquinas’s and Albert’s sufficientiae are shown to clarify Aquinas’s methodology. In particular, the paper examines how both thinkers employ modes of denominative predication and modes of opposition to derive the categories.  The paper not only reveals Aquinas’s full methodology in his sufficientiae, but it also provides further insight into how he uses logical methods in general in his metaphysical investigations.

C. I. Lewis’s distinction between the given and the concept is often exposed as the key element of his treatment of the problem of intentionality in that the given and the concept would be necessary and sufficient conditions for objective purport. Such an account nonetheless offers a truncated picture of Lewis’s treatment of the problem of intentionality. The best way to appreciate this verdict is to state the predicament this account is confronted with: If the distinction between the given and the concept apparently leads to a version of the same problem it was designed to address, how could it be the key element contributing to answering the problem of intentionality? Indeed, according to Lewis, the given and the concept are mutually independent so that prima facie nothing guarantees that concepts are applicable to the given. The difficulty is what Lewis calls “the problem of the a priori”: how to guarantee that our concepts can be imposed upon a content of experience which is independent and not yet given? This is a version of the problem that Kant’s Transcendental Deduction addresses: How can categories, as subjective conditions of experience, be objectively valid? A natural question is then: How does Lewis address the problem of the a priori? The main purpose of this essay is then to investigate how C. I. Lewis’s addresses the problem of the a priori and to contribute to restoring an appropriate understanding of Lewis’s conceptual pragmatism.
http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2573

В статье даётся краткая характеристика категорий особо охраняемых природных территорий по классификации Международного союза охраны природы. Перечисляются направления, в которых применение указанной классификации в России принесло бы пользу, и указываются задачи, решение которых упростит внедрение категорий Международного союза охраны природы в российскую науку и практику.
In the article a brief explanation of protected area management categories according to the classification of International Union for Conservation of Nature is given. Also the article contains an overview of purposes for which the classification may be used and tasks needed to facilitate the implementation of the categories in Russia.

Dietrich von Hildebrand's Aesthetics contains a number of significant metaphysical developments of the scholastic and Aristotelian tradition. Among these are the positing of a new category of being, aesthetic entities, which include things like landscapes. I systematize von Hildebrand's metaphysics of these entities in light of the older tradition. After giving some arguments that these are real beings, irreducible to other kinds of beings, I show, by comparison with the traditionally-enumerated categories, that they constitute their own category. Then, I show how considering aesthetic entities allows us to see how von Hildebrand builds upon the scholastic account of the principles and properties of being, positing new principles and properties of being such as the appearance of a being. This is, in fact, in continuity with the metaphysics of beauty found in Aristotle and some of his followers.

In this work we inquiry what ousia is. Our main sources are Aristotles first book Categories and the Masterpiece Metaphysics. The part of Metaphysics 5. Book, chapter 8 (in which Aristotle -or his student-explained ousia and its different meanings) is the most well-coordinated part for understanding ousia. (Delta is accepted as Aristotle`s dictionary). Therefore we started our article from this point. After that, we examined the last chapter of Zeta, and complete Eta with comparing ousia in the Categories.

This paper offers an interpretation of Aristotle’s concepts of dynamis and energeia (commonly translated as potentiality and actuality), and of the thematic progression of Metaphysics IX. I first raise the question of where motion fits in Aristotle’s categories and argue that the locus of motion in the system of categories are the categories of doing and suffering, in which case dynamis and energeia in respect of motion can also be understood as the dynamis and energeia of doing and suffering. Next, I argue that the analogy that Aristotle draws in IX.6 is an analogy between the dynamis and energeia of doing and suffering and the dynamis and energeia of substance. Finally, I try to show that it is this analogy between the kinetic and non-kinetic variants of dynamis and energeia—and not the distinction between end-inclusive and end-exclusive activities—that provides the key to understanding the structure of Metaphysics IX.

Nell’ambito della rinascita della filosofia di Aristotele nell’Ottocento, una collocazione particolare spetta all’ampio dibattito sulla dottrina delle categorie che ha coinvolto filosofi, filologi e storici della filosofia antica come Trendelenburg, Zeller, Brandis, Bonitz, Prantl, Brentano, Steinthal e Apelt. All’origine del dibattito vi sono le critiche mosse da Kant, e riprese da Hegel, alla dottrina delle categorie di Aristotele. Nel replicare a Kant – ma nel tempo il dibattito si rende indipendente dalle critiche kantiane – i vari autori offrono una disamina della dottrina categoriale aristotelica da più punti di vista e, allo stesso tempo, una ricostruzione e un commento di una teoria sparsa in tanti testi dello Stagirita. Alle interpretazioni linguistica, ontologica e semantica della dottrina delle categorie si affiancano quelle che ne danno una lettura in chiave evolutiva, oppure la riconducono a un’origine platonico-accademica, o ancora la intendono come una struttura concettuale in cui trovano ordine le nostre rappresentazioni. Nell’indagare l’origine e definire il significato delle categorie non ci si può esimere dal rispondere alla classica domanda: che cos’è l’essere?

Il saggio di Otto Apelt La dottrina delle categorie di Aristotele presenta una delle interpretazioni più significative della dottrina aristotelica delle categorie all’interno dell’ampio dibattito che, nel corso dell’Ottocento, ha coinvolto personalità di spicco come Trendelenburg, Zeller, Brandis, Bonitz, Prantl, Steinthal e Brentano. Apelt muove da una concezione antiparmenidea dell’essere, a partire dalla quale propone un’interpretazione logico-semantica delle categorie come significati dell’essere. Tale lettura è integrata da un confronto con la concezione kantiana e da un’analisi degli antecedenti storici della dottrina delle categorie di Aristotele, fra i quali spicca il nome di Platone. L’introduzione di Venanzio Raspa offre un’attenta ricostruzione delle varie interpretazioni (linguistica, ontologica, semantica, evolutiva, storicistica) che sono state date della dottrina aristotelica delle categorie; esamina le questioni relative alla loro completezza, deduzione e origine storica; colloca le tesi di Apelt all’interno del dibattito ottocentesco e ne ripercorre le vicende nella letteratura successiva.

Both in his philosophical and theological works, the eighth-century Byzantine thinker John of Damascus gives an ambitious reformulation of the ontology set out by Aristotle in the Categories, around the notion of hypostasis. The Aristotelian pair primary/secondary substances is replaced by the pair hypostasis/essence (ousia). Only secondary substances are called ousiai. Hypostases are the fundamental entities in John’s ontology; the subsistence of all other entities – universals, essential and accidentals properties – depends on that of hypostases. The result is an ontology which is of Aristotelian inspiration, and demonstrates an immanence realism (as opposed to a Platonic realism) and an essentialist position.

Simplicius reports that Xenocrates and Andronicus reproached Aristotle for positing an excessive number of categories, which can conveniently be reduced to two: τὰ καθ᾽αὑτά and τὰ πρός τι. Simplicius, followed by several modern commentators, interprets this move as being equivalent to a division into substance and accidents. I aim to show that, as far as Xenocrates is concerned, this interpretation is untenable and that the substance-accidents contrast cannot be equivalent to Xenocrates' per se-relative one. Rather, Xenocrates aimed to stress the primacy of Plato's binary distinction of beings, as presented at Sophist 255c13-4, over Aristotle's list of the categories.

Epigraph: The world is not a correlate of anything. (Hartmann)

Introduction:

First scene: 1922. Nicolai Hartmann, newly occupying Paul Natorp’s chair in philosophy at Marburg, just made known his definitive break with neo-Kantianism in his Foundations for a Metaphysics of Knowledge (1921), and looks ahead to the full development of a new ontology beyond neo-Kantian strictures. Eager to find conversation partners with whom to share in this vision, he has heard good things about Husserl’s young assistant in Freiburg, who wrote a dissertation on Duns Scotus’ doctrine of categories and, like himself, had a keen interest in Aristotle. Hartmann supports the “call” of this young scholar, Martin Heidegger, to Marburg in 1923. Unfortunately, Hartmann’s desire for dialogue was frustrated. There were many reasons for this, one being the simple fact that their biological clocks were not in sync. Heidegger rose early to work and teach, so by evenings he was fatigued and unable to carry on into the night, which was precisely when Hartmann was fanning the flame of his intellect for an all night vigil. Students in Marburg joked that the round-the-clock philosophizing of these two thinkers amounted to a “philosophia perennis.”

The reader is guided through a detailed proof of the Ehresmann-Schein-Nambooripad Theorem from the point of view of symmetry, following Lawson's proof in Inverse Semigroups: The Theory of Partial Symmetries. Sierpiński's Sieve is taken as an example. Arrow diagrams, natural orders, restricted products, and prehomomor-phisms are discussed for inverse semigroups; properties of inductive groupoids and their pseudoproducts are established. There is a short interlude on programming, Sierpiński's Sieve, and quasicrystals. A couple of exercises are suggested.

Abstract: Many personalists have argued that an adequate account of the human person must include an account of subjectivity as irreducible to anything objectively definable. The personalists contend that Aristotle lacks such an account, claiming that he fails to meet three criteria that a theory of the human person must fulfill in order to have an account of subjectivity as irreducible. I show first that some later Aristotelians fulfill these criteria, and then that Aristotle himself also does so. I do this through an interpretation of Aristotle’s accounts of substantial actualities, nous, friendship, and beauty.

I describe an account of ontological categories which does justice to the facts that not all categories are ontological categories and that ontological categories can stand in containment relations. The account sorts objects into different categories in the same way in which grammar sorts expressions. It then identifies the ontological categories with those which play a certain role in the systematization of collections of categories. The paper concludes by noting that on my account what ontological categories there are is partially interest-relative, and that furthermore no object can belong essentially to its ontological category.

This chapter highlights the manner in which Madhyamaka Buddhists made use of the intricate categorial frameworks found in traditional Indian schools, while rejecting the overall truthfulness of their conceptual classifications. Here we see that Indian thought – with its exquisite sensitivity to the possibilities of mistaken perceptions and beliefs – was fully capable of disjoining truth commitments from pragmatic and provisional reflection. The result was a school that held the extreme view that our conventional picture of the world is inaccurate, yet combined it with a very accessible and practical provisional affirmation of quotidian life. The Madhyamakas were not the only school to offer philosophies meant to function in the practical activity of farmers as well as the rarefied reflection of intellectuals. Advaitic Hindus as well as Buddhists recognised the power that merely perceived, provisional reality can have, even over those who seek to escape it.

Aristotle's philosophy is considered with respect to one central concept of his philosophy, viz. opposition. Far from being a mere side-effect of syllogistics, my claim is that opposition helps to articulate ontology and logic through what can be or cannot be in a systematic and structural way. The paper is divided into three interrelated parts. In Section 1, the notions of Being and non-Being are scrutinized through Aristotle's theory of categories. In Section 2, the notion of existence is reviewed in its ontological and logical ambiguities. In Section 3, the notion of essence is revisited in order to bring about a holist theory of meaning by individuation through opposite properties. In conclusion, the legacy of Aristotle is depicted as balanced between a powerful reflection around Being and a restrictive ontology of substance.

Emotion scientists often take an ambivalent stance concerning the role of language in a science of emotion. However, it is important for emotion researchers to contemplate some of the consequences of current practices for their theory building. There is a danger of an overreliance on the English language as a transparent window into emotion categories. More consideration has to be given to cross-linguistic comparison in the future so that models of language acquisition and of the language–cognition interface fit better the extant variation found in today’s peoples.

This paper intends to trace the influence of the Platonic tradition “On first principles”, considering its different versions, on the philosophy of Origen of Alexandria. Origen’s knowledge of the Platonists and his affinity with them are confirmed by the historical sources. The Alexandrian adopts and assimilates many aspects of the doctrine and terminology of Plato’s followers. However, he also departs from them regarding some of the essential elements in his conception of the Divine and of the world’s creation. Particularly, the paper focuses on the roles played in Origen’s theory by the Academic categories of Absolute and Relative, the Middle-platonic and Philonian notion of the demiurgic agent and an original reframing of the Neopythagorean derivative system of causes.

The nature of non-substantial individuals in Aristotle's Categories has been a matter of intense debate.  According to the traditional view, a non-substantial individual is a property that cannot be shared by more than one individual substance, i.e., non-substantial individuals are non-recurrent.  Owen has challenged this view, arguing that non-substantial individuals are, in fact, recurrent.  In this paper, I defend Owen's view against the persistent traditional view.  I show that the commonly held version of the traditional view is inconsistent with many passages in the Categories, and that there is no textual support at all for the traditional view.

The essay exposes the famous theses concerning the derivation of the Aristotelian categories from the analysis of the proposition and their correspondence with the parts of speech. While highlighting the connection of the Aristotelian categories with the spoken language, at the same time it points out that Aristotle’s primary interest was in the nature of things and concepts. The introduction, through a biographical draft, sketches Trendelenburg’s cultural formation; subsequently, it presents an analysis of De Aristotelis categoriis; finally, it discusses the reception of Trendelenburg’s interpretation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to the criticisms of scholars like Heinrich Ritter, Eduard Zeller, Hermann Bonitz, Carl Prantl, Franz Brentano and Otto Apelt, it examines the affinities between Trendelenburg’s concept and those of two front-ranking linguists, Émile Benveniste and Louis Hjelmslev.

Listening anxiety has a detrimental effect on language learners. In the Iranian EFL context listening comprehension remains as one of the most problematic skills for learners. To figure out learners’ sources of listening comprehension anxiety and the factors that might reduce listening anxiety, the semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifteen participants. Through qualitative analysis several factors were identified as having influence on Iranian EFL learners’ listening anxiety. These factors were divided into three categories, i.e. individual factors (nerves and emotionality, using inappropriate strategies and lack of practice), input factors (lack of time to process, lack of visual support, nature of speech and level of difficulty) and environmental factors (instructors, peers and class environment).

Abstract: Philosophers interested in Kant's relevance to contemporary debates over the nature of mental content—notably Robert Hanna and Lucy Allais—have argued that Kant ought to be credited with being the original proponent of the existence of ‘nonconceptual content’. However, I think the ‘nonconceptualist’ interpretations that Hanna and Allais give do not show that Kant allowed for nonconceptual content as they construe it. I argue, on the basis of an analysis of certain sections of the A and B editions of the Transcendental Deduction, for a ‘conceptualist’ reading of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. My contention is that since Kant's notion of empirical intuition makes essential reference to the categories, it must be true for him that no empirical intuition can be given in sensibility independently of the understanding and its categories.

The attempt to establish a unified taxonomy for the field of Information Ethics is both unattainable and unwarranted. The categorization of Information Ethics as a defined discipline, an applicable practice, a philosophy and a worldview remains constantly in flux due to, what Luciano Floridi terms, ‘philosophical naturalism’. As such, a broadening understanding of the field will only serve to further collapse categorization. The following paper will outline, using a discourse analysis methodology, how the nature of the field of Information Ethics at a foundational level must necessarily defy classification. The assumptions behind the current classifications of the field will be questioned. Beginning with the history of the inception of the field through Librarianship and Cybernetics and questioning the yet unresolved ontological debates between information philosophers such as Rafael Capurro and Floridi, this paper will explicate how any such attempt to develop an agreed upon taxonomy will and should always remain incomplete.

According to some opinions, because of Porphyry's account of categories as lex-eis, his teaching has been regarded as a type of nominalism. In my opinion, however, in Porphyry the categories constitute generic concepts of things. Porphyry's doctrine rather is a version of real-rather is a version of realism that allows him to unite the Aristotelian categorical doctrine with the Plotinian ontology.

This paper examines Saussure’s claim that “[C]oncepts... are defined not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast with other items in the same system. What characterizes each most exactly is being whatever the others are not.” (1916 [1983]:115). Here, I investigate the distribution of meaning in a system, and ask this question: To what extent are forms defined by or sensitive to other forms, as Saussure claimed? To do so, I consider the system of describing separation events in Japanese, focusing on the lexical competitors nukeru, toreru, and hazureru, which could all be translated into English as “come out/off”. Specifically, I ask what categories of meaning are relevant to the three verbs, and how they are distributed in the system. To what extent is there real overlap, and not merely apparent overlap (e.g. due to the translation)? Is there any evidence that the forms are sensitive to each other, or that they are defined negatively, as “whatever the others are not”?  In-depth interviews with native speakers helped lead to the formation of hypotheses, which were tested by giving surveys to seventy native speaking-subjects.  Quantitative analysis of their responses reveals profound overlap and variation in the system, as well as the unique specialization of each verb and the great extent to which subjects’ intuitions depended on their judgments of lexical competitors in the same situation.

The concept of Transcendental Object either refers, in the framework of the Critic of Pure Reason, to the cause or foundation of external phenomena, or, on the contrary, to the concept of an object in general as it is thought by the conscience so as to guarantee the objective validity of its representations. In this paper, I shall attempt to show that -contrary to what has been suggested by several interpreters-the ambiguity involved in the Kantian use of this concept is not the result of a terminological carelessness, but that it is founded on certain principles of Critical Idealism.