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In Kant's philosophy, a 'category' is a pure concept of the understanding. A Kantian category is a characteristic of the appearance of any object in general, before it has been experienced. It is the condition of the possibility of things in general, or of things as such.^[1]

Contents

Meaning of "Category"

The table of judgments

The table of categories

Schemata

Bibliography

See also

Notes

Meaning of "Category"

The word comes from the Greek κάτέγόρίά, meaning "that which can be predicated or asserted about something." A category is an attribute, property, quality, or characteristic that can be predicated of a thing. Aristotle claimed that the following ten predicates could be asserted of anything in general: substance, quantity, quality, relation, action, affection (passivity), place, time (date), position, and state.
These are supposed to be the qualities or attributes that can be affirmed of each and every thing in experience. The categories of Aristotle and Kant are the general properties that belong to all things without expressing the peculiar nature of any particular thing. Kant appreciated Aristotle's effort, but said that his table was imperfect because " … as he had no guiding principle, he merely picked them up as they occurred to him … ."^[2]

The table of judgments

Kant believed that the ability of the human understanding to think about and know an object is the same as the making of a judgment about an object. According to him, "Our ability to judge is equivalent to our ability to think."^[3]
A judgment is the thought that a thing is known to have a certain quality or attribute. For example, "All bodies are divisible" is a judgment. Kant created a table of the forms of such judgments as they relate to all objects in general.^[4]

★ Quantity

★
★ Universal

★
★ Particular

★
★ Singular

★ Quality

★
★ Affirmative

★
★ Negative

★
★ Infinite

★ Relation

★
★ Categorical

★
★ Hypothetical

★
★ Disjunctive

★ Modality

★
★ Problematical

★
★ Assertoric

★
★ Apodictic
This table of judgments was used by Kant as a model for the table of categories.

The table of categories

★ Quantity

★
★ Unity

★
★ Plurality

★
★ Totality

★ Quality

★
★ Reality

★
★ Negation

★
★ Limitation

★ Relation

★
★ Inherence and Subsistence (substance and accident)

★
★ Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)

★
★ Community (reciprocity)

★ Modality

★
★ Possibility

★
★ Existence

★
★ Necessity

Schemata

Categories are entirely different from the appearances of objects in general. In order to relate to specific phenomena, categories must be applied through time. The way that this is done is called a Schema.

Bibliography

★ Kant,Immanuel, ''Critique of Pure Reason'', Hackett, 1996, ISBN 0-87220-257-7

★ Mill, John Stuart, ''A System of Logic'', University Press of the Pacific, 2002, ISBN 1-4102-0252-6

See also

★ Categories (Aristotle)

★ Categories of being

★ Schema (Kant)

★ Schopenhauer's criticism of Kant's schemata

★ Critique of Pure Reason

Notes

1. Kant, Immanuel, ''Critique of Pure Reason'', A 139
2. Kant, Immanuel, ''Critique of Pure Reason'', A 81
3. Kant, Immanuel, ''Critique of Pure Reason'', A 80
4. Kant, Immanuel, ''Critique of Pure Reason'', A 71