more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Aristotle seems to have worked out his list of categories by considering various questions that one might ask about a particular object, such as What is it? How big is it? How is it qualified? And Where is it?
Gist of Idea
Aristotle derived categories as answers to basic questions about nature, size, quality, location etc.
Source
report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance
Book Ref
Gill,Mary Louise: 'Aristotle on Substance: Paradox of Unity' [Princeton 1989], p.188
A Reaction
Of course, to think of his questions, Aristotle already had categories in his mind. How would he approach a proposal to recategorise reality more efficiently?
| 16116 | Aristotle derived categories as answers to basic questions about nature, size, quality, location etc. [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| 16655 | Different genera are delimited by modes of predication, which rest on modes of being [Aquinas] |
| 12989 | Our true divisions of nature match reality, but are probably incomplete [Leibniz] |
| 21754 | Our concepts and categories disclose the world, because we are part of the world [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21755 | For Hegel, categories shift their form in the course of history [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 16462 | The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation [Quine] |
| 16185 | Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N] |
| 18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
| 13739 | Maybe categories are just the different ways that things depend on basic substances [Schaffer,J] |
| 17728 | The concepts we have to use for categorising are ones which map the real world well [Jenkins] |
| 18921 | Individuals are arranged in inclusion categories that match our semantics [Engelbretsen] |