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Full Idea
The natural categories of individuals are arranged in a hierarchy of inclusion relations that is isomorphic with the linguistic semantic structure.
Gist of Idea
Individuals are arranged in inclusion categories that match our semantics
Source
George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 5)
Book Ref
'The Old New Logic', ed/tr. Oderberg,David S. [MIT 2005], p.47
A Reaction
This is the conclusion of a summary of modern Term Logic. The claim is that Sommers discerned this structure in our semantics (via the study of 'terms'), and was pleasantly surprised to find that it matched a plausible structure of natural categories.
| 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] |