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Single Idea 7174
[filed under theme 7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
]
Full Idea
The inventive force that thought up categories was working in the service of needs - security, quick comprehensibility using signs and sounds, means of abbreviation - 'substance', 'subject', 'being' etc are not metaphysical truths.
Gist of Idea
Categories are not metaphysical truths, but inventions in the service of needs
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 06[11])
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Writings from the Late Notebooks', ed/tr. Bittner,Rüdiger [CUP 2003], p.124
A Reaction
This is a relativism going right to the heart of thinking and planting bombs. And yet we happily translate Confucius, and they can translate Aristotle. I bet the aliens could translate and understand our philosophy. How, without similar categories?
The
18 ideas
with the same theme
[belief that our categories can't or don't map reality]:
20896
|
It is not possible to know what sort each thing is
[Democritus]
|
16654
|
Our words and concepts don't always correspond to what is out there
[William of Ockham]
|
16608
|
Ockham was an anti-realist about the categories
[William of Ockham, by Pasnau]
|
13436
|
There are no gaps in the continuum of nature, and everything has something closely resembling it
[Locke]
|
22079
|
Hegel said Kant's fixed categories actually vary with culture and era
[Hegel, by Houlgate]
|
7174
|
Categories are not metaphysical truths, but inventions in the service of needs
[Nietzsche]
|
7175
|
Philosophers find it particularly hard to shake off belief in necessary categories
[Nietzsche]
|
17654
|
A world can be full of variety or not, depending on how we sort it
[Goodman]
|
11096
|
Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree
[Quine]
|
21907
|
We don't want another new set of categories; we want a variety of flexible categories
[Deleuze, by May]
|
15730
|
Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention
[Quinton]
|
4574
|
If some peoples do not have categories like time or cause, they can't be essential features of rationality
[Cooper,DE]
|
7020
|
Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions
[Heil]
|
13115
|
Ontological categories are like formal axioms, not unique and with necessary membership
[Westerhoff]
|
13119
|
Categories merely systematise, and are not intrinsic to objects
[Westerhoff]
|
13135
|
A thing's ontological category depends on what else exists, so it is contingent
[Westerhoff]
|
10495
|
Continuous experience sometimes needs imposition of boundaries to create categories
[Ellen]
|
18565
|
There may be ad hoc categories, such as the things to pack in your suitcase for a trip
[Machery]
|