Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/237

Rh CATEGORY posed and mutually destructive elemeuts,there results a third which reconciles both in a higher synthesis. The notion in this third is determination or limitation; the Ego and Non-Ego limit, and are opposed to one another. From these three positions Fichte proceeds to evolve the catego ries by a series of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In thus seizing upon the unity of self-consciousness as the origin for systematic development, Fichte has clearly taken a step in advance of, and yet in strict harmony with, the Kantian doctrine. For, after all that can be said as to the demonstrated character of formal logic, Kant s procedure was empirical, and only after the list of categories had been drawn out, did he bring forward into prominence what gave them coherence and reality. The peculiar method of Fichte, also, was nothing but a con sistent application of Kant s own Remark on the Table of the Categories. Fichte s doctrine, however, is open to eorne of the objections advanced against Kant. His method is too abstract and external, and wants the unity of a single principle. The first two of his fundamental propositions stand isolated from one another, not to be resolved into a primitive unity. With him, too, the whole stands yet on the plane of subjectivity. lie speaks, indeed, of the universal Ego as distinct from the empirical self-consciousness; but the universal does not rise with him to concrete spirit. Nevertheless the Wissenschafts- lehre contains the only real advance in the treatment of the categories from the time of Kant to that of Hegel. 1 This, of course, does not imply that there were not certain elements in Schelling, particularly in the Transcendental Idealism, that are of value in the transition to the later system; but on the whole it is only in Hegel that the whole matter of the Kantian categories has been assimi lated and carried to a higher stage. The Hegelian philo sophy, in brief, is a system of the categories; and as it is not intended here to expound that philosophy, it is impos sible to give more than a few general and quite external observations as to the Hegelian mode of viewing these elements of thought. With Kant, as has been seen, the categories were still subjective, not as being forms of the individual subject, but as having over against them the world of noumena to which they were inapplicable. Self- consciousness, which was, even with Kant, the nodus or kernel whence the categories sprang, was nothing but a logical centre, the reality was concealed. There was thus a dualism, to overcome which is the first step in the Hegelian system. The principle, if there is to be one, must be universally applicable, all-comprehensive. Self- consciousness is precisely the principle wanted; it is a unity, an identity, containing in itself a multiplicity. The universal in absolute self -consciousness is just pure think ing, which in systematic evolution is the catagories; the particular is the natural or multiform, the external as such; the concrete of both is spirit, or self -consciousness come to itself. The same law that obtains among the categories is found adequate to an explanation of the external thing which had so sadly troubled Kant. The categories themselves are moments of the universal of thought, typs forms, or definite aspects which thought assumes; determinations, Bestimmungen, as Hegel most frequently calls them. They evolve by the same law that 1 It does not seem necessary to do more than refer to the slight alterations made on Kant s Table of Categories by Herder (in the ^Ifetakritik), by Maimon (in the Propadeutik zu einer neuen Theorie des Denkens), by Fries (in the Neue Kritik der Vernunft), or by Schopen hauer, who desired to reduce all the categories to one that of Causa lity. We should require a new philosophical vocabulary even to translate the extraordinary compounds in which Krause expounds his theory of the categories. Notices of the changes introduced by Rosmini, and of Gioberti s remarkable theory, will be found in Rag- nisco s work referred to below. was found to be the essence of ultimate reality i.e., of self-consciousness. The complete system is pure thought, the Universal par excellence. After the Hegelian there can hardly be said to have been a philosophical treatment of the categories in Ger many, which is not more or less a criticism of that system. It does not seem necessary to mention the unim portant modifications introduced byKuno Fischer, Erdmann, or others belonging to the school. In the strongly-opposed philosophy of Herbart, the categories can hardly be said to hold a prominent place. They are, with him, the most general notions which uie psychologically formed, and he classifies them as follows: (1) Thing, either as product of thought, or as given in experience; (2) Property, either qualitative or quantitative; (3) Relation; (4) Tha Negated. Along with these, he posits as categories of inner process (l)Sensation, (2) Cognition, (3) Will, (4) Action. George, 2 who in the main follows Schleiermacher, draws out a table of categories which shows, in some points, traces of Her- bartian influence. His arrangement by enneads, or series of nine, is fanciful, and wanting in inner principle. The most imposing recent attempt at a reconstruction of the catagories is that of Trendelenburg. To him the first principle, or primitive reality, is Motion, which is both real as external movement, and ideal as inner construction. The necessary conditions of Motion are Time and Space, which are both subjective and objective. From this point onwards are developed the mathematical (point, line, fec.) and real (causality, substance, quantity, quality, ifec.) cate gories which appear as involved in the notion of motion. Matter cannot be regarded as a product of motion; it is the condition of motion, we must think something moved. All these categories, &quot; under the presupposition of motion as the first energy of thought, are ideal and subjective relations; as also, under the presupposition of motion as the first energy of Being, real and objective relations. 3 A serious difficulty presents itself in the next category, that of End (Ziveck), which can easily be thought for inner activity, but can hardly be reconciled with real motion. Trendelenburg solves the difficulty only empirically, by pointing to the insufficiency of the merely mechanical to account for the organic. The consideration of Modality effects the transition to the forms of logical thought. On the whole, Trendelenburg s unique fact of motion seems rather a blunder. There is much more involved than he is willing to allow, and motion per se is by no means adequate to self-consciousness. His theory has found little favour. Ulrici works out a system of the categories from a psy chological or logical point of view. To him the funda mental fact of philosophy is the distinguishing activity (unterscheidende Thdtigkeit) of thought. Thought is only possible by distinction, difference. The fixed points in the relations of objects upon which this activity turns are the categories, which may be called the forms or laws of thought. They are the aspects of things, notions under which things must be brought, in order to become objects of thought. They are thus the most general predicates or heads of predicates. The categories cannot be completely gathered from experience, nor can they be evolved a priori; but, by attending to the general relations of thought and its purely indefinite matter, and examining what we must predicate in order to know Being, we may attain to a satis factory list. Such list is given in great detail in the Sys tem der Logik (1852), and in briefer, preciser form in the Compendium der Logik (2d ed., 1872); it is in many points* well deserving of attention. The definition of the categories by the able French logi J Lehrbuch der Metaphysik, 1844. 3 Loyische Untersuchungen, i. 376-7. V. 29