Quality.—Cf. above, p. 192.
Relation.—The correlation of the categorical judgment with the conception of substance and attribute is only possible[727] owing to Kant’s neglect of the relational judgment and to the dominance in his logical teaching of the Aristotelian substance-attribute view of predication. The correlation is also open to question in that the relation of subject and predicate terms in a logical judgment is a reversible one. It is a long step from the merely grammatical subject to the conception of that which is always a subject and never a predicate.
Kant’s identification of the category of community or reciprocity with the disjunctive judgment, though at first sight the most arbitrary of all, is not more so than many of the others. Its essential correctness has been insisted upon in recent logic by Sigwart, Bradley, and Bosanquet. In Kant’s own personal view[728] co-ordination in the form of co-existence is only possible through reciprocal interaction. The relation of whole and part (the parts in their relations of reciprocal exclusion exhausting and constituting a genuine whole) thus becomes, in its application to actual existences, that of reciprocal causation. The reverse likewise holds; interaction is only possible between existences which together constitute a unity.[729] Kant returns to this point in Note 3, added in the second edition.[730] The objection which Kant there considers has been very pointedly stated by Schopenhauer.
“What real analogy is there between the problematical determination of a concept by disjunctive predicates and the thought of reciprocity? The two are indeed absolutely opposed, for in the disjunctive judgment the actual affirmation of one of the two alternative propositions is also necessarily the negation of the other; if, on the other hand, we think of two things in the relation of reciprocity, the affirmation of one is also necessarily the affirmation of the other, and vice versa.”[731]
The answer to this criticism is on the lines suggested by Kant. The various judgments which constitute a disjunction do not, when viewed as parts of the disjunction, merely negate one another; they mutually presuppose one another in the total complex. Schopenhauer also fails to observe that in locating the part of a real whole in one part of space, we exclude it from all the others.[732]
Modality.—The existence of separate categories of modality seems highly doubtful. The concepts of the possible and of the probable may be viewed as derivative; the notion of existence does not seem to differ from that of reality; and necessity seems in ultimate analysis to reduce to the concept of ground and consequence. These are points which will be discussed later.[733]
Aristotle’s ten categories[734] are enumerated by Kant in Reflexionen, ii. 522,[735] as: (1) substantia, accidens, (2) qualitas, (3) quantitas, (4) relatio, (5) actio, (6) passio, (7) quando, (8) ubi, (9) situs, (10) habitus; and the five post-predicaments as: oppositum, prius, simul, motus, habere. Eliminating quando, ubi, situs, prius, and simul as being modes of sensibility; actio and passio as being complex and derivative; and also omitting habitus (condition) and habere, as being too general and indefinite in meaning to constitute separate categories; we are then left with substantia, qualitas, quantitas, relatio, and oppositum. The most serious defect in this reduced list, from the Kantian point of view, is its omission of causality. It is, however, a curious coincidence that when substance is taken as a form of relatio, and oppositum as a form of quality, we are left with the three groups, quality, quantity, relation. Only modality is lacking to complete Kant’s own fourfold grouping. None the less, as the study of Kant’s Reflexionen sufficiently proves,[736] it was by an entirely different route that Kant travelled to his metaphysical deduction. Watson does not seem to have any ground for his contention[737] that the above modified list of Aristotle’s categories “gave Kant his starting-point.” It was there indeed, as the reference to Aristotle in his letter of 1772 to Herz shows, that he first looked for assistance, only, however, to be disappointed in his expectations.
Derivative concepts.[738]—Cf. above, pp. 66, 71-2.
I reserve this task for another occasion.[739]—Cf. A 204 = B 249; A 13; above, p. 66 ff., and below, pp. 379-80.
Definitions of categories omitted.[740]—Cf. above, pp. 195-6, and A 241 there cited; also below, pp. 339-42, 404-5.