Kant and Aristotle by Marco Sgarbi

Author:Marco Sgarbi [Sgarbi, Marco]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781438459998
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 2016-07-15T05:00:00+00:00

CATEGORIES AND JUDGMENTS

Kant’s doctrine of categories is probably one of the most controversial in his entire philosophical corpus, especially for its connections with the table of judgments and the theory of schematism. Many scholars have seen in Kant’s doctrine of categories an absolute novelty introduced in open opposition to Aristotle’s logic,166 probably following Kant’s misleading verdict according to which the Stagirite “had no principle, he rounded them [concepts] up as he stumbled on them, and first got up a list of ten of them, which he called categories (predicaments)” (A 81/B 107). Indeed, such judgment was quite common among Eclectic logicians, for instance Thomasius stated that “categories are not grounded in the truth of things, but they are arbitrary classes depending on the powers of imagination,” while Hollmann wrote that “we proscribe the very confused Aristotelian doctrine of the ten predicaments.”167 Kant’s negative judgment on the Aristotelian categories therefore probably depends on the general criticism around this doctrine.

Scholars have often overlooked the Aristotelian derivation of Kant’s doctrine of categories. Strikingly, the only monographic study on Aristotle and Kant did not even mention the problem of the categories,168 and some other works examine only extrinsically the relationship between these the two doctrines.169 Thomas K. Seung states that the Kantian conception of categories is incompatible with Aristotle’s logic, and that the Kantian table of judgments differs from the Aristotelian one, but he wisely recognized that the idea of a schema of the categories is not Kant’s original invention, but rather it is an important element of Aristotle’s doctrine of categories.170 Tonelli is more careful in investigating Kant’s possible sources, tracing his categories back to the fundamental and irresolvable concepts of authors such as Crusius, Tetens, and Lambert, but he peremptorily states that Kant’s categories most certainly cannot be traced back to the Aristotelian categories.171 There is no doubt, however, that whoever understands this doctrine possesses a key to the understanding and evaluation of Kant’s entire work.

In this section I aim to show that Kant’s conception of categories has its roots in the Aristotelian tradition. Aristotle’s doctrine of categories is highly problematic, so much so in fact that it can be interpreted in three different ways. First, there is the grammatical interpretation according to which the categories were found following the analysis and resolution of linguistic propositions. Then, we have the ontological interpretation according to which categories are the highest kinds of being. Finally, we have the logical interpretation, according to which categories come from the resolution of logical judgments. The problem of these various interpretations is that “the opening chapter of the Categories fails to reveal whether it is introducing a grammatical, a logical, or a metaphysical treatise.”172 I find this problem totally misleading since this question acquires value only if we are looking for a deduction of the Aristotelian categories, like in Kant, but this concern was totally alien to Aristotle. It is more fruitful to understand the various meanings and uses of the categories in the Aristotelian writings. In general,

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