The Emergence of the Concept of Category
Historical Reflections in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy and some Implications
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23925/2764-0892.2025.v4.n2.e73174Keywords:
Categories, Contemporary Philosophy, Nineteenth-century, Aristotle, History of PhilosophyAbstract
This article focuses on inquiries developed at the dawn of contemporary philosophy regarding the origin of the categories in antiquity, showing that this debate is one of the hallmarks of nineteenth-century philosophy. It becomes evident that Aristotle was not the creator ex nihilo of the categories, but the systematizer of an idea already in motion. From this debate there emerges the first historical indication of a distinction between a general concept of ‘category’ and what the categories are for Aristotle. This distinction matters because it allows us to apply the concept to objects not restricted to “being” and to reassess its presence both in pre-Aristotelian thought and in later developments, as in Kant.
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