Category of being

In metaphysics (in particular, ontology), the different kinds or ways of being are called categories of being or simply categories. According to the Aristotelian tradition, a being is anything that can be said to be in the various senses of this word. Hence, to investigate the categories of being is to determine the most fundamental senses in which things can be said to be. A category, more precisely, is any of the broadest classes of things - 'thing' here meaning anything whatever that can be discussed and cannot be reduced to any other class.

Related Topics:
Metaphysics - Ontology - Being - Aristotelian - Class - Reduced

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It is hoped, moreover, that a full account of the categories would be exhaustive. Sometimes ontological category schemes have included nonexistent or even impossible objects; Meinong, who thought we can talk unobjectionably about nonexistent objects such as the golden mountain, was an ontologist.

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For example, what it means to take the category physical object seriously as a category of being is to assert that the concept of physical objecthood cannot be reduced to or explicated in any other terms - not, for example, in terms of bundles of properties. In this way, as it turns out, very many controversies of ontology can be understood as controversies about exactly which categories should be regarded as the (fundamental, irreducible, primitive) categories.

Related Topics:
Physical object - Bundles of properties

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