Precursors Of Category Theory • 3
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/05/27/precursors-of-category-theory-3-a/

❝Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.❞

— Immanuel Kant (1785)

C.S. Peirce • “On a New List of Categories” (1867)

❝§1. This paper is based upon the theory already established, that the function of conceptions is to reduce the manifold of sensuous impressions to unity, and that the validity of a conception consists in the impossibility of reducing the content of consciousness to unity without the introduction of it.❞ (CP 1.545).

❝§2. This theory gives rise to a conception of gradation among those conceptions which are universal. For one such conception may unite the manifold of sense and yet another may be required to unite the conception and the manifold to which it is applied; and so on.❞ (CP 1.546).

Cued by Kant's idea regarding the function of concepts in general, Peirce locates his categories on the highest levels of abstraction able to provide a meaningful measure of traction in practice. Whether successive grades of conceptions converge to an absolute unity or not is a question to be pursued as inquiry progresses and need not be answered in order to begin.

Resources —

Precursors Of Category Theory
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Precursors_Of_Category_Theory

Propositions As Types Analogy
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Propositions_As_Types_Analogy

Survey of Precursors Of Category Theory
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/05/24/survey-of-precursors-of-category-theory-5/

#Aristotle #Peirce #Kant #Carnap #Hilbert #Ackermann #SaundersMacLane
#Abstraction #Analogy #CategoryTheory #Diagrams #FoundationsOfMathematics
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Precursors Of Category Theory • 2.3
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/05/26/precursors-of-category-theory-2-a/

In the logic of Aristotle categories are adjuncts to reasoning whose function is to resolve ambiguities and thus to prepare equivocal signs, otherwise recalcitrant to being ruled by logic, for the application of logical laws. The example of ζωον illustrates the fact that we don't need categories to “make” generalizations so much as to “control” generalizations, to reign in abstractions and analogies which have been stretched too far.

References —

• Aristotle, “The Categories”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 1–109 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.

• Karpeles, Eric (2008), Paintings in Proust, Thames and Hudson, London, UK.

Resources —

Precursors Of Category Theory
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Precursors_Of_Category_Theory

Propositions As Types Analogy
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Propositions_As_Types_Analogy

Survey of Precursors Of Category Theory
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/05/24/survey-of-precursors-of-category-theory-5/

#Aristotle #Peirce #Kant #Carnap #Hilbert #Ackermann #SaundersMacLane
#Abstraction #Analogy #CategoryTheory #Diagrams #FoundationsOfMathematics
#FunctionalLogic #RelationTheory #ContinuousPredicate #HypostaticAbstraction
#CategoryTheory #PeircesCategories #PropositionsAsTypes #TypeTheory #Universals

Precursors Of Category Theory • 2.2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/05/26/precursors-of-category-theory-2-a/

Aristotle —

❝Things are equivocally named, when they have the name only in common, the definition (or statement of essence) corresponding with the name being different. For instance, while a man and a portrait can properly both be called animals (ζωον), these are equivocally named. For they have the name only in common, the definitions (or statements of essence) corresponding with the name being different. For if you are asked to define what the being an animal means in the case of the man and the portrait, you give in either case a definition appropriate to that case alone.

❝Things are univocally named, when not only they bear the same name but the name means the same in each case — has the same definition corresponding. Thus a man and an ox are called animals. The name is the same in both cases; so also the statement of essence. For if you are asked what is meant by their both of them being called animals, you give that particular name in both cases the same definition.❞ (Aristotle, Categories, 1.1a1–12).

Translator's Note. ❝Ζωον in Greek had two meanings, that is to say, living creature, and, secondly, a figure or image in painting, embroidery, sculpture. We have no ambiguous noun. However, we use the word ‘living’ of portraits to mean ‘true to life’.❞

#Aristotle #Peirce #Kant #Carnap #Hilbert #Ackermann #SaundersMacLane
#Abstraction #Analogy #CategoryTheory #Diagrams #FoundationsOfMathematics
#FunctionalLogic #RelationTheory #ContinuousPredicate #HypostaticAbstraction
#CategoryTheory #PeircesCategories #PropositionsAsTypes #TypeTheory #Universals

Precursors Of Category Theory • 2.1
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/05/26/precursors-of-category-theory-2-a/

❝Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists …❞

— Marcel Proust

When it comes to looking for the continuities of the category concept across different systems and systematizers, we don't expect to find their kinship in the names or numbers of categories, since those are legion and their divisions deployed on widely different planes of abstraction, but in their common function.

#Aristotle #Peirce #Kant #Carnap #Hilbert #Ackermann #SaundersMacLane
#Abstraction #Analogy #CategoryTheory #Diagrams #FoundationsOfMathematics
#FunctionalLogic #RelationTheory #ContinuousPredicate #HypostaticAbstraction
#CategoryTheory #PeircesCategories #PropositionsAsTypes #TypeTheory #Universals