ONCATEGORIES

(We can design Concepts but Categories are such that we have to Accept)

    [I am presenting my contributions to theory, philosophical or otherwise, under 

        the  label ‘my contributions’. I would like to get these articles appreciated as 

        well as  critically reviewed by lay-persons & experts too. If convinced I am 

        ready to modify my positions acknowledging the critics.]

        Perplexities, which can not be blamed upon ignorance, which persist in spite of knowledge, constitute the proper subject-matter of philosophy. Philosophy studies the nature of such perplexities & possible human attitudes that can be taken towards them. A coherent configuration of such attitudes forms a view of life. Various views of life compete with each other in the arena of philosophy, on the issues of better or worse coherence, on the correct & wrong reading of the nature of perplexities & whether a perplexity is genuinely philosophical or not.

Common people in any case do have views of life, but in a rather amorphous, unstable, scattered way. Competing views in the ‘philosophical arena’ offer more crystalline, stable & articulated options. No view emerges as a permanent winner & in the final analysis philosophical choice remains personal, though hopefully, with well clarified criteria & internal consistency.

Human consensus increases, if the participants of debate over any contended issue have taken steps towards their individual integrity. Primary ethic of genuine debate is, “If I allow myself a type of move in my justification, I ought to allow the same to my opponent”. Debate ensues because there are differences. Differences however can not generate a constructive debate unless those who differ in some respect, also at the same time, agree in some other respect. It is the ‘commonly agreed upon’ that constitutes the basis on which differences can be hopefully resolved.

In any negotiations it is the particular situation in which the negotiators find themselves that provides the common ground. Philosophical debates can not be left to any particular situation. Commonly held positions in philosophy must be such that anyone can not (honestly) deny & is convinced not due to any external pressure or interest but due to his/her inner source of ‘axiomatic intuitions’ which emerge in any human individual.

How can I dare to claim that there are ‘axiomatic intuitions’ available to any human individual in a way identical to any other human individual?

Establishing ‘categories’ or ‘dimensionalities’ by self-answering questions

Are there any basic categories or dimensionalities that human beings simply can not avoid or deny? If we are in a position to answer this question affirmatively, we can hope to get hold of a least common denominator, so to speak.

Do we have something opposite of the perplexities (that can not be univocally answered)? Let us start from the other end of the spectrum. There are in a sense ‘self-answering questions’. These are the questions that are raised about the very dimensionalities from which they emerge. They can not be properly ‘raised’ because they presuppose their answers. In a sense they are un-ask-able!  A list is given below. “What is difference?” For example uses grammatically an interrogative pronoun “what”. There are differences between “this” & “that” & therefore there can exist an interrogative pronoun “what”.

Existence of “what” presupposes existence of ‘difference’. Difference therefore can not be defined in some other terms than difference itself. Usually a definition having the same definiens (defining terms) as its definendum (term to be defined) is flawed one. In other words, ‘difference is difference’ is a blatant tautology. Yet it has to be accepted in order to say anything meaningful at all. Because there are differences, we have to ask “what is ‘this’ (rather than ‘that’)?” We can answer ‘what’ in some terms because there are similarities! Thus ‘difference & similarity’ becomes a necessary philosophical category or philosophical dimensionality.

 ‘Space’ (which is in its own way three dimensional but spatially alone!) is but one of them. A list of such self-answering & hence un-ask-able questions is given below

1)    What is difference? What is Similarity? Why items belong to types/classes? Why an item belonging to a sub-type automatically belongs to super-type too?

2)    Due to what, there is causation? What for there is purposefulness? What was the original cause? What is the final purpose?

3)    Where is space? How much big it is? How much smallest it can be? When to call it point & when to call it an occupier of a little space? Why space is retractable (at least in principle)?

4)    When did the time start? Why time goes on of its own & at a constant rate? When is it going to end? Why time is irreversible? How much small an interval that can be taken as a moment?

5)    From which substance, all substances are made up of? It is the set of attributes by which we can identify any item. Why we have to believe that there are substances which ‘have’ various attributes.

6)    Why are inconsistencies disturbing? Why logical self-contradictions are failures of logic? Why are mere tautologies redundant?

7)    Who is conscious of the consciousness? What is it, that can never become an object of consciousness while itself remaining a consciousness?

8)    ‘Who’ thinks ‘I exist’?

9)    Why I am not alone & why there are others? Why I owe anything to others & why others owe anything to me? Why I am responsible for my actions?

10)    Why promises are to be kept? & conventions to be followed? Why there should be any ‘should rules’? Why one should abide by them?

11)    Why happiness is sought & suffering is avoided? Why does everybody strive for achieving whatever?

12)    Why living is necessarily having value contrasts in terms of, like-dislike, well-being-ill-being, Pro-Anti, Eu-Mal, good-bad, & so on?

13)    Do we ‘deserve’ our fortunes & misfortunes?

14)    Why we simply can not consider the choices made by us as ‘fully caused’ without inserting ‘us’ as decisive causes?

15)    Why I am ‘the unique one’ whom I happen to be?

16)    As particularity increases the number of generalizations conjunctively describing it also increases. As uniqueness will require infinite generalizations it will be un-describable. How we still believe that there is uniqueness, without trying to catch it in as many generalizations as possible?

17)    Why I have to suppose that others have a consciousness similar to mine although I can not have a direct access to it or incumbency of it?

18)    Why naming can be arbitrary? Why grammar can not be arbitrary? How can signs represent, some things that are other than themselves? Even though they are not present (or even can not be present ostentatiously).

19)    Why wholes have some properties, which can not be attributed to their parts? Are there any parts, which are not wholes, in there own turn? (i.e. do not have further parts)

20)    What makes some features of an item essential to it & some other features as just accompanying ones? Are essences autonomous or depending upon the ‘relevance’ of such item to us?

21)    How can we get fully convinced of some (non-tautological) truths without judging a single case as verification or refutation? How is it that from such truths we can deduce some other truths which are verifiable or falsifiable?

22)    Why there are no algorithms for creative plunges?

23)    If individual consciousness ceases when body is destroyed, how we can say that there is a persistent structure of Human-Consciousness, irrespective of whatever contents the various individual-consciousnesses may have?

This list is not exhaustive. It is an attempt to demonstrate that there is a peculiar type of questions which presuppose an answer in the question itself & still they are not tautologies or contradictions. Such questions can not be ‘answered’ in external terms. However they themselves are the answers of a very pertinent question, viz. “why philosophy is required at all?

By constructing such type of questions we can grasp the categories/dimensionalities. Questions referring to self-same category are for establishing that category.

Furthermore if we try to construct questions going across the categories we generate outright nonsense. ‘When is Time?’ is un-ask-able question because it is self-answering. On the contrary a question ‘Where is Time?’ is outrageous! Appling ‘where’ to time is a category mistake. It is like saying, “I heard a blue sound.” “It occupied a heavier volume.” & so on.  ‘Cause of all causes’ is at least an arbitrary ending of an infinite regress on some line.

But ‘unconscious volition’ is a logical-contradiction whereas ‘unconscious urge’ is not. Similarly “where is consciousness?” is a profound category mistake. It presumes consciousness to be an occupier of Space as a ‘thing’ which is a legitimate occupier of space. This mistake has lead to supposing ‘soul’ as a substance (Dravya).  As we go on grasping categories, we can also identify category mistakes in which some philosophers might be indulging in.

An exercise similar to the one that we are engaging now was called ‘transcendental deduction’ by Kant. However the term transcendental is easily susceptible to be meant as ‘supra-realmic’ (PaarLoukik). Therefore I opted for ‘categorial contemplation’ as a safe term.

It is via unanswerable questions that we reach undeniable truths of Human Existence

A concept can subsume whatever is denoted by it. We can choose to use a concept or not to use it or reformulate it. Categories have to be used whether we want it or not. Categories subsume aspects of existence that are neither avoidable nor inter-reducible. However they are not unrelated to each other simply because they are dimensionalities of same existence.