1374. Distinguishing subjects of predication

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By distinguishing between (1) an ultimate subject of predication; and kind of ultimate subject(s) of predication, one can also distinguish, as I have done, between substantival monism or pluralism and attributive monism, pluralism, or dualism. But, then, by making the same distinction, one can offer a more nuanced account than I have previously given of the fallacy committed in different ways by categorial metaphysics as well as myth.

On this account, both modes of thinking and speaking transgress "the ontological difference" between fact(s) and factuality by representing factuality in concepts and terms appropriate only for representing fact(s). But they do this in characteristically different ways. In the case of myth, it is what may be called "the substantival way," in that factuality—or, really, the meaning of factuality for us—is represented as one or more facts alongside all the others. In the case of categorial metaphysics, it is what one may call "the attributive way," in that factualityor,—more exactly, factuality in its structure in itself—is represented as if it were a certain kind of fact(s).

Thus even though categorial metaphysics may observe the ontological difference substantivally, by recognizing that factuality is something ontologically different from either one fact or many facts alongside all the others, it still trangresses the ontological difference attributively insofar as it represents factuality as a fact of a certain kind, whether physical, psychical, or, in the case of dualism, both.

23 January 1998; rev. 23 July 2002