1454. Ten Theses

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TRANSCENDENTAL METAPHYSICS IN OUTLINE: TEN THESES

1. To be real in the most general sense of "reality," which contrasts with "unreality," "mere appearance," or "fiction," is to be real for something else that is real in the same general sense. (Everything is real for something, and only nothing is real for nothing.)

2. There is a difference in ontological type, however, between things that are real solely and simply in the most general sense that they are real for something else and things that are real in the emphatic sense that other things can also be real for them. In other words, there is an ontological difference between the type of things that are objects and only objects (otherwise called abstracts" or "properties") and the type of things that are not only objects but also subjects (otherwise called "concretes" or .. instances").

3. As between objects that are also subjects (and so concretes or instances), there is a further difference in ontological type insofar as some of them can, while others of them cannot, also be real for themselves. The first type of subjects are individuals, the second type, events. Although subjects of both types are not only real for something else but also such that other things can be real for them, events cannot be real for themselves but only for other events and/or individuals, while individuals can also be real for themselves. Thus as between events and individuals there is a difference between types of identity—the identity proper to events being strict, the identity proper to individuals, genetic.

4. There is yet another difference in ontological type between individuals—namely, that between particular individuals for which only some things can be real and the universal individual for which all things must be real. Of course, there is the corresponding difference between the two types that particular individuals can in turn be real only for some things, while the universal individual must in turn be real for all things. Obviously, there is and could be only one universal individual, since if it must be both real for all things and such that all things are real for it, there neither is nor could be anything to distinguish anyone universal individual from another. By the same token, the one and only universal individual could not fail to be real, provided only that the concept of such an individual is both clear and coherent; for all things must imply the reality of this individual, and nothing could ever fail to imply it.

5. Yet another ontological type difference is between particular individuals, namely, that between those that are and those that are not capable of self-understanding, and hence either are or are not able, among other things, to develop the kind of transcendental metaphysics formulated in the present set of theses. All particular individuals are such that other things are real for them and that they can also be real for themselves. But only some particular individuals are capable of understanding themselves as well as others and, therefore, also understanding what it is to be real both in the most general sense and in the various senses of the ontological type distinctions covered by this most general sense of "reality." Such individuals are properly distinguished as "existents."

6. Of the two other differences in ontological type that need to be clarified, one is the difference with respect to individuals or events, the difference between singulars and aggregates.  The difference between a singular and an aggregate s the difference between anyone individual or event, on the one hand, and any group of individuals and/or events having less subjective unity than any of its member individuals and/or events, on the other. 

7. The other difference is the difference with respect to objects that are only objects (and so abstracts or properties) between two different types thereof, specifically, between transcendental properties, on the one hand, and categorial, generic, specific, and individual properties, on the other. Transcendental properties are strictly universal and therefore such that they must be real for, and so characterize, anything that is so much as conceivable, either regardless of ontological type differences or allowing for such differences. Thus, for example, the transcendental property of being real for something else characterized by the same property is real for, and so characterizes, anything whatever regardless of any differences of ontological type. 

The same is true of any other transcendental properties that prove to be convertible with the transcendental property of being real in this most general sense of the word—such as, e.g., being one, being good, being true, being beautiful. On the other hand, the transcendental property of being a subject as well as an object, and so real in the emphatic sense, is disjunctive with the transcendental property of being an object that is only an object. Accordingly, it is real for, and so characterizes, a thing only insofar as one allows for this difference of ontological type. (As for the question of how transcendental properties can be real for themselves as well as for other properties, the answer is that transcendental properties, both convertible and disjunctive, are real for themselves and for other properties only insofar as they are real for the subjects, i.e., the individuals and/or events, to which the properties belong. Thus the convertible transcendental property of being real is real for a property, whether transcendental, on the one hand, or categorial, generic, specific, or individual, on the other, only insofar as it is real for a subject to which the property in question belongs. Similarly, the disjunctive transcendental property of being a property is real for a property only insofar as the disjunctive transcendental property of being a subject is real for some subject characterized by the property.) So far as categorial properties are concerned, they are real for, and so characterize, such fundamentally different kinds of individuals and/or events as respectively mental and material, living and nonliving, and so on. Generic properties are real for, and so characterize, less fundamentally different kinds of individuals and/or events, whereas specific properties are real for, and so characterize, even less fundamentally different kinds. As for individual properties, they are the properties defining the particular individual members of species as just the particular individuals that each of them happens to be; therefore, they must be instantiated in every event in which any of these individuals is actualized. 

8. It will be apparent from the preceding theses that two of these differences in ontological type are fundamental to all the others: that between subjects (and so concretes or instances), on the one hand, and objects (and so abstracts or properties), on the other; and that between the universal individual, on the one hand, and particular individuals and/or events, on the other. Significantly, both of these differences exhibit the same structure of symmetry embraced within a more fundamental asymmetry. Thus, while subjects and objects mutually require one another, neither being real without the other, and to this extent exhibit symmetry, subjects require objects by a necessity that is specific or definite, while objects require subjects only by a necessity that is generic or indefinite, and in this respect exhibit asymmetry—So, for example, this individual woman could not be real without the specific property human, even though this specific property could be real without this individual woman; for while the property could not be real unless there were at least some individual characterized by it, neither this woman nor any other individual that happens to be so characterized is necessary to its reality, since any other such individual would serve equally well to instantiate it.

7. In the same way, the universal individual, on the one hand, and particular individuals and/or events, on the other, mutually require one another, neither being real without the other, and insofar exhibit symmetry; but particular individuals and/or events require the one and only universal individual by a necessity that is specific or definite, while the universal individual requires particular individuals and/or events only by a necessity that is generic or indefinite, and therein exhibit asymmetry. Whereas no particular individual and/or event could be so much as possible but for the reality of the universal individual, the universal individual could and would be real without the reality of any particular individual and/or event whatever, provided only that at least some particular individuals and/or events were real.

8. It will be apparent from the preceding theses is that there are different degrees of abstractness and concreteness. The more abstract something is, the less it derives its reality from other things and the more universally they derive their reality from it. Conversely, the more concrete something is, the more its reality derives from other things and the less universally they and individuals both as singulars and as aggregates, even as there are differences of ontological type between ordinary and extraordinary properties. Thus events alone are fully concrete, just as transcendental properties alone are fully abstract. By the same token, there is a sense in which individuals, though concretes, are more abstract than events, even as there is a sense in which categorial, generic, specific, and individual properties, though abstracts, are still more concrete than transcendental properties.

10. If subjects, on the one hand, and objects, on the other, are both real, "reality" is evidently an analogical, as distinct from either a univocal or an equivocal, concept, in that it must be used in two different if also similar senses in order to refer to these two main types of realities. Allowing further, then, that there are also different types both of subjects (namely, singular events and individuals as well as aggregates thereof) and of objects (namely, transcendentals, on the one hand, and categories, genera, species, and individual properties, on the other), one has yet more reason to say that "reality" is an analogical term. Likewise, if the universal individual, on the one hand, and particular individuals, on the other, are both individuals, "individual," also, is evidently an analogical, not a univocal or an equivocal, concept, in that it has two different if related senses when it is applied respectively to the one necessary universal individual and to any of the many possible particular individuals. Furthermore, the concept "event," apart from which "individual" cannot be defined, must also be an analogical, rather than a univocal or an equivocal, concept, since it applies both to the type of extraordinary events in which the universal individual is and must be actualized and to the type of ordinary events in which any particular individual is and must be actualized if it is actualized at all. To this extent, then, or in this sense, there must be a place for analogy even in a strictly transcendental metaphysics such as that outlined here. Even so, because the ontological type distinctions bridged by these analogical terms are themselves purely formal or literal, in that whether something is an "event" or an "individual," a "transcendental" or a "species," is not a matter of degree, but of all or none, the different senses in which these analogical terms are used are each literal because they each apply within their respective types not in different senses but in the same sense. Moreover, "reality," "individual," and "event" all have a strictly literal core of meaning in any of their uses: anything that is real in any sense whatever is so only because it is real for, and hence makes a difference to, something else that is real in the same general sense and any individual whatever, whether universal or particular, actualizes its individual essence and so exists only in events that as such are and must be contingent rather than necessary, whether they are ordinary or extraordinary. Thus the sense in which analogy is indeed involved even in a strictly transcendental metaphysics is in no way to be confused with the very different sense in which any merely categorial metaphysics is "analogical."

Summer 1985