The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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On Transcendental Metaphysics

1.The Task

To work out just that utterly abstract, purely formal, literal(≡ transcendental) metaphysics (in the broad as well as in the strict sense of "metaphysics") that is both possible and necessary. 

2. The Conceptuality/Terminology

Included in the conceptuality/terminology necessary to such a metaphysics are the following concepts/terms:

  1. a concrete singular (≡ instance  ≡ subject); hence also either
  2. an event (or an actual state of an individual); or
  3. an individual; or
  4. an aggregate (≡ composite) of concrete singulars (Le., events and/or individuals);
  5. an abstract (≡ property ≡ object); hence also either
  6. an ordinary (≡ particular ≡ ontic) abstract, i.e., an individuality/ a species, a genus, or a category; or *
  7. an extraordinary (≡ universal ≡ ontological) abstract; hence also either *
  8. a transcendental, convertible or disjunctive; or
  9. an existential;*
  10. an ordinary (≡ particular ≡ ontic), transitory individual;
  11. the extraordinary (≡ universal ≡ ontological), everlasting individual;
  12. an existent in the emphatic sense of an ordinary, transitory individual that understands.

To speak, in a very general sense, of the "individuality" of an individual is to speak of its essence, its essential, as distinct from its accidental, properties. But as used here, "individuality" has a more restricted meaning, designating the essence, or the essential properties, of an ordinary, transitory individual only. Therefore, although it is entirely proper to speak, in a very general sense, of the "individuality" of the extraordinary, everlasting individual, also, it must be remembered that there is an infinite, qualitative difference between its essential properties and those of any ordinary, transitory individual. Whereas the latter are all on the lowest level of ordinary abstracts, the essential properties of the extraordinary, everlasting individual are all on the higher level of extraordinary abstracts, i.e., transcendentals, the concept of such an individual being, indeed, the transcendental in which all the others are unified.

The term "an existential," as used here to designate a property on the lower level of extraordinary abstracts, is nominalized in the same way in which Martin Heidegger norninalizes "eine ExistenziaL" to refer to an essential property of "an existent," as understoood in 2.12.

 

 

3. The Distinctions

Among the distinctions that a transcendental metaphysics would appear to require are those between:

  • concretes (≡ instances≡  subjects) and abstracts (≡ properties ≡ objects); * events (or the actual states of individuals) and individuals; i.e., events or individuals, and aggregates ≡( composites) of concrete singulars; (≡ particular  ≡ ontic) abstracts, i.e., individualities, species, genera, and categories, and extraordinary (≡ universal  ≡ontological) abstracts, i.e., either transcendentals, convertible or disjunctive, or existentials; universal ≡ ontological), everlasting individual and ordinary (≡ particular ≡  ontic), transitory individuals; and * ordinary (≡ particular ≡ ontic), transitory individuals and existents in the emphatic sense of ordinary, transitory individuals that understand.
  1. concrete singulars,
  2. ordinary
  3. the extraordinary

    n.d.; rev. 12 April 1997; 6 August 2002; 26 November 2004; 1 June 2008; 15 March 2010
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