1465. Logical-Ontological Type Differences in Outline: Ten Theses

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Logical-Ontological Type Differences in Outline: Ten Theses ^* 

To be real in the most general sense of "reality, " which contrasts with "unreality, " "mere appearance, " or ''fiction, " is to be real for the one extraordinary, everlasting individual and also for at least some other events and/or ordinary, transitory individuals that either have become or are in process of becoming real in the same general sense. 

In this most general sense, everything is real for something, and only nothing is real for nothing. 

There is a difference, however, in logical-ontological type between (1) things that are real solely and simply in the most general sense that they are objects, in that they are real for the one extraordinary, everlasting individual and also for at least some other events and/or ordinary, transitory individuals; and (2) things that are real in thefuller sense that other things either were or are also real for them as themselves processes of becoming, extraordinary or ordinary, and therefore are not only objects but also subjects. 

Just as "objects" so understood is equivalent in meaning to "properties" or "abstracts," so "subjects" is equivalent in meaning to "instances" or "concretes"-more exactly, "concrete singulars" (see Thesis 6 below). Also, the concrete singulars that are real in the sense that things are also real for them are one and all processes of becoming, or, in A. N. Whitehead's term, of "concrescence," i.e., growing together. Therefore, to be real in the fuller sense in which subjects are real is not simply to be but also to become.

The following equivalences in meaning should be kept in mind in reading the theses and their elaborations: aggregates -composites; extraordinary -universal == ontological; ordinary == particular == ontic; objects == properties == abstracts; subjects == instances == concretes. 

As between objects that are also subjects, there is a further logical-ontological type-difference in that some of them cannot, while others can, also be real for themselves as processes of becoming -- the.first type  of subjects being events, the second type, individuals. _Subjects of both types are not only real for the extraordinary, everlasting individual and also for at least some other things that either have become or are in process of becoming real, but also such that other things can be real for them as themselves processes of becoming. Events, however, cannot be real for themselves but only for other events and/or individuals, whereas individuals can also be real for themselves. Events become and perish but do not change; individuals, by contrast, change whether or not they also become and perish, as ordinary, transitory individuals do, and the one extraordinary, everlasting individual does not. Thus, as between events and individuals, there is also a difference between types of identity-the identity proper to events being strict,_ that proper to individuals, genetic. The identity of an event is strict because it has, or is essentially qualified by, all of its properties, whereas the identity of an individual is genetic because it has, or is essentially qualified by, only some of its properties, having, or being qualified by, others only inessentially or accidentally. 
There is another difference in logical-ontological type between individuals namely, that between the many ordinary, transitory individuals, for which only some things can be real and which themselves can be real for only some things, and the one extraordinary, everlasting individual, for which an things are real and which itself is real for all things. _Whereas there are and must be many_ ordinary, transitory individuals, there is and can be only the one extraordinary, everlasting individual, since, if it is both real for all things and such that all things are real for it, there neither is nor can be anything to distinguish anyone such individual from any other. By the same token, the one and only extraordinary, everlasting individual cannot fail to be real, provided only that the concept "extraordinary, everlasting individual" is both clear and coherent. That it is both clear and coherent is evident, arguably, because all other things and concepts necessarily imply it. Another logical-ontological type-difference is between ordinary, transitory individuals themselves, in that !,,some of them are, while others are not, capable of understanding, those who are thus capable being properly distinguished as "existents" in the emphatic sense of the term. _All ordinary, transitory individuals are such that some things are real for them and they can also be real for themselves and the extraordinary, everlasting individual as well as for at least some other events and/or individuals. But only some ordinary, transitory individuals are capable of understanding themselves as well as others and the whole and therefore also understanding what it is to be real both in the most general sense and in the various senses reflecting the logical-ontological type-differences bridged by this most general sense of "reality" (see Thesis 1). The other two differences in logical-ontological type that require to be clarified, onei.\< the difference with respect to both events and individuals between singulars and aggregates, i. e., between anyone event or individual, on the one hand, and any group o.l events and/or individuals lacking in the subjective unity (~lany of its members, on the other._
An aggregate, or composite, is distinguished from a singular, whether event or individual, because it lacks the unity of the singulars composing it.

It lacks their unity because such unity as it has is neither the strict identity of an event nor the genetic identity of an individual. Therefore, although all three types of concretes--events, individuals, and aggregates-are both one and many, each type of concrete is both one and many in a distinctive way. An event is one and many in the way constituted by its strict identity as an event: being essentially qualified by all oft he many other events and properties to which it is internally related, it would be an essentially different event if even a single element in this many were otherwise. An individual, by contrast, is one and many in the way constituted by its genetic identity as an individual: being essentially qualified by only some of the many other events and properties to which it is internally related, it would still be essentially the same individual even if others oft hese events and relations were different and it therefore had many different "accidental" properties from those it in fact has. Finally, an aggregate is one and many in the way constituted by its having neither the strict nor the genetic unity of its members.
This difference may also be put by saying that, whereas individuals are both singular and subject to change, and events are singular even though not subject to change, aggregates are subject to change even though not singular. They are subject10 change, however, not subjects ofchange. The only subjects qfchange so far as aggregates are concerned are the individuals that they include or that include them.

The other logical-ontologicaltype-d~fJerence is with re:)pect to objects that are only objects between two difforent type!·; thereqf (1) the extraordinary objects that are either transcendentals or existentials; and (2) the ordinary objects that are respectively cateKories, genera, .)pecies, and individualities.

Transcendentals are extraordinary in that they are strictly universal and therefore such that they must be real for, and so characterize, anything coherently conceivable, either regardless of logical-ontological type-differences or taking such differences into account. Thus, for example, the transcendental property of being real for the one extraordinary, everlasting individual and also for at least some other events and/or ordinary, transitory individuals is real for, and so characterizes, anything whatever regardless of any differences of logical-ontological type. And the same is true of any other transcendental properties that are convertible (or coextensive) with the property of being real in this most general sense of the word-such properties, e.g., as being one, being Kood, being true, being beaut~ful, to name those most commonly reckoned among the "transcendentals" of traditional metaphysics. By contrast, the transcendental property of being a subject as well as an object, and so real in the fuller sense, is di~junctive with the transcendental property of being merely an object. Accordingly, being a subject is real for, and so characterizes, something only insofar as one takes this difference of logical-ontological type into account. 

As for the question of how transcendentals can be real for themselves as well as for other categorial properties (Le., genera, species, and individualities as well as categories proper), the answer is that transcendental properties, both convertible and disjunctive, are real for themselves and for other properties only insofar as they are also real for, and so characterize, the subjects, the events and/or the individuals, to which they and other properties belong. Thus the convertible property of being real is real for another property, whether transcendental or categorial, only insofar as it is real for some instance of the other property. Similarly, the disjunctive transcendental of being a property is real for a property only insofar as the disjunctive transcendental of being an instance of the property is real for some subject instantiating the property. 

Existentials, also, may be classified as extraordinary objects, albeit on a lower level than transcendentals, because they are not strictly universal, but, in their own way, particular, being the essential properties, not of anything whatever, but only ofany existent in the emphatic sense of the word, which is to say, any ordinary, transitory individual that understands (see Thesis 5 above). Precisely in being able to understand itself, others, and the whole, an existent is the uniquely "ontological," or metaphysical, individual, in that it can therewith understand reality in the most general sense as well as in all the senses reflecting the logical-ontological type-differences outlined in these theses. Moreover, by understanding the essential structure of its own existence, as articulated by the several "existentials," an existent understands what Martin Heidegger calls "fundamental ontology," meaning by this the understanding ofreality fundamental to all ontological, or metaphysical, understanding. Metaphysics in the broad sense, then, includes analysis of "existentials" as well as of the "transcendentals" that are the proper concern of metaphysics in the strict sense. 

So far as categories 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, sentient and nonsentient, etc. Genera are real for, and so characterize, less fundamentally different kinds ofindividuals and/or events, whereas species are rea] for, and so characterize, still less fundamentally different kinds. As for individualities, they are the properties defining the individual members of species as just the particular individuals that each of them happens to be; as such, they must be instantiated in every event (or "state") in which any of these individuals is actualized.

It

is to be noted, also, that the differences between the four kinds of categorial properties~i.e., individualities, species, and genera as weB as categories proper~are
more or less arbitrary, and are therefore in principle different from any logicalontological differences of type

Two (?fthe several differences in logical-ontological type are evidently fundamental to all the others: that between subjects and objects; and that between the one extraordinary~ everlasting individual and the many ordinary, transitory individuals.

Significantly, both of these fundamental differences exhibit the same structure of symmetry embraced within a still 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 at least some objects by a necessity that is specific or definite, whereas objects require such subjects as they require only by a necessity that is generic or indefinite, and in this respect exhibit asymmetry. So this individual woman, say, could not be real without the species property being human, even though the species property being human could very well be real without this individual woman, provided only that there were at least

Also evidentfrom the preceding theses i,\" that there are, in a sense, d(fforent degrees ofconcreteness and abstractness in between the two extremes (iffully concrete events and completely abstract transcendentals. 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 universal1y they derive their reality from it. The different degrees ofabstractness, however, allow for two different types ofobjects, or properties: individualities, species, genera, and categories, on the one hand, and transcendentals and existentials, on the other (see Thesis 7 above). The difference between the two types--ordinary and extraordinary respectively-is that, in the case of ordinary properties, whether individual, specific, generic, or categorial, there is always the possibility ofnegative instances, whereas, in the case ofextraordinary properties that are transcendental, there is no such possibility because they admit of