By Schubert Ogden
The distinction between "transcendental" and "categorial" is used both absolutely and relatively, depending on context of meaning.
It is used absolutely in a strictly metaphysical context, where it distinguishes completely universal, extraordinary abstracts, i.e., "transcendentals," from all less universal, ordinary abstracts, i.e., "categories," "genera," "species," and "individualities."
It is used relatively in other contexts of meaning, where it distinguishes the necessary presuppositions of the context from any-and everything thought, said, and done in the context on the basis of these presuppositions.
A special case is use of the distinction in the existential context of meaning, where "existence" and its cognates are understood in the emphatic sense of "understanding individual." Here the distinction between "transcendental" and "categorial" distinguishes between "existence," or "self-understanding," on the one hand, and"action," or "life-praxis," on the other. This means, among other things, that, in the existential context, the "existentials" explicated by a proper existentialist analysis are distinguished from everything "categorial" somewhat as, in the strictly metaphysical context, "transcendentals," are distinguished from all less universal, ordinary abstracts, i.e., "categories," "genera," "species," and "individualities."
30 August 2005