1784.Structures

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"Structures, that is[,] relations of relations, presuppose entities distinguished in some other way than merely by their relations. How else if not by their qualities?" (CSPM: 27 f.). I answer, by their transcendental, as distinct from their categorial, structures. There are, on the one hand, external, behavioral structures, of which the qualities of our sense experiences are the indicators. There are, on the other hand, internal, existential structures indicated by the qualities of our nonsensuous experiences.

25 February 2006In the one case as much as the other, structure is distinct from quality. And in either case, science as such abstracts from the second in order to study the first. In the one case, the qualities of our sense experience include/indicate structure; in the other case, the qualities of our nonsensuous experience do the same. But whereas science in the form of the many ontic sciences is study of the first kind of structure, in abstraction from, although indicated by, the first kind of quality, science in the form of the one ontological science, metaphysics, is study of the second kind of structure in abstraction from, although indicated by, the second kind of quality.