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Hartmann’s Theory of Categories

Roberto Poli

“I always find the announcement of

an ontology and never the attempt to develop

it”

The framework

Foundations of Ontology (1935)

Possibility and Actuality (1938)

The Construction of the Real World (1940)

Philosophy of Nature (1950)

Dasein/SoseinReal/Ideal

Emotional transcendent acts

ModalitiesTwo primary spheres of

being and two secondary spheres

General theory of categoriesLevels of reality

Special theory of categoriesComplex formations

Foundations of Ontology (1935)

Possibility and Actuality (1938)

The Construction of the Real World (1940)

Philosophy of Nature (1950)

Dasein/SoseinReal/Ideal

Emotional transcendent acts

Actuality, Possibility, Necessity

Two primary spheres of being and two secondary

spheres General theory of categoriesLevels of reality

Special theory of categoriesComplex formations

Abbreviations

E = Grundzüge der Metaphysik der Erkenntnis G = Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie A = Der Aufbau der realen Welt W = New Ways of Ontology M = “Systematische Methode”

References to chapters and sections “A.3c” will refer to Chapter 3, Section c of the

Aufbau Introductions will be referred to as ‘Intro’.

Therefore “A.Intro5” will refer to Section 5 of the ‘Introduction’ of the Aufbau

For W and M, page numbers will be given

Four interconnected theses

1. Ontological distinctions have the form of categories (A.Intro1)

2. Science is ontological in all its ramifications (G.37a)

3. If science is ontological, then scientific categories are further specifications and subdivisions of ontological categories (A.Intro1)

4. By virtue of the problems it addresses, ontology is philosophia prima; because of the answers it proposes ontology can be only philosophia ultima. In between there is science (G.19a)  

Four interconnected theses

Ontological distinctions have the form of categories (A.Intro1) All the differences are articulations of being, not

differences between being and not-being. Parts and wholes are both authentic aspects of being; independent and dependent entities are similarly being; physical, biological, psychological and spiritual types of being are all manifestations of being, without any of them being more genuinely being than any other. No part, aspect or moment of reality is more real than any other part, aspect or moment of it

Science is ontological in all its ramifications (G.37a) Against the reading of science as an eminently

epistemological affair. This is one of the issues on which Hartmann firmly departs from the Kantian – better, the Neo-Kantian – legacy

If science is ontological, then scientific categories are further specifications and subdivisions of ontological categories (A.Intro1) Philosophers deal with the most general categories,

while scientists deal with their subsequent specifications. “The theory of categories does not extend natural science. But it is the theory of its presuppositions” (E.49d)

By virtue of the problems it addresses, ontology is philosophia prima; because of the answers it proposes ontology can be only philosophia ultima. In between there is science (G.19a)   Categories are extracted from objects; productive

interplay with science

Ontology and epistemology

Distinction between mere intentional entities and genuine (transcendent) entities Knowledge is a relation between real entities Knowledge as a transcendent act; not as “justified

belief” Both real and ideal known entities are

transcendent (and both are given to us through intentional acts) Husserl: the acts in which real entities are given are

different from the acts in which ideal entities are given Fictitious and self-contradictory thought-contents

have mere intentional being, ideal entities are existent in the genuine sense Husserl admits that ‘round-square’ can be an intentional

object, a noema, but not an essence. When we think of the round square, the noema ‘round-square’ is given. However, this is not actual givenness in the genuine sense. ‘Noema’ is different from ‘essence’ – “Das Wesen ‘rundes Viereck’ gibt es nicht” (Husserliana V, 85)

Knowledge 1

Coordinate the epistemological and the ontological problems of categories

The basic ontological assumption concerning knowledge is that “Knowledge does not create or generate its objects” Ontologically, knowledge grasps objects. Therefore,

objects precede efforts to grasp them This implies that knowledge is not entirely internal

to consciousness (immanent) Knowledge is only one of the many real relations

between the subject and the object (emotional transcendent acts (G))

Knowledge as ‘justified belief’ amounts to an epistemological characterization of knowledge

Knowledge 2

Distinguish between the natural and the reflected direction of knowledge The natural direction of knowledge (intentio recta)

goes towards its object, while the reflected direction of knowledge (intentio obliqua) goes towards other knowledge

The two cases can be systematically distinguished because the determinations of the objects are different from the determinations of knowledge (A.Intro4)

Through the vast array of emotional transcendent acts, we happen to know a variety of determinations even before the beginning of any philosophical reflection (A.Intro4)

The theory of categories shares with the sciences the fund-amental ontological attitude of the intentio recta (G.3d; A.1a)

Thinking and knowing

Grounding knowledge on transcendent acts implies that the connection between knowledge and propositions is secondary

Moreover, thinking is not knowing because the former does not need to refer to a transcendent entity (A.18c)

Authentic phenomena are the appearance of beings, of entities. A phenomenon without a being appearing in it is a void appearance. We cannot know phenomena without to some degree knowing their underlining beings, without implying that at least some determinations of a phenomenon are determinations of being (A.22b)

The two main phenomenological principles: Principle of Evidence: Every type of entity has

its own specific way to appear, i.e. of becoming known

Principle of Transcendence: Every type of entity has its own specific way to transcend its appearance

Knowledge 3

Knowledge is not one of the fundamental ontic relations: it does not divide being into the world of the subject and the world of the object The subject-object relation is ontologically

secondary There is no need for a Gegenstand to become an

Objekt, the correlate of a transcendent act. Entities are super-objective Gegenstand (object) – Objekt (idea)

Objects and subjects are both entities. Both the object and the subject are temporal, contingent and individual

Objects are indifferent to their being known While knowledge is relevant for the knower, it

is of no importance for the object

The Gegenstand—Objekt difference

German commonly distinguishes between Gegenstand – what is against us, what resists us – and Objekt – the object-as-known Gegenstand external entity; Objekt internal

entity I am using ‘’ and not ‘=’ because also

psychological representations (Darstellungen) behave like Gegenständen (Brentano; Albertazzi) – not by chance, evidence is limited to presentations (Vorstellungen) only

English wavers in this regard. What is Gegenstand in German, in English is the result of a referential act (or reference, for short), while what is Objekt in German is sometimes translated as idea or image (translating ‘Objekt’ as ‘object’ is a category mistake)

The structure of the Gegenstand

Trans-intelligible Trans-objective Objective

This boundary moves together with the

development of knowledge

This boundary is uncrossable

Objectum(the object-as-known)

(Transintelligible) Objciendum(the object-as-knowable) (the

referent together with its possibly-

knowable-but-still-unknown

determinations)“Unerkannt” but

“erkennbar”

Working out aporetic issues by assuming as little metaphysical

hypotheses as possible on the unknowable aspects of being

The structure of the Gegenstand

Trans-intelligible Trans-objective Objective

This boundary moves together with the

development of knowledge

This boundary is uncrossable

Objectum(the object-as-known)

(Transintelligible) Objciendum(the object-as-knowable) (the

referent together with its possibly-

knowable-but-still-unknown

determinations)“Unerkannt” but

“erkennbar”

Working out aporetic issues by assuming as little metaphysical

hypotheses as possible on the unknowable aspects of being

Symmetry principles in physics (+ Noether theorem)

Categories

“the categories with which the new ontology deals are won neither by a definition of the universal nor through derivation from a formal table of judgment. They are rather gleaned step by step from an observation of existing realities. And since, of course, this method of their discovery does not allow for an absolute criterion of truth, here no more than in any other field of knowledge, it must be added that the procedure of finding and rechecking is a laborious and cumbersome one. Under the limited conditions of human research it requires manifold detours, demands constant corrections, and, like all genuine scholarly work, never comes to an end” (W.13-14)

“The analysis of the categories themselves cannot be presented within the confines of a brief summary. It must be worked out in detail, and then it will constitute a science all by itself. It may also be added that today this science is still in its initial stage” (W.63)

Categories

Ontological categories Are not concepts Are not ideal entities Are principles of being

The categorial interior of entities has a layered organization: the most fundamental categories structure the innermost core of entities, while other categories, such as scientific ones, add more superficial layers. Ontological categories are the lower level of being. They form the network of internal, dynamic determinants and dependences of entities

Ontology and epistemology

Knowledge of categories is a complex form of knowledge, because it goes backward from (the totality of) experience to its conditions (A.Intro5)

In order to arrive at knowing ontological categories, at least a partial overlapping between ontological and epistemological categories is needed (what Kant called the problem of the “objective validity of the categories”; A.Intro3)

The question is not so much the content of a category but the problem of the validity of ontological categories

We know ontological categories through the objects we know. Knowledge of ontological categories is more provisional than knowledge of objects

Categories and concepts

Categories do not allow direct acquaintance as objects do

Ontological categories are intrinsic to objects. The difference between knowing objects and knowing categories explains why ontological categories are often confused with concepts

While our knowledge of objects is grounded in the Gegenstand / Objekt divide, our knowledge of ontological categories follows a different pattern (the regression problem)

The difference between the ontological and the cognitive sides of categories is more important than it is in the case of objects

Concepts are partial, static, separate representations of something that is essentially dynamic and inseparable from other categories

The knowledge of ontological categories changes – when ontology develops, our understanding of ontological categories develops too towards a deeper grasping of their articulation

Concepts and categories

While we need concepts to refer to categories, categories are not concepts (contra Kant, Hegel and, cum grano salis, Aristotle) If categories were concepts, they could be

representations, suitable to manipulation as every other representation (A.Intro3)

Concepts are never able to capture categories entirely. There is always a difference between categories and their concepts

The philosophical problem of categories remains alive only if the following conditions are fulfilled Categories are named by concepts Concepts are not identical with the categories

they name The relations between a concept and its category

may be different in each different case and detailed analyses are needed (A.1a)

Hartmann’s method of definition

The genus proximum & differentia specifica structure is too limited for categorial analysis

Interplay among many categories (Plato’s koinonia of categories – Sophist) Hartmann: New method of concept formation

(“dialectical concept formation”) accounts for a variety of intercategorial relations (including but not limited to genus and differentia relations)

Whitehead: the genus-species structure is useful for certain scientific purposes in their early stages; it does not satisfy the highest needs of abstraction

“Dialectical concept formation” produces a “relational-definition,” which takes account of a multiplicity of relations that the category stands into with other categories (A.64e)

An ideally completed relational-definition would capture the totality of the relations that a concept stands in. Our finite understanding cannot grasp the totality of relations, however. The process of Begriffsbildung is a virtually incompletable task. Categorial concepts always remain approximate with regards to their contents

Regression

From (knowledge of) objects to (knowledge of) categories

Object CategoryRegression

Description (the phenomenological attitude) Eidetic (individual essence); Konspektive

(structured essence) Regressive inference (‘vision’ of categories;

Kategorienschau) (Plato: ascending – Kant: transcendental method)

Inter-dependences among categories (the dialectical method)

Four kinds of essences: Individual essence – structured essence – categorial essence – structured categorial essence

Aporetic stance (underlining problems may be insoluble)

Three methods

Descriptive = knowledge through principles ‘vertical’ attitude; the species-genus architecture

Transcendental = knowledge of principles ‘regressive’ (‘ascending’) attitude

Dialectical = knowledge of the relations among principles ‘horizontal’ attitude (M.38-40)

Two aspects:

What are ontological categories?

Principles of entities

Conditions of possibility

Internal determinants

Principle—concretum

Categories are nothing without their concreta

Categories

Categories analyze the fundamental determinations of being, they are principles of being. As fundamental determinations, categories form the interior of entities

Therefore, categories are immanent to the world: they do not form a second world (A.16b). Categories as universalia in re

Categories articulate what is universal and necessary, what remains identical (A.Intro12). Categories articulate in particular the Sosein of entities; they specify conformations, structures and contents, not forms of existence (A.Intro7)

Categories do not form a homogeneous continuum, but appear to be organized into groups (A.Intro15) The most fundamental categories structure the

innermost core of entities, while other categories, such as scientific ones, add more superficial layers

Some categories apply to the entire real world. They form the unitary base of the world and they are the specific subject of the general theory of categories (A.21a)

Categorial Groups

Three groups of categories Those that apply to all entities Those that apply to the entities of one sphere of

being only Those that apply to specific families of entities

(e.g. inanimate entities) The first group is analyzed in Foundations of

Ontology (Dasein and Sosein) and Possibility and Actuality (modalities)

The second group in The Construction of the Real World

The third group is analyzed in Philosophy of Nature (inanimate and animate levels), The Problem of Spiritual Being, Ethics and Aesthetics (spiritual level) No book on the psychological level (partial

analyses in Metaphysics of Knowledge, Foundations of Ontology and elsewhere)

Families of categories

Fundamental categories that pertain to both the real and the ideal spheres of being Moments of being: Dasein—Sosein

Dasein is analyzed by modal categories (e.g., actual; possible, necessary)

Sosein is analyzed by other groups of fundamental categories

Paired Categories (e.g., principle-concretum, substrate-relation; element-complex)

Categories that pertain to the real sphere of being only Level categories (those that distinguish the

inanimate, living, psychological and spiritual strata of being)

Categorical laws (e.g., laws of validity, coherence, stratification and dependence) (some of which pertain to the ideal sphere too)

Special categories (e.g., for the inanimate being)

Space, time, causality, individuality, substance

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The architecture of categories

Group 1 Principle-concretum Structure-modus Form-matter Inner-outer Determination-

dependence Quality-quantity

Group 2 Unity-multiplicity Harmony-conflict Opposition-dimension Discreteness-continuity Substratum-relation Element-complex

Fundamental categories The Dasein/Sosein articulation Modal categories Paired categories Level categories Categorial laws

Special categories

Space Time Causality Process Substance …

Principles

Categories are principles Principles are something only with respect to the

concretum they determine and are ‘in’ it. Principles are nothing without their concreta, and the concreta cannot exist without their principles (A.1a; 6b; 16b and elsewhere)

Principles do not determine their concreta as causes, reasons or ends. It is difficult to specify the positive feature of this relation (A.5a)

Categories as principles are independent from their concreta, not from other categories (A.11c).

Principles imply one another; all the categories characterizing a stratum of reality work together (A.15c)

Principles and concreta are both categories

Network of principles

Principle

Concretum

General vs particular principles

There are also highly particular principles structuring specific domains of being – such as natural laws or psychological laws – which are concreta with respect to general categories (A.25f)

Gradation of principles from the most general categories to specific real cases. Empirical laws are concreta with respect to general principles, and principles with respect to individual instances (A.25f).

The essence of every category is determined by the connections that a given category has with other categories (A.47c)

Empirical law

Category

Instance

Paired Categories (‘elementary oppositions’) Paired categories are the most general

structural elements of being. They have content, and there are composite relations among them (A.23b). Both the categories of a paired opposition are positive, which means that they are contrary, not contradictory categories. Most pairs show transitions between their two categories in which a series of intermediate grades extends between them (A.23c)

Two groups of six pairs. No hierarchical order is implied – no intrinsic order among the pairs (A.24a)

Many oppositions are well known since antiquity (unity-plurality, form-matter, quality-quantity, continuity-discreteness) (A.21c)

Paired categories do not have common genera; pairs are not like ‘warm’ and ‘hot’, which are species of ‘temperature’. If a genus were available, it would be the fundamental category (A.25a)

Paired categories cannot be divided into categorial elements. We can only ‘show’ their differences, the links that connect them, and the relations they have with each other (A.24f)

Mode and Structure

Mode and structure express the connections between the modal articulation of a concretum (e.g. as a real entity as opposed to an ideal one) and the determinations that specify its attributes

Mode determines the form of Dasein; structure refers to the Sosein and all the moments of its determination This is a general law: ontological categories are

mutually connected and form a network of reciprocal dependences

All the remaining twenty-two oppositions are articulations of structure

Principle and concretum

Concretum is what is determinate, what is complete. For Hartmann, the concretum should not be understood as the opposite to the general, as the individual instance. The general-individual pair and the principle-concretum pair are two different pairs

Real categories contain all the universal determinations of their concreta, they contain what is needed for the structure of the concreta. A complete system of categories – not the incomplete one we can grasp – completely determines its concreta (A.4a)

As natural laws exist only in the real processes of nature and are nothing outside of them, real categories exist only as structural relations within the real world and are nothing in themselves (A.16c)

Concretum

Concretum for Hartmann is the entity in which categories are embedded as its determinations

The concretum is not limited to real entities, but includes ideal ones as well

The concretum for Hartmann is not to be understood as limited to the individual instances of a principle because there can be different levels of concreta Level categories are concreta with respect to

general categories

The three relations

Three relations characterize principles and concreta

The epistemological relation: The principle is that through which the concretum is grasped

The first ontological relation: The principle is the arché of the concretum, the condition of its possibility or that on which the concretum rests

The second ontological relation: The principle has unconstrained validity for all the concreta that fall within its range (A.27c)

Principle and concretum

The principle-concretum determination is one among a variety of types of determination

In no way it is the most relevant in the real world. Each real stratum has its own specific types of determination, such as the specific linear nexus (causal, final, etc.) that unifies the phases of the processes that unfold within a concretum

The relation between principle and concretum is extraordinarily stable. In fact, it presents only one main variation, localized within the highest stratum

The human ethos is the only case in which there are principles that do not determine their concreta: values are principles with the nature of requirements, exigencies; in no way do they determine the corresponding concreta, not least because in the real world there also are disvalues and most of the time values themselves are at best only partially realized (A.27e)

Substrate and Relation

Real categories are constituted by ‘material’ (beware: in the phenomenological sense!) components; the lower material components are those with a character of substrate (A.24e). Moments with the character of substrate do not pertain to the mode of being of ideal entities (A.4a)

All entities are determined by relations, both internal and external. Every isolation is secondary and exclusively due to acts of abstractions. Without relation, there is neither unity nor multiplicity; form and quality depend on relations (A.28.a)

While relations can have other relations as their arguments, at some point the series of relations within relations within relations etc. must end. Sooner or later, there must be a non-relational substrate, a substrate that is not the result of a relational construction (A.25c, e)

Categories

Some categories present numberless variations, others only minor variations. There are many different types of unity and multiplicity, but only slight variations in the case of principle and concretum. The most general and schematic categories are those that present the most meagre content and therefore those that change less (A.27b)

Introducing levels of reality The categories of a stratum are mutually

coherent ‘Returning’ categories interact with the

categories of the higher level and some of their moments become different

Coherence at

level 2

Coherence at

level 1

Returning category

Har

tman

n’s

leve

lsPsychological

Spiritual

Living

Inanimate

Over-forming

Over-building

Over-building

Levels of Reality

Like everything else, levels of reality are characterized (and therefore distinguished) by their categories

Levels of reality are structural aspects of the world. While each of them has its own structures and its own forms of determination, their mode of real being remains constant (A.27f, 31b, 60c)

The unity of the real world is neither the unity of a principle nor a center. The unity of the real world is the order of the levels (A.52a)

Four main levels of reality are distinguished by Hartmann: the inanimate, the biological, the psychological and the spiritual. This last includes all historical realities (history, language, law, art, etc) The underlining intuition is that historical and

other spiritual processes are in no way less real than natural processes. Their structure and their laws are different, however (A.20a)

The same intuition applies to the other strata as well: biological and psychological processes are as real as any other process, and they have their own specific groups of categories

Relations among levels

What relations connect the levels to each other?

Leaving fundamental categories aside, two main situations can be distinguished Entity A and B are categorically

different because the categories of A are partially different from the categories of B, in the sense that the latter presents new categories (B includes at least a novum, a new category not present in A)

Entity A and B are categorically different because the categories of A and those of B form two entirely different (disjointed) groups of categories

Following Hartmann, the two relations can be termed as respectively relations of super-formation (Überformung) and super-position (Überbauung) (A.51f)

Psychological

Spiritual

Living

Inanimate

Over-

form

ing

Over-

build

ing

Over-

build

ing

Levels

Super-formation is weaker than super-position because it includes at least some categories of the level below Relation between molecules and cells, i.e.

between the physical and the biological levels of reality

Even if organisms are unquestionably more complex than mechanisms, they nevertheless contain the laws of the mechanical (A.51b)

The psychological and spiritual levels are different, because they are characterized by an interruption in the categorical series and by the onset of new categorical series (relative respectively to the psychological and spiritual levels)

The relations between the biological and the psychological levels, on the one hand, and the relation between the psychological and the spiritual levels, on the other, are both relations of super-position The group of categories embedded in

psychological entities is different from the group of categories embedded in biological entities

The group of categories embedded in spiritual entities is different from the group of categories embedded in psychological entities

Spirit

The category of the spirit is divided into personal, objective and objectivated spirit

Personal spirit is the spirit of the individual, objective spirit is the living spirit of communities and objectivated spirit characterizes the products of spirit

Categorial laws

There are laws that are valid for all the strata Higher strata rest on lower ones The lower stratum is the conditioning one

(strength of lower ones) The higher stratum is independent from the lower

one as to its conformation and its own laws (freedom of higher ones)

Each stratum has its novum, the category or group of categories that distinguish the stratum from the lower ones. The novum does not derive either from the elements of the stratum or from their synthesis (A.53c)

With super-formation, some categories of the lower level return in the higher one. Returning categories interact with the categories of the higher stratum and some of their moments become different

Higher strata are not characterized by returning categories

Super-position

Two aspects characterize super-position relations The categories embedded in the entities of the

connected levels are entirely different A relation of existential dependence links the

higher level to the lower one Not all the strata are equally well-known. For

most of the strata we know only some of their elements, possibly not the most important ones.

In fact, we do not know the central categories of the biological stratum; the same applies to the psychological and the spiritual strata. This lack of knowledge has dramatic consequences on our capacity to correctly grasp the concreta of the higher strata

Physical concreta

To see what this means, consider the case of physical concreta, those that we know better The group that includes time, space, process,

causality and substance, together with the effects that they mutually exert on each another, determines physical entities

A physical concretum cannot be temporal without being spatial, nor can it present any of the other determinations without being a process; and a process cannot exist without a substantial basis, and space and time are impossible without process; and again none of them can exist without being causally conditioned

The determinations that pertain to a stratum work together, and together they constrain the concreta of the stratum (A.46b)

Categorical Laws

First group of fundamental categorical laws: Fundamental law of validity: categories are what

they are as principles of a concretum; they are nothing without their concreta; similarly, concreta are nothing without their categories.

Fundamental law of coherence: categories exist together with the other categories of a stratum of reality

Fundamental law of stratification: the categories of lower strata are amply contained within higher strata; the opposite is not true

Fundamental law of dependence: the existence of higher categories depends on lower categories; this dependence is partial and leaves wide room for the autonomy of higher categories

Partial categorical laws

In order to unfold the content of the four fundamental categorical laws, a variety of partial categorical laws are needed (A.42c), such as: Law of the principle: the being of a category is its

being a principle; a category has no other being than its being a principle for its concretum

Law of validity: the determination arising from a category is valid within the stratum to which it pertains. Within its limits, the determination resulting from a category does not admit exceptions (A.44a)

Law of membership: a category is fully valid only for the concreta of its stratum; outside that stratum, it has only partial and modified kinds of validity. However, if its concretum is a stratified formation, the validity of the category applies, in a modified way, also the other strata of the concretum (A.44b)

Law of determination: the categories of a stratum determine all the principles of a concretum. Apart from general determinations, there are other types of determination that are valid for the individuality of the singular case, such as the causal nexus (A.31c). The latter determinations connect real entities among themselves – horizontally (A.44c)

Laws of coherence

The categories of a stratum work together and are connected to each other. To distinguish this kind of connection from other connections, it will be called ‘categorical coherence’. The following is the group of the laws of coherence (A.45b): Law of mutuality: the laws of a stratum do not

determine a concretum individually, one at a time, but collectively

Law of unity: the categories of a stratum form an indissoluble unit; no category of the stratum is isolated from the other categories of the stratum

Law of totality: the unity of a stratum’s categories is not the sum of its elements; the totality of a stratum precedes the stratum’s elements and has priority over them. This totality consists in the complex of relations constraining the categories of the stratum

Law of implication: the totality of a stratum returns within each of its elements; every category implies all the other categories of the stratum

The law of totality suggests that there is no totality of the entire collection of categories (A.46c). The laws of coherence have a double implication: on the one hand, a category can be fully known only when all the remaining categories of a stratum are known; on the other hand, the knowledge of a category throws some light on the other categories of the stratum (A.64d)

Laws of stratification

The following are the laws of stratification (A.42c): Law of return: some of the lower categories return

into the higher strata as partial moments of higher categories

Law of variation: some moments of returning categories change; they are transformed by the character of the higher stratum; what persists unchanged is always only a fundamental categorical aspect

Law of the novum: The reappearance of lower categories never constitutes the character of the higher stratum; this always stems from the intervention of a categorical ‘novelty’ which is independent of the lower categories and consists in the emergence of new categories

Law of distance between strata: Return and variation do not change continuously, but in steps (A. 50b)

Laws of dependence

The next group comprises the laws of dependence (A.55d): Law of force: Lower categories are the

foundational bases of higher categories. This moment will be called the ‘force’ of a category

Law of indifference: The lower stratum is the base of the higher one, but does not exhaust itself in this role of being the basis of the higher stratum

Law of matter: Where return and over-formation occur, the lower categories are matter of higher categories; since lower elements are stronger, they can only be over-formed. Where the relation between strata is of the over-position type, lower categories are existential conditions for the higher ones, not their matter

Law of freedom: Higher categories are conditioned by either matter or existential dependence, but are free with respect to their nova

Three Problems

The architecture of LoR

Complex formations

Non-categorial determinations

The architecture of LoR

Non-categorial determinations

Types of determination

The real sphere contains two different types of determinations: the hierarchical type of determination (the genus-specie structure) is shared with the ideal sphere, while the horizontal type of determination connects individuals with individuals and in particular the successive stages of real processes one to another All the moments resulting from the hierarchical

nature of categories – including their moments with the character of substrate and dimensional moments – will never exhaust the fullness of an individual being

The horizontal series articulates the totality of the actual reality (A.4d). The principle-concretum type of determination is far from being the only determination shaping the whole of reality; a second type of determination – of a non categorial nature – should be included: a determination of the concretum-concretum type (A.6b) The ideal sphere knows nothing of the latter type

of determination (A.31a, d)

On the Variety of Determining Moments There are many real moments without

corresponding ideal moments. The most obvious case is represented by causality. If causality were only a law, it would be legitimate to view the law of causality as an essence and therefore as an ideal entity

Causality is the nexus that connects together the phases of a process, the dynamic series of the production of the phases one from the other within the unity and irreversibility of the process. Whatever kinds of determination and dependence are valid for ideal entities, causality is not one of them (A.4b)

Substance is another case of a real determination without corresponding ideal moments. For Hartmann, substance is what remains constant through changes, what resists the succession of events. Therefore, substance presupposes time and the dynamic flow of events. Ideal being knows nothing of this (A.4b)

Levels of reality

The internal articulation of

levels

The overall architecture of

levels

The Material Stratum

Material

Physics

Chemistry

Biology

Ecology (Ecosystem)

Ethology (Population)

Physiology (Organism)

Cythology (Cell)

Genetics (Gene)

Super-formation dominates

The Psychological Stratum

Egological Acts (Stein)

Emotional Acts

Non Egological Acts (Stein)Representation

PresentationBody feelings

Character

Moods

Complex interplay of

super-position and super-formation relations

The Social Stratum

Agent Institution

Technology

Living Organization

SpaceInformation

Population

Macro

MicroThe

PISTOL model

(Bailey)

Super-position dominates

Psychological

Spiritual

Living

Inanimate

Over-

form

ing

Over-

build

ing

Over-

build

ing

Psychological

Material

Social

Problems: Complex formations

Hartmann (almost) never speaks of individuals While human beings, collectivities and history

are asserted to be stratified formations, the nature of these formations is never discussed in detail

The multidimensional, rich categorical framework discussed by Hartmann does not appear to have a proper place for the category of whole – what he calls ‘formation’

He acknowledges that formations are the real furniture of the world and occasionally interprets strata through them He does so when he claims that psychological life is

not to be understood as the internal conscious and unconscious world together with its acts and their contents, but that it should rather be seen as a single thing together with, corporeal life and the physical conditions of life. The same is true for the spiritual stratum: the life of spirit is not only ethos, language, art, knowledge, etc.; it is also a single thing possessing the psychological life of acts, organic life and the physical conditions within the individuals that are its subjects

However, Hartmann is unclear about how formations should be categorized. On occasion, he denies that defining strata according to the complex formations in which they appear is the correct strategy, because the essences of strata are different from the essences of formations, and the limits of strata and formations will collide with each other (A.20c)

Formations

“Working with formations, rather than with categories, fails properly to articulate the differences among the strata of being” (A.55a). While this claim is acceptable, the problem is: why formations should not have their own categorical moments?

While the categorical study of strata is needed for analytical distinction of their moments and the relations among them, the categorical study of formation helps us understand how complex formations are synthetically constituted

The theory of category is, for Hartmann, restricted to the relations of stratification and to the strata of being as such. It does not deal with the gradation of the total formations of thing, living being, human being, and collectivity

Hartmann’s attitude oscillates between the hope that the problem of complex formation will be solved once the theory of categories has been completed, and the fear that the problem of how heterogeneous strata can be so tightly connected within a human being – or within a collectivity, a people, or history – is a major metaphysical problem that will forever escape ontology’s capacity to solve (A.52c)

Dependent and independent complexes An irregularly shaped stone, a grain of sand, a

puddle, a mountain are not independent complexes, but fragments and parts of much wider formations that come into existence before them and within which they exist as subordinate moments (A.33c)

All natural complexes are complexes of forces and processes. There is no reason to view elements as simple or as analogous to material particles. If we assume that inorganic parts are elements of an organism, this way of understanding an organism is radically different from the idea that an organism is a dynamic complex able to survive the continuous substitution of its elements (A.33d)

The former refers to a physical complex, while the latter refers to a biological complex, and the two are authentically different complexes. Both the individual organism and the biological species are complexes of processes (A.33d). The inside of the complex of processes that constitutes an organism is the capacity of the complex to maintain its working conditions, what Hartmann calls the self-determination of the organism (A.34c)

Whole

My own suggestion is that room should be created for the category of whole (complex formation), and that specification should be made of types of wholes and the forms of synthesis that work for them

Hartmann did some preliminary work in this direction with his category of ‘complex’; but he treated this on a par with all the many other categories and never realized/accepted that the theory of wholes could assume a role as important as the one performed by the theory of levels of reality

A possible reason: ‘part-whole’ relations are buried within the category of quantity (don’t know whether this is the source of the

problem or one of its outcomes)

Categorial vs. non-

categorial determinati

ons

By way ofa summary

Internal organizatio

n and overall

architecture of levels of

reality

The structure of individuality

(or the theory of

real wholes)

By way of a summary

Hartmann’s is possibly the most articulated theory of ontological categories ever developed On a par with Hegel’s, but far from being

speculative With a deep understanding of the history of

philosophical problems Deeply rooted in science

Thanks