Categories

A Study of a Concept in Western Philosophy and Political Thought

Luke O'Sullivan (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

344 Seiten

2026
Edinburgh University Press (Verlag)
978-1-3995-2416-2 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. Mai 2026)
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Explores the concept of a category and contemporary debates on category politics, category mistakes and the imperialism of categories.

In ancient and modern Western thought, the problem of the nature of categories has been inseparable from arguments about the nature of selfhood; about how knowledge is organised; about how power should be distributed; and about how history should be understood. For Plato, Forms belonging to a timeless order of being played the role of categories or fundamental concepts; for Aristotle categories were immanent in things; for Kant they were a priori logical structures of our consciousness; and for Hegel they were dynamic, dialectical inter-related ideas. In Categories, O’Sullivan shows how these answers have gone forward into the contemporary era, and identifies three key schools of thought that have developed since Hegel in particular. He explains modern thought as a tension between a desire for a single dominant perspective, whether scientific or phenomenological; a belief in irretrievable fragmentation; and an effort to find a middle ground.

Luke O’Sullivan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. He maintains a repository of his published work at https://nus.academia.edu/LukeOSullivan.

Preface

Introduction – Why Categories Matter

Part 1: Categories in Platonic and Aristotelian Thought

1. Plato – Forms as Categories of Ideal Being

2. Aristotle – Categories as not-Forms, or Substances

Part 2: Categories in Modernity – Kant and Hegel

3. Kant – The Categorial A Priori

4. Hegel – The Dialectic Dynamics of Categories

Part 3: Contemporary Theories of Categories

5. Fragmentarians – The Categorial Kaleidoscope

6. Subordinationists – The Quest for a Master Category

7. Pluralists – The Search for Categorial Limits

Conclusion – The Inescapability of Categoriality

Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	12.5.2026
Verlagsort	Edinburgh
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie
ISBN-10	1-3995-2416-X / 139952416X
ISBN-13	978-1-3995-2416-2 / 9781399524162
Zustand	Neuware