On Categories: Entities Imply Things and Wholes

That is a thing or a whole.

X is one and  many. 

A controversial claim! If Mrs. Jones is one person, how can she be many too? And if a group of politicians consists of many individual politicians, how can it be one when it is actually five persons? One is not identical with five.

Next, metaphysical categories:


A thesis: Two different categories x and y differ in each other absolutely, E.g. they are neither identical with nor similar to.


From a thesis follows:


if a category x includes A, a category y does not include A (self-evident when contemplating and grasping the implication). But then it is entailed A is also a category and x is not the same as y.

A question: Is a thing in the same category as a whole?

From a question:

No, because they are two different categories. A whole is more abstract than a thing, a contingent thing like a book of Kafka.

How would many books be one Book?

A claim 1: A thing inheres its attributes and its identity remains over change and time.


A claim 2: A whole is its parts, simple parts, but it loses and gains parts during its existence. So, its identity doesn't remain over change and time, such as a human body or the nature.


A conclusion: A is a substance and A is not a whole because a substance is not identical with a whole (from a thesis, a claim1 and a claim 2).