THE ULTIMATE SORTAL DETERMINATION SPACE The Nature of Ontological Categories

Ontological categories have been traditionally understood as the ‘highest genera’. This idea, nevertheless, has been criticized by contemporary philosophers because generality is easy to get. Other proposals to conceive categories have focused on the failures of substitution of terms salva significatione. Others have focused on the difference in conditions of identity between entities belonging to different categories. None of those attempts have gained general acceptance. This work explains and defends a new perspective about ontological categories. It is argued that many of the problems that affect other conceptions are overcome if one supposes that the categories constitute a determination space of ultimate sortals. On the one hand, there are criteria to distinguish ultimate sortals from arbitrarily general types of entities, and criteria to dismiss (allegedly) subordinated categories. On the other hand, Sommer’s law –the requirement that if something falls under two categories, either they are identical or one of them is subordinated to the other– can be vindicated as following from general principles about ultimate sortals.