Editing Theory of categories (section)

===Hegel===
[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|G.W.F. Hegel]] in his ''[[Science of Logic]]'' (1812) attempted to provide a more comprehensive system of categories than Kant and developed a structure that was almost entirely triadic.<ref>''Ibid.''</ref> So important were the categories to Hegel that he claimed the first principle of the world, which he called the "[[Absolute spirit|absolute]]", is "a system of categories&nbsp;{{omission}} the categories must be the reason of which the world is a consequent".<ref>''Ibid.'' pp.63,65</ref>

Using his own logical method of [[Aufheben|sublation]], later called the [[Hegelian dialectic]], reasoning from the abstract through the negative to the concrete, he arrived at a hierarchy of some 270 categories, as explained by [[Walter Terence Stace|W.&nbsp;T.&nbsp;Stace]]. The three very highest categories were "logic", "nature" and "spirit". The three highest categories of "logic", however, he called "being", "essence", and "notion" which he explained as follows:

* Being was differentiated from Nothing by containing with it the concept of the "[[Other (philosophy)|other]]", an initial internal division that can be compared with Kant's category of disjunction. Stace called the category of Being the sphere of common sense containing concepts such as consciousness, sensation, quantity, quality and measure.
* [[Essence]]. The "other" separates itself from the "one" by a kind of motion, reflected in Hegel's first synthesis of "[[Becoming (philosophy)|becoming]]". For Stace this category represented the sphere of science containing within it firstly, the thing, its form and properties; secondly, cause, effect and reciprocity, and thirdly, the principles of classification, identity and difference. 
* [[Notion (philosophy)|Notion]]. Having passed over into the "Other" there is an almost [[Neoplatonism#Return to the One|neoplatonic return]] into a higher unity that in embracing the "one" and the "other" enables them to be considered together through their inherent qualities. This according to Stace is the sphere of philosophy proper where we find not only the three types of logical proposition: disjunctive, hypothetical, and categorical but also the three [[Transcendentals|transcendental concepts]] of beauty, goodness and truth.<ref>''Op.cit.18'' pp.124ff</ref>

[[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer's]] category that corresponded with "notion" was that of "idea", which in his ''Four-Fold Root of Sufficient Reason'' he complemented with the category of the "will".<ref>''Op.cit.20''</ref> The title of his major work was ''[[The World as Will and Representation|The World as Will and Idea]]''. The two other complementary categories, reflecting one of Hegel's initial divisions, were those of Being and Becoming. At around the same time, [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]] was developing his colour theories in the {{lang|de|[[Theory of Colours|Farbenlehre]]}} of 1810, and introduced similar principles of combination and complementation, symbolising, for Goethe, "the primordial relations which belong both to nature and vision".<ref>Goethe J.W. von, ''The Theory of Colours'' (tr. Eastlake C.L., MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1970) p.350</ref> [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] in his ''[[Science of Logic]]'' accordingly asks us to see his system not as a tree but as a circle.