Categories such as that associated with the word “man” are actually categories of categories. On the phenomenalist level, which is the ultimate foundation of knowledge, even the phrase “Noam Chomsky,” which isn’t associated with a category of people but with a person, isn’t associated with a grouping of individuals but with an individual, and thus isn’t a category on the physicalist level—there’s only one physically existing Noam Chomsky—is associated with a category nonetheless, just a category not of physically existing people but of sensory complexes. There are myriad sensory complexes that count as Chomsky: his face young and old, his face from one angle and another, etc.

The word “man,” then, which includes in its denotation Noam Chomsky, Michael Tomasello, etc., is associated with a physicalist category of phenomenalist categories. It’s associated with a grouping of individuals, the individuals themselves being groupings of sensory complexes.

Just as there are myriad people who count as men—that’s what makes it a category—there are myriad sensory complexes that count as Chomsky.

In logic, the connotation of a word is what’s shared among all of the referents of the word. For example, the connotation of the word “food” is anything edible. What’s essential to being food is being edible. The denotation of a word, then, is all of the referents of the word. For example, the denotation of the word “food” includes the broccoli in my refrigerator.

The connotation and the denotation are often in synchrony. Knowing that the word “food” connotes being edible lets you figure out what that word denotes—the broccoli in my refrigerator is one of countless examples—and knowing what that word denotes lets you figure out what it connotes. But the connotation and the denotation are also often not in synchrony. That comes about when the referents change. Imagine, for instance, a small but well-known Christian denomination that changes from monotheism (which is the standard Christian doctrine) to polytheism. The individuals in the denomination, long well-known as “Christians,” all change from professing monotheism to professing polytheism. The connotation and the denotation fall out of step with each other. The word “Christian,” which traditionally includes belief in monotheism in its connotation (along with belief in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, belief in the New Testament as scripture, etc., as the distinguishing criteria of being Christian), also traditionally includes the individuals in that denomination in its denotation.

We must decide whether to:

1. Either change the familiar connotation of the word “Christian,” the connotation that we’re used to, such that it newly accepts polytheism in its connotational range, which preserves the familiar denotational range. [the inclusive move]
2. Or change the familiar denotation of that word such that it newly rejects the individuals in the aforementioned denomination in its denotational range, which preserves the familiar connotational range. [the exclusive move]

That is, we must decide whether to:

1. Either pin down what the word refers to and then change what it means when what it refers to changes.
2. Or pin down what the word means and then change what it refers to when the world changes.

Interestingly, pinning down or fixing the denotation of the subject of a proposition makes for a synthetic proposition (because the proposition “Christians believe in monotheism” is thereby made to be non-tautologically true) and pinning down or fixing the connotation instead makes for an analytic proposition (because the same proposition is thereby made to be tautologically true).

Also interestingly, the question of whether to either denotation-fix or connotation-fix is social. A social negotiation must happen between the inclusive and the exclusive: between the people who prefer the denotation-fix-inclusive move and the people who prefer the connotation-fix-exclusive move.

What if most of the individuals in group X aren’t Y, but everybody (or almost everybody) who’s Y is in group X? If there being individuals who are Y is bad in some way, then should we blame group X? Should we hold group X responsible for the influence of that minority of individuals? Most of the individuals in group X aren’t Y—that’s the hypothetical that we’re working with here—but without group X there would be no (or almost no) individuals who are Y. Something genetic-memetic about that group results in a minority of individuals who are like that, and that minority may have a disproportionately strong influence.

By analogy: In a beehive, the majority of the bees are workers: ~90%. There’s also a minority of drones: ~10%. And besides the workers (which are sterile females) and the drones (which are males), there’s one queen (which is the non-sterile female). The workers, the drones, and the queen work together. Without the beehive, which is the “group,” there would be no queen, which is the special “individual.” With no beehive, there’s no queen. If you don’t want there to be a queen in your backyard—for whatever reason—then you shouldn’t want there to be a beehive. If you kill the queen without killing the beehive, then the beehive will spawn another queen and you’ll be back to where you were before.

The logical order of primacy in an argument isn’t necessarily the same as the historical order of primacy. For example, Morris Cohen argued in An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method (1934) that the axioms of a system are often discovered after the theorems. According to Cohen, many of Euclid’s theorems were already known to the Ancient Greeks for hundreds of years before Euclid did his groundbreaking work. Euclid’s contribution wasn’t as much to discover the theorems as to discover the axioms for theorems already known. His contribution was largely to systematize already-existing knowledge.

In other words: What was in the history of ideas come up with and made known before and after doesn’t necessarily match up with what’s logically precedent and antecedent.

What pattern may there be of semantic difference between basic nouns and basic verbs? At first glance, relative permanence seems related. Consider for example: “The duck flew away.” The duck was almost definitely already in existence before it flew away, and it was almost definitely still in existence after it flew away. Only in a story with magic could it be otherwise. That is (again, unless there’s magic, e.g. a wizard casting a spell that causes a duck to appear in existence only long enough to fly away before then disappearing from existence): For any given thing in space that the basic noun “duck” is a true label or description of, the basic verb “fly” is a true label or description of that thing at fewer moments in time. Temporally speaking, there’s a whole-part relationship: The label/description “duck” is always true of that thing, meaning that being a duck is something true of every moment in time of its existence, and the label/description “fly” is sometimes true.

However, that proposed distinction doesn’t work because not only is the relationship between nouns like “duck” and verbs like “fly” a temporal whole-part relationship, but the relationship between nouns like “duck” and adjectives like “small” is also like that. That is: A duck is still a duck whether it starts or stops flying, whether it starts or stops being small. The nominal quality of being a duck is relatively permanent, and both the verbal and adjectival qualities of flying and being small are relatively impermanent.

With all of that said, my proposed distinction is as follows (without using the terms “verb,” “noun,” and “adjective”):

1. There are the always-true labels (e.g., “duck”).
2. There are the sometimes-true labels that go back and forth between being true and false more freely (e.g., “fly”).
3. And there are the sometimes-true labels that go back and forth between being true and false less freely (e.g., “small”).

1. Space and time may be easy in comparison to the categories of praxeology and thymology. For example, there’s starting time and ending time. “I cleaned from morning to night (i.e., 朝から夜まで).” There’s also duration. “I cleaned for 12 hours.” Space is more complex, though, with its extra dimension.
2. Some categories are such that their referent(s) can exist in both space and time. Other categories are such that their referent(s) can’t exist in space; they can only exist in time. For example: “The cat jumped onto the table.” “On the table” gives spatiality, and “jumped,” being past tense, gives temporality. However: “I was happy yesterday.” The happiness itself can’t exist in space (though of course the mind feeling the happiness can be embodied and thus exist in space); it can only exist in time.
3. One of the most important of the praxeological/thymological categories is that of the ends (of an action). For example: “I used a hammer in order to break the window.” And of the same level of importance, of course, is that of the means (of an action): “I broke the window with a hammer.”

Imagine that you’re talking to a police officer about a suspicious person reported to have had a knife. You say: “The man who had the knife also had a gun.” But what if the same suspicious person, doing the same thing, was instead reported as having had a gun? You may have instead said: “The man who had the gun also had a knife.” Both facts are true from your subjective perspective. The man had both a knife and a gun. But what you say to the police officer—assuming, of course, that you want him to know both facts—depends on what you know about what he knows about.

Interestingly, though: If we take out of the analysis the speaker and the listener, along with their differing subjective perspectives (e.g., the speaker knowing X but the listener not), and we just imagine the scene itself (of the man with the knife and the gun) from an omniscient, objective perspective, then there’s no possible distinction between what we’d imagine between the original sentence and its flipped-around counterpart. Whether “the man who had the knife also had a gun,” or “the man who had the gun also had a knife”—whether the speaker is making one assumption about the listener or another—the two omnisciently, objectively imagined scenes are identical: There was a man of a certain kind. He had both a knife and a gun, both of them of a certain kind. And he was doing certain things, e.g. walking in a certain way.

1. Consider: (a) “A dog chased the mailman,” the subject being referentially indefinite. (b) “The dog chased the mailman,” the subject being referentially definite. (c) “Dogs chase mailmen,” the subject being neither indefinite nor definite; the subject is categorical. In the artificial language, then, the particle for the first argument of the verb (henceforth the “subject particle”) will distinguish trichotomously, viz. into (a) the referentially indefinite subject particle, the (b) referentially definite subject particle, and (c) the categorical subject particle.
2. If the subject particle is both categorical and also follows a noun (or noun phrase) associated with something with a mind (e.g., “Scot,” 日本人), then the categorical subject particle must in turn distinguish into (a) the identity-based and (b) the non-identity based.
3. It may be best to mark every noun (or noun phrase) as either (a) a body without a mind or (b) a mind with or without a body.
4. Beyond just the subject particle: Each particle must be marked as argument #1, argument #2, or argument #3—argument #1 of course being the subject. Each particle must also be marked as referentially definite, referentially definite, or categorical (with the categorical subject particle distinguishing further into tautological and non-tautological, the former being, if about a mind, equivalent to identity-based vs. non-identity-based).
5. I then wonder: Should I include, in the declensional system, not only the above but also gender? Number? Anything else?
6. That is: In the artificial language, nouns (and noun phrases) are declined for case, for that’s the distinction into the subject particle, the object particle, etc., also known as the nominative, the accusative, etc. Should nouns also be declined for gender? Number?
7. Consider: (a) “The black man is a professor.” (b) “The professor is a black man.” In the former, the category “black man” is used as a way of establishing joint attention on the referent, with “is a professor” being the point made about him. In the latter, however, it’s reversed: The joint-attention-establishment category is reversed with the point-made category.
8. Consider also: (a) The tall man punched the short man. (b) A tall man punched a short man. (c) The tall man punched a short man. (d) A tall man punched the short man.

Imagine that you’re at a cafe with a friend. You see three men walk in, one of them young and the other two old. Imagine also that you (believe that you) know something that (you believe that) your friend doesn’t, viz. that the young man is a famous chess player. You may point in the direction of the three men and say: “The young man is a famous chess player.” Pointing in that direction narrows down the possible referent(s) of the subject of the utterance to just those three men, and the category “young man” narrows down the possible referent(s) further: The only possible referent is now just that one man.

In saying that “the young man is a famous chess player,” first you (1) establish joint attention on the referent, in this case “the young man,” and then you (2) say something about that referent, in this case “is a famous chess player.”

But it’s also possible to flip it around. Instead of saying that “the young man is a famous chess player,” which uses the fact that he’s a young man as (perhaps) nothing more than just a way of establishing joint attention on him, you can say that “the famous chess player is a young man,” which makes the fact that he’s a young man into the point that you’re making about him.

1. Some sensory complexes bring with them positive valence, and other sensory complexes bring with them negative valence. Metaphorically speaking, we’re “pulled to move toward” the former kind and “pushed to move away from” the latter kind.
2. Some sensory complexes have more positive valence, or less negative valence, than others. (a) We prefer higher positive valence to lower and lower negative valence to higher, and (b) in making choices, we try to maximize any possible positive valence and minimize any possible negative valence—those two propositions just being tautologically true, of course. But—and here’s the important point to be made here—some sensory complexes are equal to each other in expected valence. That is: Some sensory complexes are unequal to each other in that respect, and other sensory complexes are equal to each other in that respect. We may have a preference for X over Y, but we also may instead be indifferent between X and Z. For example: Imagine that you’re at a supermarket choosing whether to buy an apple or an orange to eat as a snack. After a moment of thought, you may find yourself reaching into the tray of apples, thus revealing a preference for an apple over an orange. But which apple will you choose? In choosing, you may ignore whether the apple does, or doesn’t, have a stem; such is indifference between a “stemmed” and an “unstemmed” apple. Your hierarchy of value in the moment of choice was such that 🍎 > 🍊 but unstemmed 🍎 = stemmed 🍎.
3. Empirically speaking, we’re a mixture of preference (e.g., 🍎 > 🍊) and indifference (e.g., unstemmed 🍎 = stemmed 🍎). That proposition can be treated as a true a posteriori postulate in the science of human action and the human mind. But let’s consider the respective logical implications of the two empirically false, but nevertheless useful and interesting, contraries of that a posteriori postulate: (a) the postulate of no such mixture in the sense of all preference and no indifference and (b) the postulate of no such mixture in the reverse sense, i.e. no preference and all indifference.
4. With all preference and no indifference, what’s logically entailed is choice (i.e., action) without categorization—unless, of course, even a “category” of only one sensory complex is admitted, definitionally speaking, as a “category.”
5. With no preference and all indifference, what’s logically entailed is no choice/action because everything is put together into just one single category.
6. Logically entailed in the (empirically true) mixture of preference and indifference, then, is a system of categorization. For example: It’s in sometimes preferring apples to oranges, but sometimes being indifferent, in turn, among the different kinds of apples, that we justify the category “apple.” And it’s only because some people, at some moments, prefer to eat a Honeycrisp instead of a Fuji, or a Granny Smith instead of a Red Delicious, that we further distinguish the supercategory “apple” into the various subcategories thereof: “Honeycrisp apple,” “Fuji apple,” etc.
7. Consider next that there’s not only positive and negative valence but also neutral valence. That is, a sensory complex can be desirable, undesirable, or neither desirable nor undesirable.
8. It’s common, though, for a yet uncategorized range of sensory complexes, all of them originally neutral in valence, to all take on an equivalently positive or negative valence, and thus become categorized, because the agent comes to believe that the originally neutral range of sensory complexes X is the cause of an already positive or negative category of sensory complexes Y. That is: Something originally neither desirable nor undesirable becomes either desirable or undesirable because the agent comes to believe that it’s the cause of something else, that something else being what’s more fundamentally desirable or undesirable. The valence of the effect is imputed to the cause. For example: Let’s say that your grandfather recently passed away and you’re looking through his belongings, which he bequeathed to you. An old clock sitting in the attic of his house looks like nothing to you, just junk to get rid of. But then you find a note from your grandfather saying to be careful with the clock because it’s an antique worth $5,000. The originally neutral valence of the clock—you didn’t care about it one way or the other—suddenly takes on the already positive valence of $5,000 (assuming, of course, that you believe that your grandfather’s note is true).
9. If you desire the effect Y, and X is the cause of that effect, then Y is the end and X is the means—definitionally speaking.
10. To summarize all of the foregoing: (a) With every preference comes a distinction in category (e.g., 🍎 vs. 🍊), and with every indifference comes no distinction in category (e.g., an 🍎 is an 🍎 whether it has a stem or not). (b) Our more fundamental preferences and indifferences, which determine our more fundamental categories, bring about, in accordance with our beliefs in cause and effect, our less fundamental preferences and indifferences, which in turn determine our less fundamental categories. (c) Thus, “our” system of categorization—the micro and macro, or in other words the psychology and sociology, of “the” system of categorization, to be analyzed elsewhere—is a function of belief and value.
11. That is: Out of our beliefs in cause and effect, along with our most fundamental values, comes all of our other values, and together all of that determines how we take all of our familiar sensory complexes and put those sensory complexes into categories. The most elegant generating function possible for our system of categorization takes as its input (a) our beliefs in cause and effect—perhaps our “ultimate” beliefs of that kind, whatever that may turn out to mean—and (b) our ultimate values.