Abstract

What does the unity of a thought consist in? The analytic tradition typically accepts the Fregean answer to this question: a thought is, in the fundamental case, the result of applying a concept to an appropriate range of objects. Yet upon reflection this turns out to be insufficient. I follow Rödl’s exploration of the unity of temporal thoughts, which shows this unity to be differentiated in such a way as to give rise to the basic metaphysical categories of time, causality, essence, and power. These considerations seem to warrant three conclusions: first, reality is conceptual in nature; second, metaphysics and logic are one and the same subject; and third, these two conclusions are to be taken in an absolute metaphysical sense.