Even the categories and laws of thought are historically mutable, not fixed

Evidence

There is, no doubt, something scandalous for analytical thought in this notion that not only the theories, but the very problems and categories of thought themselves—whether they be such entities as money, violence, society, style, or point of view—are themselves in constant historical change and have no fixed and objective reality. Yet even the physical sciences themselves are beginning to take into account the profoundly disturbing possibility that the very laws underlying the universe may be in a state of evolution, so that the very concept of physical law, of a fixed and changeless order of nature, is called into question. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 690

Categorization

• XREF: Jameson here radicalizes the Frankfurt/Adorno historicization of categories, and anticipates his own later argument in The Political Unconscious that interpretive frameworks themselves are historically situated. — connects to: Open-mindedness is impossible because thought requires preexisting categories; Humans cannot think without categorizing; even open-mindedness requires old categories. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1151; Subjects are constituted by unconscious cultural categories rather than their authors (+2 more)
• SEED: An essay comparing the historicization of logical categories with the parallel move in contemporary physics toward evolving physical laws — how two disciplines independently undermined their own foundational absolutes.

Broader Connections

• Humans cannot think without categorizing; even open-mindedness requires old categories. #qualifies (0.80) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1151
• Categorical thinking makes prejudgment unavoidable and even functional. #expands (0.80)
• Open-mindedness is impossible because thought requires preexisting categories #qualifies (0.78)
• Subjects are constituted by unconscious cultural categories rather than their authors #expands (0.75)