Claim. Unification Thought identifies ten basic forms of existence — existence/force, Sungsang/Hyungsang, yang/yin, subject/object, position/settlement, unchangeability/changeability, action/effect, time/space, number/principle, finite/infinite — which simultaneously function as the forms of thought (categories), because the human being is endowed from creation with thought-forms that precisely correspond to existence-forms in the external world.
Elaboration. Lee proposes ten basic forms of existence, established on the basis of the four-position-foundation, give-and-take action, and Origin-Division-Union Action as explained in the Divine Principle (Forms of Existence and Forms of Thought): (1) existence and force, (2) Sungsang and Hyungsang, (3) yang and yin, (4) subject and object, (5) position and settlement, (6) unchangeability and changeability, (7) action and effect, (8) time and space, (9) number and principle, (10) finite and infinite. These are simultaneously the forms of existence of all things AND the forms of existence of the human body (since the human is a microcosm).
The sharp claim: these existence-forms, ‘just as they are,’ are also the forms of thought. The mental forms corresponding to them are categories. ‘Forms of existence are material forms of relation, whereas the forms of thought (mental) are basic concepts, which are the forms of relationships among ideas.’ One reality, two aspects (dual-characteristics).
The position is explicitly triangulated against Kant and Marx: ‘It is not true that the forms of thought are, as Kant maintained, unrelated to existence; also, it is not at all the case that the forms of existence of the external world reflect, or give rise to, the forms of thought, as is stated in Marxism. Human beings, themselves, from the very beginning, are equipped with forms of thought, which correspond to the forms of existence appearing in the external world.’ The argument: because humans are themselves temporal/spatial beings, they possess time/space as forms of thought; because they have subjectivity and objectivity, they possess subject/object as forms of thought. The categories are not imposed on chaos (Kant) nor passively copied (Marx) — they pre-exist in the subject AND match reality because both subject and reality were created by the same Logos.
This is also a substantive departure from Kant’s twelve categories (derived from Aristotelian judgment-forms). Lee’s ten are derived from the structure of give-and-take and four-position foundation in Divine Principle. The taxonomy itself is dual-aspect: each pair (Sungsang/Hyungsang, yang/yin, subject/object) reflects the polar-correlative structure of creation. Worth a thread once a counter atomic exists on whether ten is canonical or open — Lee notes ‘there can be other forms of existence and forms of thought in addition to those mentioned above.’
See also. unification-primary-categories, ut-three-kinds-of-subject-object-relations, ut-individual-truth-being-vs-connected-being