Sym­bols — from core sym­bols like the Vir­gin of Guadalupe to abstract ones like the white­ness of Melville’s whale — fix and gen­er­ate onto­log­i­cal cat­e­gories.  How and why this hap­pens is a ques­tion of deep inter­est to me, but that it is true seems obvi­ous and well estab­lished.  Human beings cre­ate sym­bols like plants pro­duce…