Category Error
   HOME
*





Category Error
A category mistake, or category error, or categorical mistake, or mistake of category, is a semantic or ontological error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category, or, alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. An example is a person learning that the game of cricket involves team spirit, and after being given a demonstration of each player's role, asking which player performs the "team spirit". Unlike bowling or batting, team spirit is not a task in the game but an aspect of how the team behaves as a group. To show that a category mistake has been committed one must typically show that once the phenomenon in question is properly understood, it becomes clear that the claim being made about it could not possibly be true. Gilbert Ryle The term "category-mistake" was introduced by Gilbert Ryle in his book ''The Concept of Mind'' (1949) to remove what he argued to be a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Semantic
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and computer science. History In English, the study of meaning in language has been known by many names that involve the Ancient Greek word (''sema'', "sign, mark, token"). In 1690, a Greek rendering of the term ''semiotics'', the interpretation of signs and symbols, finds an early allusion in John Locke's ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'': The third Branch may be called [''simeiotikí'', "semiotics"], or the Doctrine of Signs, the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also , Logick. In 1831, the term is suggested for the third branch of division of knowledge akin to Locke; the "signs of our knowledge". In 1857, the term ''semasiology'' (borrowed from German ''Semasiologie'') is attested in Josiah W. Gibbs' '' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Library Trends
''Library Trends'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal founded in 1952 and published quarterly by the Johns Hopkins University Press. It covers international developments and future directions in the fields of library and information science. It includes analysis of research and writing, critical opinion, and reviews. Each issue is devoted to a single topic of interest. ''Library Trends'' is available electronically via EBSCO, Academic OneFile (Gale), WilsonWeb (Wilson Library Literature & Information Science Full Text), IDEALS, and Project MUSE Project MUSE, a non-profit collaboration between libraries and publishers, is an online database of peer-reviewed academic journals and electronic books. Project MUSE contains digital humanities and social science content from over 250 univers .... References External links * {{University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus Publications established in 1952 Library science journals Johns Hopkins University Pre ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Philosophy Of Language
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the constitution of sentences, concepts, learning, and thought. Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell were pivotal figures in analytic philosophy's "linguistic turn". These writers were followed by Ludwig Wittgenstein ('' Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''), the Vienna Circle, logical positivists, and Willard Van Orman Quine. In continental philosophy, language is not studied as a separate discipline. Rather, it is an inextricable part of many other areas of thought, such as phenomenology, structural semiotics, language of mathematics, hermeneutics, existentialism, deconstruction and critical theory. History Ancient philosophy In the West, inquiry into language stretches back to the 5th century BC with Socrates, Plato, Aristotl ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Informal Fallacies
Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not just due to the ''form'' of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but can also be due to their ''content'' and ''context''. Fallacies, despite being incorrect, usually ''appear'' to be correct and thereby can seduce people into accepting and using them. These misleading appearances are often connected to various aspects of natural language, such as ambiguous or vague expressions, or the assumption of implicit premises instead of making them explicit. Traditionally, a great number of informal fallacies have been identified, including the fallacy of equivocation, the fallacy of amphiboly, the fallacies of composition and division, the false dilemma, the fallacy of begging the question, the ad hominem fallacy and the appeal to ignorance. There is no general agreement as to how the various fallacies are to be grouped into categories. One approach sometimes found in the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Apples And Oranges
A comparison of apples and oranges occurs when two items or groups of items are compared that cannot be practically compared, typically because of inherent, fundamental and/or qualitative differences between the items. The idiom, ''comparing apples and oranges'', refers to the apparent differences between items which are popularly thought to be incomparable or incommensurable, such as apples and oranges. The idiom may also be used to indicate that a false analogy has been made between two items, such as where an ''apple'' is faulted for not being a good ''orange''. Variants The idiom is not unique to English. In Quebec French, it may take the form (to compare apples with oranges), while in European French the idiom says (to compare apples and pears) or (to compare cabbages and carrots). In Latin American Spanish, it is usually (comparing potatoes and sweet potatoes) or commonly for all varieties of Spanish (comparing pears with apples). In some other languages the ter ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Not Even Wrong
"Not even wrong" is a phrase often used to describe pseudoscience or bad science. It describes an argument or explanation that purports to be scientific but uses faulty reasoning or speculative premises, which can be neither affirmed nor denied and thus cannot be discussed rigorously and scientifically. For a meaningful discussion on whether a certain statement is true or false, the statement must satisfy the criterion of falsifiability, the inherent possibility for the statement to be tested and found false. In this sense, the phrase "not even wrong" is synonymous with "unfalsifiable". History of the expression The phrase is generally attributed to the theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or careless thinking. Rudolf Peierls documents an instance in which "a friend showed Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'It is not ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared with other types of figurative language, such as antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the "All the world's a stage" monologue from '' As You Like It'': All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts, His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant... :—William Shakespeare, '' As You Like It'', 2/7 This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, and most humans are not literally actors and actresses playing roles. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Oxymoron
An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, more rarely oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction. An oxymoron can be used as a rhetorical device to illustrate a rhetorical point or to reveal a paradox. A more general meaning of "contradiction in terms" (not necessarily for rhetoric effect) is recorded by the ''OED'' for 1902. The term is first recorded as Latinized Greek ', in Maurus Servius Honoratus (c. AD 400); it is derived from the Greek word ' "sharp, keen, pointed" Retrieved 2013-02-26. and "dull, stupid, foolish"; as it were, "sharp-dull", "keenly stupid", or "pointedly foolish".. Retrieved 2013-02-26. "Pointedly foolish: a witty saying, the more pointed from being paradoxical or seemingly absurd." The word ''oxymoron'' is autological, i.e. it is itself an example of an oxymoron. The Greek compound word ', which would correspond to the Latin formation, does not seem ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously
''Colorless green ideas sleep furiously'' is a sentence composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book ''Syntactic Structures'' as an example of a sentence that is grammatically well-formed, but semantically nonsensical. The sentence was originally used in his 1955 thesis ''The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory'' and in his 1956 paper "Three Models for the Description of Language". There is no obvious understandable meaning that can be derived from it, which demonstrates the distinction between syntax and semantics, and the idea that a syntactically well-formed sentence is not guaranteed to be semantically well-formed as well. As an example of a category mistake, it was used to show the inadequacy of certain probabilistic models of grammar, and the need for more structured models. Senseless but grammatical Chomsky writes in his 1957 book ''Syntactic Structures'': It is fair to assume that neither sentence (1) nor (2) (nor indeed any part of these sentences) has ever occurred i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Catachresis
Catachresis (from Greek , "abuse"), originally meaning a semantic misuse or error—e.g., using "militate" for "mitigate", "chronic" for "severe", "travesty" for "tragedy", "anachronism" for "anomaly", "alibi" for "excuse", etc.—is also the name given to many different types of figures of speech in which a word or phrase is being applied in a way that significantly departs from conventional (or traditional) usage. Variant definitions There are various characterizations of catachresis found in the literature. Examples Dead people in a graveyard being referred to as inhabitants is an example of catachresis. Example from Alexander Pope's ''Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry'': Masters of this atachresiswill say, :Mow the beard, :Shave the grass, :Pin the plank, :Nail my sleeve. Use in literature Catachresis is often used to convey extreme emotion or alienation. It is prominent in baroque literature and, more recently, in dadaist and surrealist literature. Use i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Cartesian Dualism
Cartesian means of or relating to the French philosopher René Descartes—from his Latinized name ''Cartesius''. It may refer to: Mathematics *Cartesian closed category, a closed category in category theory * Cartesian coordinate system, modern rectangular coordinate system * Cartesian diagram, a construction in category theory *Cartesian geometry, now more commonly called analytic geometry * Cartesian morphism, formalisation of ''pull-back'' operation in category theory *Cartesian oval, a curve * Cartesian product, a direct product of two sets *Cartesian product of graphs, a binary operation on graphs *Cartesian tree, a binary tree in computer science Philosophy *Cartesian anxiety, a hope that studying the world will give us unchangeable knowledge of ourselves and the world *Cartesian circle, a potential mistake in reasoning *Cartesian doubt, a form of methodical skepticism as a basis for philosophical rigor *Cartesian dualism, the philosophy of the distinction between mind a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Johns Hopkins University Press
The Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publishes books and journals, and operates other divisions including fulfillment and electronic databases. Its headquarters are in Charles Village, Baltimore. In 2017, after the retirement of Kathleen Keane who is credited with modernizing JHU Press for the digital age, the university appointed new director Barbara Pope. Overview Daniel Coit Gilman, the first president of the Johns Hopkins University, inaugurated the press in 1878. The press began as the university's Publication Agency, publishing the ''American Journal of Mathematics'' in its first year and the ''American Chemical Journal'' in its second. It published its first book, ''Sidney Lanier: A Memorial Tribute'', in 1881 to honor the poet who was one of the university's first writers ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]