Talk:Category mistake

message: it reads like it was written by and for 1st year grad students
start over
PS i have written a lot of technalogical things for wiki, and i am good and i know what i am talking about (and if u make fun my spelling grammar, like trees, forest not getting it)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.245.17.105 (talk) 19:06, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The above remark is completely incoherent and unreadable. Must it stay here forever? TheScotch (talk) 18:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: this is a crappy article that is of no use to the general reader

message: 1) On the Ghost in the machine page, this example of a category mistake (by Ryle) is given:
"One paradigm set forth by Ryle that is exemplary of an archetypal category mistake, is that of a foreign student visiting a university. As the student is shown the various campuses, buildings, libraries, fields, et cetera, the student asks, "But where is the university?" This is to equate the level of existence of the university with that of buildings, libraries, and campuses. However, the being of the university exists above such a level, as an encompassing whole or essence of such things, extending beyond mere plant and buildings (to include staff, students, curricula, etc.), and not among them (i.e., on the same categorical level). The student commits a category mistake, by presupposing that the university exists on the same level as the buildings, when the university certainly exists on a quite different level." HeWasCalledYClept (talk) 06:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Other than the one offered by Ryle, your examples are original research and have no relevance to the article or this talk page. (And they aren't category mistakes.) -- Jibal (talk) 05:17, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other examples of category mistakes 

message: This article could use more examples. It's hard to understand. Stifle (talk) 10:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples 

message: I haven't read The Concept of Mind, so this may be clarified somewhere in that text.  But in each of the three examples given in the article currently, the error is specifically about mistaking some property of a system as a whole with a property of one of its parts.  Is that more restricted version what Ryle meant in defining the term (or how it's commonly used nowadays in philosophy), as opposed to the more general 'atheist banana' example mentioned at the top of the page? 164.55.254.106 (talk) 21:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope of the definition 

message: Surely notions of categories, and therefore category errors, in modern philosophy, are derived in some respect from Aristotle's Categories. So IMHO he should at least get a mention.
Although in a cursory skim through the Julian Barnes edition (Completed Works, Revised Oxford Translation, Vol One, Princeton/Bollingen, "Categories" translated by JL Ackrill) I could find no mention of the exact phrase "category error" or "category mistake", he does spend considerable time discussing mistakes. I seem to remember seeing the term "category error" somewhere else in the works.
Much discussion in Categories is to do with false "contraries", especially when talking of "privation and possession". Most could probably be described as syllogistic mistakes(?):
Eg 1. Cat 10: "It might … seem … "Socrates is well" … [is] contrary to "Socrates is sick". Yet not even with these is it necessary always for one to be true and the other false. For if Socrates exists one will be true and the other false, but if he does not both will be false."
Eg 2. Cat 11: "What is contrary to a good thing is necessarily bad … But what is contrary to a bad thing is sometimes good but sometimes bad. … All contraries must either be in the same genus or in contrary genera."
Eg 3. Cat 10: "It is not necessary for everything to be black or white that is capable of receiving them, or hot or cold, since something intermediate between these may perfectly well be present."
Also, earlier, a different sort of error. 
Eg 4. In Cat 7, to paraphrase, although rudders are "of boats", since some boats do not have rudders, it would be better to put them in a category of ruddered things than a category of boat parts. Similarly … "a head would be more properly given as of "a headed" [my quotes] than as of an animal, because it is not as being an animal that a thing has a head, since many animals have not got a head." (not sure what animals he was thinking of, maybe worms?)
Unfortunately in the above para, the difficulty of translating participles seems to have made for some odd language eg: "if it is given properly - a ruddered is ruddered by a rudder" (!)
In modern times, these different types of categories seem well described by Venn diagrams, eg on the syllogism table here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism
Aristotle also points out that "the man is sitting" and "the man is standing" are not mutually exclusive propositions [because he could stand up or sit down later!]
Personally, I would give the following as an example of a typical category error. This type often seems to crop up when people are discussing race, nationality, class etc:
Obama: I am a black man.
Person B: You can't be black, your mother was white.
Possibilities:
A) Obama is right, B is wrong.
Person B has made a mistake in logic defining "black" - it is not contingent on the race of a person's mother.
B) Obama is right, B is right.
Both assertions are "right", given the various wooly definitions of the category "black", but person B is mistakenly assuming their category of "black" is the same as the one understood by Obama.
C) Obama is wrong, B is right.
i) Obama is confused into a category error of thinking one must be either "black" or "not-black" (but in fact is somewhere in between), or
ii) Person B also thinks one can only be either black or not-black, and believes Obama is not-black because he has a white mother.
D) Both are wrong!
Whatever the case, natural language has produced a misunderstanding based on one or more category errors.
Other examples:
A: I'm old.
B: You're not old!
A and B both know exactly how old A is, but disagree on the properties of the category "old".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.209.68.118 (talk) 12:41, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aristotle 

message: I won't edit myself, but would like stakeholders of this page to seriously consider removing examples of Christianity's popularity as representative of category mistakes.  For example:
:Thus the claim that "Most Americans are Christians"[2] is not a category mistake, since most Americans are Christians.
Such a mention of a particular religion is itself contentious and does not adhere to a neutral tone.  The truth of this statement is debatable and introduces an unnecessary complication to the concept of "category mistake".  Any justification would at best be based on some poll. Any poll result would be highly dependent on the poll's wording and how the definition of "Christian person" means.  And any such justification would, at best, only be valid for some time period of the poll, and not necessarily a lasting truth for the sake of the article. 2601:E:8A00:244:2CDE:72B0:BE63:7882 (talk) 04:41, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: —Machine Elf 1735 05:09, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Most Americans are Christians

message: This claim is not substantiated by the article: "Ryle's category mistake argument can be used to support eliminative materialism."  Seems like personal research.  Any references for this claim?
Thanks,
Wolfworks (talk) 01:09, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eliminative Materialism?? 

message: I see variations of this. E.g:
* When the category stated is a subset of a more appropriate category
* When the category stated is a superset of a more appropriate category
* When the category stated is a unrelated of a more appropriate category
For instance, on the assumption that Christians believe that there is a place in heaven for all people (quite possibly not true), I would classify the following as category errors:
* "Baptists believe there is a place in heaven for all people" - while this is logically true, it implies a quality belonging exclusively to Baptists. 
* "Christians believe that there is a place in heaven for women" - again, logically true, but it implies a quality belonging exclusively to women.
* "Cats give milk to their young" - yes, cats are mammals.  But far better to say "Cats are mammals".
etc..
Has any work been done on this. or are these different things?
(20040302 (talk) 13:40, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  classes of category error?