Category mistake

Category mistake

A category mistake, or category error, is a semantic or ontological error by which a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. For example, the statement "the business of the book sleeps eternally" is syntactically correct, but it is meaningless or nonsense or, at the very most, metaphorical, because it incorrectly ascribes the property, "sleeps eternally", to "business", and incorrectly ascribes the property, "business", to the token, "the book".

If all (propositional) mistakes could be said to involve some sort of misascription of properties, then in a sense all mistakes are "category mistakes": putting a thing into a class to which it does not belong. But a "category mistake" in the philosophical colloquial seems to be a very severe form of misascription, involving the endorsement of what is in fact logically impossible. 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. Thus the mistaken claim that "Most Americans are atheists" is not a category mistake, since it is merely contingently true that most Americans are theists.

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 confusion over the nature of mind born from Cartesian metaphysics. Ryle alleged that it was a mistake to treat the mind as an object made of an immaterial substance because predications of substance are not meaningful for a collection of dispositions and capacities. Many philosophers have employed Ryle's idea of a category mistake, but there is no lasting agreement on how to identify category mistakes. [sep entry|categories|Categories]

See also

* catachresis
* Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
* mixed metaphor

References


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • category mistake — noun (philosophy) An error resulting from assigning to something a quality or action that is properly assigned to things of another category • • • Main Entry: ↑category …   Useful english dictionary

  • category mistake — A notion prominent in the work of Ryle . A category mistake arises when things or facts of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another. Someone would make a category mistake if after being shown all the battalions and regiments she… …   Philosophy dictionary

  • category mistake — noun A semantic or ontological error by which a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property …   Wiktionary

  • CATEGORY MISTAKE —    an error of logic where a group of unrelated things or ideas are treated as though there is a necessary connection between them when in fact the whole sentence is meaningless; e.g. I feel pink inside …   Concise dictionary of Religion

  • Category of being — In metaphysics (in particular, ontology), the different kinds or ways of being are called categories of being or simply categories. To investigate the categories of being is to determine the most fundamental and the broadest classes of entities.… …   Wikipedia

  • mistake — mis·take n 1: an unintentional error esp. in legal procedure or form that does not indicate bad faith and that commonly warrants excuse or relief by the court the court s power to revise a judgment because of fraud, mistake, or irregularity a… …   Law dictionary

  • Mistake (Mike Oldfield song) — Mistake Single by Mike Oldfield from the album Crises (North American Version) B side Waldberg (The Pea …   Wikipedia

  • Mistake (contract law) — In contract law, a mistake is an erroneous belief, at contracting, that certain facts are true. It can be argued as a defence, and if raised successfully can lead to the agreement in question being found void ab initio or voidable, or… …   Wikipedia

  • MISTAKE — A legal transaction requires that the making up of the mind (or the conclusive intention of the parties to close the bargain – gemirat ha da at) be demonstrated (see acquisition , Modes of). When it is apparent that one of the parties lacked such …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Mistake of law — Criminal defenses P …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”