Category mistake

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A category mistake (or category error, 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, [1] 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". [2]

Contents

History

Al Martinich claims that the philosopher Thomas Hobbes was the first to discuss a propensity among philosophers mistakenly to combine words taken from different and incompatible categories. [3]

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. [4] [5] Ryle argues that it is 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. [6]

The phrase is introduced in the first chapter. [7] The first example is of a visitor to Oxford. The visitor, upon viewing the colleges and library, reportedly inquires, "But where is the University?" The visitor's mistake is presuming that a University is part of the category "units of physical infrastructure", rather than that of an "institution". In his second example, a child witnesses the march-past of a division of soldiers. After having had battalions, batteries, squadrons, etc. pointed out, the child asks when the division is going to appear. He is told that "the march-past was not a parade of battalions, batteries, squadrons and a division; it was a parade of the battalions, batteries and squadrons of a division" (Ryle's italics). His third example is of a foreigner being shown a cricket match. After being pointed out batsmen, bowlers and fielders, the foreigner asks: "who is left to contribute the famous element of team-spirit?" [7] He goes on to argue that the Cartesian dualism of mind and body rests on a category mistake.[ page needed ]

Application

Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York, argues that the "hard problem of consciousness", as expressed by David Chalmers and others, rests on a category mistake, in that explaining "experience" is being incorrectly treated as different from explaining the underlying biological processes which generate experience. [8]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Blackburn, Simon (1994). The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy . Oxford University Press. p. 58.
  2. ↑ Lacewing, Michael (14 July 2017). Philosophy for A Level: Metaphysics of God and Metaphysics of Mind. Taylor & Francis. ISBN   978-1-351-67460-7.
  3. ↑ Martinich, A. P., Philosophical Writing: An Introduction, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1989; third edition, Blackwell Publishers, 2005, page 2
  4. ↑ Philosopher Ofra Magidor writes, "As far as I can tell, this is the first time the concept of a category mistake is referred to using this label." (Category Mistakes, Oxford University Press, 2013, page 10, footnote 21)
  5. ↑ Ryle consistently hyphenates "category-mistake". See the index.
  6. ↑ "Gilbert Ryle". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2022.
  7. 1 2 Ryle, Gilbert (1949). The Concept of Mind. University of Chicago Press. p. 16. ISBN   9780226732961.
  8. ↑ Pigliucci, M., What Hard Problem?, Philosophy Now, 2013, accessed on 5 February 2025
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