Patrick Grim, Nicholas Rescher

Theory of Categories (eBook, ePUB)

Key Instruments of Human Understanding

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Categorization is an essential and unavoidable instrumentality for conceptually navigating a world-indeed for being able to conceptualize a world to be navigated. Classification is a pivotal instrument for scientific systemization, featured as a basis for the philosophical understanding of reality since Aristotle, but classificatory concepts of sorts, types and natural kinds inevitably pervade our understanding of ourselves and our position in the social as well as the natural world at all levels. The authors argue that the character, purpose, context and culturerelativity of categories and categorization have been widely misunderstood-that standard philosophical views are substantially correct in some respects but markedly mistaken in others.

The book offers a comprehensive survey of basic principles of classification and categorization, with a multitude of illustrative examples accompanied by instructive analysis of ways and means. Initial chapters include a critical examination of previous work on the nature of categories, a wide-ranging survey of the ways in which categories have been conceptualized in the history of philosophy and a survey of relevant empirical work and scientific theory regarding both perceptual categories and categorization in general. In later chapters, the authors argue that the long-seated misunderstandings of categories that they identify underlie paradoxes in logic regarding vagueness and identity, puzzles in philosophy of science regarding induction, essences, natural laws and natural kinds, and problems in social philosophy and our ethical lives as well. A more adequate grasp of the nature of categories and categorization offers a better understanding of a range of classical philosophical problematics and the promise of alternative approaches.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Anthem Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 5. September 2023
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781839988158
• Artikelnr.: 68534073

Autorenporträt

Patrick Grim is known for wide-ranging research both within philosophy and beyond. This is his third collaborative volume with Nicholas Rescher.

Nicholas Rescher, philosopher and polymath, is well known for a prodigious publishing career. A consistent focus in Rescher's work is the dialectical tension between our synoptic aspirations for useful knowledge and our human limitations as finite inquirers.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface
Chapter 1: The Nature of Categories
Chapter 2: The History of Categorization
Chapter 3: Empirical Issues in Categorization
Chapter 4: Categories in Science
Chapter 5: Category Mistakes and Philosophical Paradoxes
Chapter 6: Ethical and Social Categories
References
 Index