This is a book on how standard philosophical approach is mistaken in some ways and provides a revisionist approach to categories. It is must-read for people interested in understanding a pragmatic approach to categories and categorisation.
This book offers a revisionist approach to categories, arguing that the standard philosophical approach is substantially correct in some respects, but markedly mistaken in others. The result is a distinctly pragmatic approach to categories and categorisation, with implications regarding philosophical problematic and paradox in philosophy of mind, epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of science, social philosophy and ethics.
Table of Contents:
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
About the Author :
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.
Review :
“Grim and Rescher’s Theory of Categories is a philosophically sophisticated and historically informed study of categoricity in virtually all its aspects. It has insightful treatments of categories in metaphysics, scientific inquiry, philosophical analysis, and other areas, and it is particularly informative on specific issues such as the problem of induction and, throughout, in distinguishing defensible generalities from convenient stereotypes”— Robert Audi, John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, USA.
“Patrick Grim and Nicholas Rescher wrote a fascinating and engaging book about every possible categorization aspect. Categories are fundamental tools of human understanding and thinking. The analysis starts with categories’ nature and category theories’ history. It unifies the perspective of philosophy, logic, and cognitive science. “Theory of categorization” is a scholarly book that helps us manage category mistakes and paradoxes”— Péter Érdu, Henry Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies, Kalamazoo College, USA.
“Categories, categories. Who needs them? Everyone, according to this book, complete with glossaries, taxonomies, diagrams, paradoxes, and, of course, categories. The authors shed light on many areas of classification, across various disciplines”— Paul K. Moser, Loyola University Chicago, USA.
