Xref: utzoo comp.ai:3181 talk.philosophy.misc:1881 sci.lang:4012 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rice!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik From: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang Subject: Re: Categorization Message-ID: <9690@bcsaic.UUCP> Date: 23 Jan 89 18:59:21 GMT References: <681@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> <2959@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <2899@xyzzy.UUCP> Reply-To: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle Lines: 34 In article harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) writes: >" it may well be that people in practice don't categorize in order to >" derive "X-is-like-Y" measures, but rather pseudocategorize according to >" these measures. >I can't understand this point. To me, to categorize is to sort >instances in a reliable, correct, objective, all-or-none fashion. If >it's not reliable, correct or all-or-none, it's not categorization (or >not categorical to the degree that it's not reliable, correct or >all-or-none). If it's not objective, it's subjective; then you can call >it what you like, because I have no idea what's being sorted, and on >what basis. We seem to be going around in circles on this. I think that the original posting that started all this was correct in bringing Lakoff's book into it. Human categorization simply is not of the all-or-none variety. Analogy is a fundamental property of human cognition. I hope that those who are interested in this discussion, which can only be carried on at a superficial level in a newsgroup like this, will take the time to read "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things." I particularly call people's attention to 118 ff., which discuss the question of biological taxonomy--the cladists vs. the pheneticists. Stevan Harnad, at one point, said that we should leave biological classification up to the experts, that the discussion on that point wasn't relevant. Lakoff gives a very nice discussion of why expert taxonomies of that sort are relevant to everyday categorization. Biologists, like most of us, labor under the illusion of what Lakoff calls a "folk theory of categorization"--the view that "things come in well-defined kinds, that the kinds are characterized by shared properties, and that there is one right taxonomy of kinds." (p. 121) When different taxonomies for reality fail to converge, our common sense tells us that one or the other must give. Lakoff suggests that 'common sense' may be leading us astray in this case. -- Rick Wojcik csnet: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik