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Single Idea 13403

[filed under theme 7. Existence / E. Categories / 1. Categories ]

Full Idea

The category of Venus is not 'physical object' or 'mereological sum', but narrower. Surprisingly, it is not 'planet', since it might cease to be a planet and still merit the name 'Venus'. It is something like 'well-integrated, good-sized physical object'.

Gist of Idea

The category of Venus is not 'object', or even 'planet', but a particular class of good-sized object

Source

Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 5.3)

Book Ref

Jubien,Michael: 'Possibility' [OUP 2009], p.136

A Reaction

Jubien is illustrating Idea 13402. This is a nice demonstration of how one might go about the task of constructing categories - by showing the modal profiles of things to which names have been assigned. Categories are file names.

Related Idea

Idea 13402 We only grasp a name if we know whether to apply it when the bearer changes [Jubien]

The 21 ideas with the same theme [general ideas about how to group what exists]:

16661 There are two sorts of category - referring to things, and to circumstances of things [Boethius]
21448 Categories are general concepts of objects, which determine the way in which they are experienced [Kant]
5554 Categories are necessary, so can't be implanted in us to agree with natural laws [Kant]
22078 Even simple propositions about sensations are filled with categories [Hegel]
15634 Thought about particulars is done entirely through categories [Hegel]
21920 No need for a priori categories, since sufficient reason shows the interrelations [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
16961 In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine]
13127 Categories can't overlap; they are either disjoint, or inclusive [Sommers, by Westerhoff]
13403 The category of Venus is not 'object', or even 'planet', but a particular class of good-sized object [Jubien]
17377 All descriptive language is classificatory [Dupré]
8283 Ontological categories are not natural kinds: the latter can only be distinguished using the former [Lowe]
13118 Categories are base-sets which are used to construct states of affairs [Westerhoff]
13117 How far down before we are too specialised to have a category? [Westerhoff]
13116 Maybe objects in the same category have the same criteria of identity [Westerhoff]
13124 Categories can be ordered by both containment and generality [Westerhoff]
13125 Categories are held to explain why some substitutions give falsehood, and others meaninglessness [Westerhoff]
13126 Categories systematize our intuitions about generality, substitutability, and identity [Westerhoff]
13130 Categories as generalities don't give a criterion for a low-level cut-off point [Westerhoff]
10496 Monothetic categories have fixed defining features, and polythetic categories do not [Ellen]
10497 In symbolic classification, the categories are linked to rules [Ellen]
18564 Do categories store causal knowledge, or typical properties, or knowledge of individuals? [Machery]