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Single Idea 17654
[filed under theme 7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
]
Full Idea
A world may be unmanageably heterogeneous or unbearably monotonous according to how events are sorted into kinds.
Gist of Idea
A world can be full of variety or not, depending on how we sort it
Source
Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4a)
Book Ref
Goodman,Nelson: 'Ways of Worldmaking' [Hackett 1984], p.9
A Reaction
We might expect this from the man who invented 'grue', which allows you to classify things that change colour with things that don't. Could you describe a bird as 'might have been a fish', and classify it with fish? ('Projectible'?)
The
19 ideas
with the same theme
[belief that our categories can't or don't map reality]:
20896
|
It is not possible to know what sort each thing is
[Democritus]
|
16654
|
Our words and concepts don't always correspond to what is out there
[William of Ockham]
|
16608
|
Ockham was an anti-realist about the categories
[William of Ockham, by Pasnau]
|
13436
|
There are no gaps in the continuum of nature, and everything has something closely resembling it
[Locke]
|
22079
|
Hegel said Kant's fixed categories actually vary with culture and era
[Hegel, by Houlgate]
|
7174
|
Categories are not metaphysical truths, but inventions in the service of needs
[Nietzsche]
|
7175
|
Philosophers find it particularly hard to shake off belief in necessary categories
[Nietzsche]
|
4484
|
Nihilism results from valuing the world by the 'categories of reason', because that is fiction
[Nietzsche]
|
17654
|
A world can be full of variety or not, depending on how we sort it
[Goodman]
|
11096
|
Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree
[Quine]
|
21907
|
We don't want another new set of categories; we want a variety of flexible categories
[Deleuze, by May]
|
15730
|
Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention
[Quinton]
|
4574
|
If some peoples do not have categories like time or cause, they can't be essential features of rationality
[Cooper,DE]
|
7020
|
Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions
[Heil]
|
13115
|
Ontological categories are like formal axioms, not unique and with necessary membership
[Westerhoff]
|
13119
|
Categories merely systematise, and are not intrinsic to objects
[Westerhoff]
|
13135
|
A thing's ontological category depends on what else exists, so it is contingent
[Westerhoff]
|
10495
|
Continuous experience sometimes needs imposition of boundaries to create categories
[Ellen]
|
18565
|
There may be ad hoc categories, such as the things to pack in your suitcase for a trip
[Machery]
|