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Single Idea 18041

[filed under theme 2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / d. Category mistake as pragmatic ]

Full Idea

I argue that category mistakes are infelicitous because they suffer from (pragmatic) presupposition failure, ...but I reject the 'naive pragmatic approach' according to which category mistakes are infelicitous because they are trivially true or false.

Gist of Idea

Category mistakes suffer from pragmatic presupposition failure (which is not mere triviality)

Source

Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 5.1)

Book Ref

Magidor,Ofra: 'Category Mistakes' [OUP 2013], p.111

A Reaction

She supports her case quite well, but I vote for them being false. The falsity may involve presuppositions. 'Two is green' is a category mistake, and false, because 'two' lacks the preconditions for anything to be coloured (notably, emitting light).

The 5 ideas with the same theme [category mistakes as result of confusions in a context]:

18041 Category mistakes suffer from pragmatic presupposition failure (which is not mere triviality) [Magidor]
18056 Category mistakes because of presuppositions still have a truth value (usually 'false') [Magidor]
18055 In 'two is green', 'green' has a presupposition of being coloured [Magidor]
18057 'Numbers are coloured and the number two is green' seems to be acceptable [Magidor]
18058 Maybe the presuppositions of category mistakes are the abilities of things? [Magidor]