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Single Idea 18604

[filed under theme 7. Existence / E. Categories / 2. Categorisation ]

Full Idea

Are categorisation under time pressure and categorisation without time pressure ...two different cognitive competences?

Gist of Idea

Are quick and slow categorisation the same process, or quite different?

Source

Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 5.1.1)

Book Ref

Machery,Edouard: 'Doing Without Concepts' [OUP 2009], p.122


A Reaction

This is a psychologist's question. Introspectively, they do seem to be rather different, as there is no time for theorising and explaining when you are just casting your eyes over the landscape.


The 17 ideas with the same theme [how the mind approaches putting things into categories]:

We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato]
I revere anyone who can discern a single thing that encompasses many things [Plato]
We can't categorise things by their real essences, because these are unknown [Locke]
If we discovered real essences, we would still categorise things by the external appearance [Locke]
Does Kant say the mind imposes categories, or that it restricts us to them? [Rowlands on Kant]
Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James]
Infant brains appear to have inbuilt ontological categories [Goldman]
We should abandon classifying by pigeon-holes, and classify around paradigms [Sainsbury]
We should aim for a classification which tells us as much as possible about the object [Dupré]
Brain lesions can erase whole categories of perception, suggesting they are hard-wired [Carter,R]
Even fairly simple animals make judgements based on categories [Gelman]
Children accept real stable categories, with nonobvious potential that gives causal explanations [Gelman]
The aim is that everything should belong in some ontological category or other [Westerhoff]
Several words may label a category; one word can name several categories; some categories lack words [Ellen]
For each category of objects (such as 'dog') an individual seems to have several concepts [Machery]
A thing is classified if its features are likely to be generated by that category's causal laws [Machery]
Are quick and slow categorisation the same process, or quite different? [Machery]