View source for Category mistake

{{for|the fallacy|fallacy of composition|fallacy of division}}
{{short description|Ascribing an impossible property to a thing}}

A '''category mistake''' (or '''category error''', '''categorical mistake''', or '''mistake of category''') is a [[semantic]] or [[ontology|ontological]] error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category,<ref>{{cite book |last=Blackburn |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Blackburn |date=1994 |title=[[The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy]] |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=58}}</ref> or, alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. An example is a person learning that the game of [[cricket]] involves team spirit, and after being given a demonstration of each player's role, asking which player performs the "team spirit".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lacewing |first1=Michael |title=Philosophy for A Level: Metaphysics of God and Metaphysics of Mind |date=14 July 2017 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-351-67460-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KAkqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA208 |language=en}}</ref>

==History==
[[Aloysius Martinich|Al Martinich]] claims that the philosopher [[Thomas Hobbes]] was the first to discuss a propensity among philosophers mistakenly to combine words taken from different and incompatible categories.<ref>Martinich, A. P., ''Philosophical Writing: An Introduction'', Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1989; third edition, Blackwell Publishers, 2005, page 2</ref>

The term "category-mistake" was introduced by [[Gilbert Ryle]] in his book ''[[The Concept of Mind]]'' (1949) to remove what he argued to be a confusion over the nature of mind born from [[Descartes|Cartesian]] [[metaphysics]].<ref>Philosopher [[Ofra Magidor]] writes, "As far as I can tell, this is the first time the concept of a category mistake is referred to using this label." (''Category Mistakes'', Oxford University Press, 2013, [https://books.google.com/books?id=v35pAgAAQBAJ&q=the%20first%20time%20the%20concept%20of%20a%20category%20mistake%20is%20referred%20to%20using%20this%20label page 10, footnote 21])</ref><ref>Ryle consistently hyphenates "category-mistake". See [https://archive.org/details/conceptofmind00gilb/page/330/mode/2up?q=%22category+mistake%22 the index].</ref> Ryle argues that it is a mistake to treat the mind as an object made of an immaterial substance because predications of substance are not meaningful for a collection of dispositions and capacities.<ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ryle/ | title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | chapter=Gilbert Ryle | year=2022 | publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University }}</ref>

The phrase is introduced in the first chapter.<ref name="ryle-concept">{{cite book |last=Ryle |first=Gilbert |author-link=Gilbert Ryle |date=1949 |title=The Concept of Mind |page=16 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=9780226732961 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ryl-ezY6Mn8C&pg=PA16}}</ref> The first example is of a visitor to [[University of Oxford|Oxford]]. The visitor, upon viewing the [[Colleges of the University of Oxford|colleges]] and [[Bodleian Library|library]], reportedly inquires, "But where is the University?" The visitor's mistake is presuming that a University is part of the category "units of physical infrastructure", rather than that of an "institution". In his second example, a child witnesses the march-past of a division of soldiers. After having had battalions, batteries, squadrons, etc. pointed out, the child asks when the division is going to appear. He is told that "the march-past was not a parade of battalions, batteries, squadrons ''and'' a division; it was a parade of the battalions, batteries and squadrons ''of'' a division" (Ryle's italics). His third example is of a foreigner being shown a cricket match. After being pointed out batsmen, bowlers and fielders, the foreigner asks: "who is left to contribute the famous element of team-spirit?"<ref name="ryle-concept" /> He goes on to argue that the [[Cartesian dualism]] of mind and body rests on a category mistake.{{page needed|date=October 2024}}

==Application==
[[Massimo Pigliucci]], Professor of Philosophy at the [[City University of New York]], argues that the "[[hard problem of consciousness]]", as expressed by [[David Chalmers]] and others, rests on a category mistake, in that explaining "experience" is being incorrectly treated as different from explaining the underlying biological processes which generate experience.<ref>Pigliucci, M., [https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem What Hard Problem?], ''Philosophy Now'', 2013, accessed on 5 February 2025</ref>

==See also==
* {{annotated link|Apples and oranges}}
* {{annotated link|Catachresis}}
* {{annotated link|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}}
* {{annotated link|Not even wrong}}
* {{annotated link|Synecdoche}}
* {{annotated link|The Concept of Mind|''The Concept of Mind''}}
* {{annotated link|Type error|Type error (computer science)}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Category Mistake}}
[[Category:Informal fallacies]]
[[Category:Philosophy of language]]
[[Category:Arguments in philosophy of mind]]
[[Category:Error]]