Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Category Mistakes”

Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Category Mistakes,” (opens in a new tab)

  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Category Mistakes,”

Objections & responses

If philosophers can’t agree whether a category mistake produces a meaningless sentence or a false one, does calling something a category mistake tell you much?

The disagreement is about the semantics, not about whether the error is real; on either account the sentence goes wrong by mismatching kinds. The use here requires only that demanding a physical test for a non-physical claim is an error of that sort, which both camps accept. Whether the resulting sentence is meaningless or merely false, it is not a good argument.

Appears under 1 claim in this case

• The “category mistake,” treating something by a standard that belongs to the wrong kind of thing, is a recognized reasoning error named by Gilbert Ryle.