scholarly journals Reasoning, logic, and category mistakes

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-23
Author(s):  
J. Martín Castro-Manzano
Keyword(s):  
Category Mistakes

V.—ON GRAMMARS AND CATEGORY MISTAKES

Mind ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol LXXII (286) ◽  
pp. 224-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
DONALD J. HILLMAN
Keyword(s):  
Category Mistakes

The illusion of technique: sustained enterprise innovation as an aspirational problem

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-176
Author(s):  
Thomas Duening
Keyword(s):  
Category Mistake ◽  
Blind Alley ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Operational Problem ◽  
The Face ◽  
Enterprise Innovation ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Research Frameworks ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Category Mistakes

Purpose This paper is based on insights from philosophy of science, centered in Gilbert Ryle’s notion of “category mistakes”. A category mistake occurs in a science when scholars have been thinking of a phenomenon as of a certain sort, when it is really nothing of the kind. This paper aims to claim that regarding sustained enterprise innovation (SEI) as a strictly operational problem commits such a category mistake. Instead, SEI is an aspirational problem and thus requires scholars to examine it from that perspective as well. Design/methodology/approach This paper begins by explicating Ryle’s notion of a category mistake. It develops the suggestion that innovation scholars have made such a mistake by thinking of innovation as a strictly operational problem. In reality, it is as much an aspirational problem. The paper then builds on the metaphor made famous by Isaiah Berlin, distinguishing between hedgehogs and foxes. A hedgehog is a leader who copes with the non-predictive nature of innovation. The paper builds on the findings from positive psychology and virtue epistemology to highlight how humans can act rationally in the face of non-predictive outcomes. Four virtues of hedgehog leadership are proposed and defined. Findings The paper concludes that hedgehog leadership is necessary for sustained enterprise innovation. It also concludes that hedgehogs can act rationally in pursuit of non-predictive outcomes by practicing a set of governing virtues. Research limitations/implications Further research needs to be conducted to validate the proposed governing virtues, to illuminate the optimal hedgehog/fox balance within the enterprise, and to validate through longitudinal work the impact of hedgehogs on sustained enterprise innovation. Practical implications Based on the continuing interest in innovation expressed by enterprise leaders around the world, hedgehogs are in increasing demand. Fortunately, hedgehogs can be made (and self-made) via deliberate practice of the governing virtues. Aspiring and current hedgehogs can be confident that practicing these virtues and becoming increasingly adept at their application will promote and effect enterprise innovation. Originality/value Very little research has been conducted on the aspirational aspect of SEI. This is an insidious gap in the literature, as it affects scholars and practitioners alike. Scholars are trapped in the “normal science” paradigm that treats the innovation problem as if it can be solved through operational techniques. This paper contends that this ubiquitous category mistake has led scholars down a blind alley. Instead, it is important for scholars and practitioners alike to view SEI as an aspirational problem that requires vastly different research frameworks and practitioner prescriptions.

Category mistakes and figurative language

2015 ◽  
Vol 174 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ofra Magidor
Keyword(s):  
Figurative Language ◽  
Category Mistakes

Category Mistakes

2015 ◽  
Vol 66 (263) ◽  
pp. 402-405
Author(s):  
John A. Bateman
Keyword(s):  
Category Mistakes

Category mistakes are meaningful

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 553-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ofra Magidor
Keyword(s):  
Category Mistakes

scholarly journals Disintegrating Particles, Non-Local Causation and Category Mistakes: What do Conservation Laws have to do with Dualism?

Conatus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Rashad Rehman
Keyword(s):  
Conservation Laws ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Physical Data ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Category Mistakes

The single most influential and widely accepted objection against any form of dualism, the belief that human beings are both body and soul, is the objection that dualism violates conservation laws in physics. The conservation laws objection against dualism posits that body and soul interaction is at best mysterious, and at worst impossible. While this objection has been both influential from the time of its initial formulation until present, this paper occupies itself with arguing that this objection is a fleeting one, and has successful answers from both scientific and philosophical perspectives. It is to this end that I provide three groups of responses to the conservation laws objection. First, I outline responses which take the ‘laws of nature’ as the proper entry point into the discussion. Secondly, I provide an analysis of those who argue that contemporary quantum physical data requires that the objection itself involves scientifically unjustified premises. Finally, I layout a philosophically oriented answer which argues that the objection is linguistically problematic since its demands on the dualist are categorically fallacious. From these groups of answers, I conclude that while the conservation laws objection has been arguably the most widely accepted objection against dualism, the objection is without philosophical justification.

Structural Realism and Category Mistakes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Landry
Keyword(s):  
Category Theory ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
The Third ◽  
Meta Level ◽  
Formal Framework ◽  
Fundamental Physical ◽  
Use Category ◽  
Category Mistakes

Structural realists have made use of category theory in three ways. The first is as a meta-level formal framework for a structural realist account of the structure of scientific theories, either syntactic or semantic. The second is an appeal to the category-theoretic structure of some successful, successive or fundamental, physical theory to argue that this is the structure we should be physically committed to, either epistemically or ontically. The third is to use category theory as a conceptual tool to argue that it makes conceptual sense to talk of relations without relata and structures without objects. After a brief overview of structural realism, I consider how each appeal to the use of category theory stands up against the aims of the structural realist.

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