From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!olivea!pagesat!spssig.spss.com!markrose Tue Nov 24 10:50:58 EST 1992
Article 7551 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!olivea!pagesat!spssig.spss.com!markrose
>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Categories
Message-ID: <1992Nov9.191804.14473@spss.com>
Date: 9 Nov 92 19:18:04 GMT
References: <burt.720913842@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> <BxBBnw.CEK@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Nov7.213838.15600@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu>
Sender: news@spss.com (Net News Admin)
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Lines: 45

In article <1992Nov7.213838.15600@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> hondl@nsslsun.nssl.uoknor.edu 
(Kurt Hondl) writes:
>In article <BxBBnw.CEK@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu 
(lincoln carr) writes:
>>In article <burt.720913842@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca 
(Burt Voorhees) writes:
>>>Logic is the tool that we use in order to be precise about our thinking 
>>>about identity, but it did not create identity.  Cats existed, for example, 
>>>before there was ever a word for cat.
>>
>>I would argue that you don't know that as surely as you think you do.
>>Certainty is a very nebulous thing.  You perceive the phenomena, not
>>noumena, that you associate with the word "cat" and, because of
>>certain a priori assumptions that human beings make, you assume that
>>it must have existed prior to your perception of it and your
>>assignment of the word "cat" to it.
>
>Suppose there was a world that was inhabited by only human beings (in all
>their variety) and various types of dogs.  If a cat were suddenly introduced 
>to this world, would the humans ...
>
>a) Recognizing the very distinct differences between the "cat" and themselves
>   and simply refer to the "cat" as a dog?
>or
>b) recognize the distinct differences between the various types
>   of dogs and this new "cat" and be compelled to name the new
>   intruder as a "cat"?

Is it relevant what humans really do in comparable situations?  Describing
the unaccustomed fauna and flora of the New World, for instance, the Europeans 
used both methods: in some cases existing words were extended to new 
referents, similar to their Old World models ("robin", "corn", "monkey");
in other cases new words were used ("tomato", "coyote", "woodchuck").  
Different European languages sometimes take opposite tacks with the same item: 
e.g. where English borrowed an Indian name for the tomato, Italian extended
an existing term: pomodoro = 'golden apple'.  Indeed, within English we have
both corn (extension) and maize (borrowing).

The question of why people have the categories they do is the main focus
of George Lakoff's _Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things_.  Lakoff points out,
among other things, that nature is not neatly organized into "natural
kinds": there is no neat, clean natural category of "cats" which can be
defined independently of human cognition and culture.  (The biological concept
of "species" differs in its essentials from the philosophical notion of
a category.)


