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[ontolog-forum] Categories and Classes

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: John Bottoms <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 04 Jul 2015 15:25:45 -0400
Message-id: <55983339.3040801@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I wish this were all codified,

Distinguishing between categories and classes seems underspecified.

1. To include an entity in a category a decision must be made which entails a predicate, "include" (or "not").

2. A category contains a number of entities that share one or more attributes, that is the members are "similar".

3. Therefore, when we talk about practical, real-world classifiers. would we be better off calling these "quantifiers" rather than classifiers?

4. "Classification as process involves the orderly and systematic assignment
of each entity to one and only one class within a system of mutually exclu-
sive and nonoverlapping classes."
- Elin K. Jacob, "Classification and Categorization: A Difference that Makes a Difference"

5. "Philosophical categories are classes, genera, or types supposed to mark necessary divisions within our conceptual scheme; divisions that we must recognize if we are to make literal sense in our discourse about the world." -Manley Thompson, "Encyclopedia of Philosophy"

6. "A system of categories is a complete list of highest kinds or genera." -Stanford E. of Philosophy (categories). [jb: this almost sounds like "universals", depending on your definition of genera]

My questions concern:

A. Does a categorizer use a predicate?

B.  If a categorizer exists, where does it deliver its results. Candidate destinations might be "undetermined" or a new or existing bag as specified. Would a set <name> be a better descriptor for the destination of a categorizer, if you believe the members are "similar"?

(Note: some writers [Ryle], believe that an entity cannot be a member of two different categories as they "have nothing in common". It appears that Ryle wants to use a categorizing system to separate entities into systems but makes no reference to predicates for this process.)

C. Are category and class mutually exclusive? If so, then what of #5 above. If not then which is a subset of the other?

Some writers tie the classification and categorization process to their corresponding source-destination metadata. Is it possible to draw a diagram of these processes, end-to-end?

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