From @gate.demon.co.uk,@uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Sun Jun 11 23:31:27 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3360 ; Sun, 11 Jun 95 23:31:25 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Sat, 10 Jun 95 01:44:27 GMT Received: from gate.demon.co.uk by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa29247; 10 Jun 95 2:42 +0100 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by gate.demon.co.uk id aa04016; 10 Jun 95 2:24 GMT-60:00 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6219; Fri, 09 Jun 95 20:21:26 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 4886; Fri, 9 Jun 1995 20:17:49 -0400 Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 01:14:15 +0100 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list From: ucleaar Subject: Re: birds? X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander In-Reply-To: (Your message of Wed, 07 Jun 95 13:57:09 D.) Message-ID: <9506100224.aa04016@gate.demon.co.uk> Status: R > >I believe in fuzzy categories, and I recognize that this example is from > >time to time used to exemplify the notion, but I think it is not in the > >least fuzzy. Eagles, pigeons, penguins are all indubitably birds, and > >bats, squirrels are indubitably not birds. These are on a TYPICALITY > >GRADIENT [emphasis, not yelling] but not a MEMBERSHIP GRADIENT. > Why are the former birds, and the latter non-birds? How do you know? > You mean you believe a biologist? Then tell me - is an archeopteryx a > bird? How about those warm-blooded dinosaurs they are now > hypothesizing. > To make the case clearer (or fuzzier %^), how about wolf vs. dog? They > have separate species names, but have fertile offspring and hence > biologically are one species. > In any event, biological taxonomy is not the same as linguistic > taxonomy. I can easily imagine some observers and cultures considering > a bat to be more a bird than a penguin. The relevant taxonomy in this case is linguistic. It doesn't matter what biologists think. In certain domains of experience, such as the natural world, the categories *seem* to be self-evident. Here's a thought-experiment: A room contains many small cones that have yellow spots on a blue background and tassels on their apex, and many large cubes that have red and green stripes and small dents over their surface and that play Fur Elise when you touch them. I predict that put anyone from any culture in that room and they'll come up with the same categorization of these objects into the same two classes. Show them one of the cones & they'll all agree it belongs in the cone class rather than the sphere class. But I don't predict that everyone will conclude that, say, spottedness is a necessary or sufficient criterion of membership in the cone class. If in some areas the world seems to take care of categorization itself, we needn't bother deciding what the criteria for membership in such categories are. And of such categories we may believe that membership in them is not a gradient matter. Faced with problem examples of marginal membership, that belief may be challenged, but the whole point about categories like these is that we aren't exposed to problems of marginal membership. --- And