category mistake
category mistake noun: a semantic or ontological error by which a property (or category) is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.
Noun
category mistake (plural category mistakes)
- A semantic or ontological error by which a property (or category) is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.
- It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category-mistake. It represents the facts of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type or category (or range of types or categories), when they actually belong to another. The dogma is therefore a philosopher's myth.1949, Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, Hutchinson, page 16
- Synonyms:
- category error
Synonyms of category mistake
Forms of category mistake
| plural | category mistakes |
|---|---|
| alternative form | category-mistake |
Origin of category mistake
Popularized by philosopher Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind (1949), where it is applied to the notion of a ghost in the machine.
Questions about category mistake
- What does category mistake mean?
- Category mistake means a semantic or ontological error by which a property (or category) is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.
- What part of speech is category mistake?
- Category mistake is a noun.
- What is the plural of category mistake?
- The plural of category mistake is category mistakes.
Words near category mistake in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: category mistake (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “category mistake.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/category_mistake. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.