Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Category mistakes are meaningful

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Linguistics and Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Category mistakes are sentences such as ‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously’ or ‘The theory of relativity is eating breakfast’. Such sentences are highly anomalous, and this has led a large number of linguists and philosophers to conclude that they are meaningless (call this ‘the meaninglessness view’). In this paper I argue that the meaninglessness view is incorrect and category mistakes are meaningful. I provide four arguments against the meaninglessness view: in Sect. 2, an argument concerning compositionality with respect to category mistakes; in Sect. 3 an argument concerning synonymy facts of category mistakes; in Sect. 4 concerning embeddings of category mistakes in propositional attitude ascriptions; and in Sect. 5 concerning the uses of category mistakes in metaphors. Having presented these arguments, in Sect. 6 I briefly discuss some of the positive motivations for accepting the meaninglessness view and argue that they are unconvincing. I conclude that the meaninglessness view ought to be rejected.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Barwise J., Perry J. (1990) Semantic innocence and uncompromising situations. In: Martinich A.P. (eds) The philosophy of language (2nd ed). Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Beall J.C., van Fraassen B.C. (2003) Possibilities and paradox. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Black M. (1962) Metaphor. In: Black M. (eds) Models and metaphors. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY

    Google Scholar 

  • Block, N. (1998). Semantics, conceptual role. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved December 01, 2006, from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/ W037.

  • Boisvert D., Lubbers C. (2003) Frege’s commitment to an infinite hierarchy of senses. Philosophical Papers 32: 31–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Camp E. (2004) The generality constraint and categorical restrictions. Philosophical Quarterly 54: 210–231

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Camp E. (2005) Critical study of Joseph Stern, Metaphors in context. Nous 39: 715–731

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Camp E. (2006) Metaphor in the mind: The cognition of metaphor. Philosophy Compass 1(2): 154–170

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky N. (1957) Syntactic structures. Mouton, The Hague

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky N. (1965) Aspects of the theory of syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson D. (2001) On saying that. In: Davidson D. (eds) Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson D. (2001) What metaphors mean. In: Davidson D. (eds) Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Diamond C. (2001) What nonsense might be. In: Diamond C. (eds) The realistic spirit. MIT press, Cambridge MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Drange T. (1966) Type crossings. Mouton, The Hague

    Google Scholar 

  • Dummett M. (1981) Frege: Philosophy of language (2nd ed). Duckworth, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans G. (1982) The varieties of reference. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Fine K. (2003) The non-identity of a material thing and its matter. Mind 112: 195–234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fogelin R. (1988) Figuratively speaking. Yale University Press, New Heaven

    Google Scholar 

  • Frege G. (1952) On sense and reference. In: Black M., Geach P. (eds) Translations from the philosophical writings of Gottlob Frege. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Haack R.J. (1971) No need for nonsense. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 49: 71–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heim I., Kratzer A. (1998) Semantics in generative grammar. Blackwell Publishers, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Hodges W. (2001) Logic. Penguin, Harmondsworth

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakoff G. (1971) Pressuposition and relative well-formedness. In: Jakobovitz A., Steinberg D. (eds) Semantics: An interdiciplinary reader. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Lambert K. (1968) On the no type theory of significance. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 46: 79–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maddy P. (1980) Perception and Mathematical intuition. Philosophical Review 89: 163–196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Magidor, O. (2007). Category Mistakes. D.Phil dissertation, University of Oxford.

  • Magidor O. (2009) The last dogma of type confusions. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 109: 1–29

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martinich A.P. (1984) A theory of metaphor. Journal of Literary Semantics 13: 35–56

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCawley J. (1970) Where do noun phrases come from. In: Jacobs R., Rosenbaum P. (eds) Readings in English transformational grammar. GINN, Boston, pp 166–183

    Google Scholar 

  • McCawley J. (1971) Interpretative semantics meets Frankenstein. Foundations of Language 7: 285–296

    Google Scholar 

  • McDaniel, K. (unpublished manuscript). Categories of being.

  • Montague R. (1974) The proper treatment of quantification in ordinary English. In: Thomason R. (eds) Formal philosophy: Selected papers by Richard Montague. Yale University Press, New Heaven, CT

    Google Scholar 

  • Moran R. (1997) Metaphor. In: Hale B., Wright C. (eds) A companion to the philosophy of language. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Pap A. (1960) Types and meaninglessness. Mind 69: 41–54

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parsons T. (1981) Frege’s hierarchies of indirect senses and the paradox of analysis. Midwest Studies of Philosophy 6: 35–57

    Google Scholar 

  • Reimer M., Camp E. (2006) Metaphor. In: Lepore E., Smith B. (eds) The Oxford handbook of philosophy of language. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Routley R. (1966) On significance theory. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 44: 172–209

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Routley R. (1969) The need for nonsense. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 47: 367–384

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Russell B. (1905) On denoting. Mind 14: 530–538

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Russell B. (1908) Mathematical logic as based on the theory of types. American Journal of Mathematics 30: 222–262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryle G. (1938) Categories. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 38: 189–206

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle J. (1979) Metaphor. In: Ortony A. (eds) Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Sorensen R. (2001) Vagueness and contradiction. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanley J. (2002) Nominal restrictions. In: Peters G., Preyer G. (eds) Logical form and language. Cambridge, MA, OUP

    Google Scholar 

  • Stern J. (2000) Metaphor in context. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Strawson P.F. (1950) On referring. Mind 59: 320–344

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strawson P.F. (1952) Introduction to logical theory. Methuen, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson T. (1994) Vagueness. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Balliol College, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3BJ, UK

    Ofra Magidor

Authors
  1. Ofra Magidor
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ofra Magidor.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Magidor, O. Category mistakes are meaningful. Linguist and Philos 32, 553–581 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-010-9067-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-010-9067-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation