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defined the prototype classification. This distinction is going to be an important one through this chapter, so let us explore it in some detail. An Aristotelian classification works according to a set of binary characteristics that the object being classified either presents or does not present. At each level of classification, enough binary features are adduced to place any member of a given population into one and only one class. So we might say that a pen is an object for writing within a population consisting of pens, balls, and bottles (Taylor 1995). We would have to add in one more feature to distinguish it adequately, for example, from pens, pencils, balls, or bottles. A technical classification system operating by binary characteristics is called monothetic if a single set of necessary and sufficient conditions is adduced ("in the universe of polygons, the class of triangles consists of figures that have three sides"); polythetic if a number of shared characteristics are used. In our example, we might say a pen is thin, cylindrical, used for writing, has a ball point, and so forth (Blois 1984). Desrosières (1993) points to a typical breakdown between monothetic and polythetic classifications in the work of statisticians. He associates the former with Linnaeus and the latter with Buffon (who engaged in local classification practices, just using the set of traits needed to make a determination in a specific instance); and writes, "These local practices are often carried out by those working in statistical centers, according to a division of labor whereby the chiefs are inspired by Linnaean precepts but the working statisticians apply, without realizing it, Buffon's method" (Desrosières 1993, 296, authors' translation). Aristotelian modelsmonothetic or polythetichave traditionally informed formal classification theory in a broad range of sciences, including biological systematics, geology, and physics. |
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According to Rosch's prototype theory, our classifications tend to be much fuzzier than we might at first think. We do not deal with a set of binary characteristics when we decide that this thing we are sitting on is a chair. Indeed it is possible to name a population of objects that people would in general agree to call chairs which have no two binary features in common. |
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Prototype theory proposes that we have a broad picture in our minds of what a chair is; and we extend this picture by metaphor and analogy when trying to decide if any given thing that we are sitting on counts. We call up a best example, and then see if there is a reasonable direct or metaphorical thread that takes us from the example to the object under consideration. George Lakoff (1987) and John Taylor |
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