Explanation
Categorisation orders perception by assigning individual phenomena to concepts and classes. It enables recognition, learning, inference, and coordinated action because every encounter need not be treated as wholly new. Categories do not simply reproduce ready-made boundaries in the world, however. Similarity, prototypes, purposes, language, and institutional practice influence which features matter and where transitions are drawn. One object may belong to different categories under different questions. The concept thus reveals a basic movement of thought: diversity becomes manageable when some differences are set aside. At the same time, every category requires testing against boundary cases, exclusions, and the consequences of its application.
Movement of thought
1. A plurality of individual phenomena first enters perception with similarities and differences. 2. Certain features are selected for a purpose and used as the basis of a class. 3. New cases are assigned to the category and thereby acquire expectations, names, and possible inferences. 4. A counter-test examines borderline cases, alternative purposes, and features hidden by the assignment. 5. The category returns as a useful but revisable instrument rather than a complete copy of the world.
Scientific use case
Cognitive science, linguistics, and science studies can examine feature selection, prototypes, and institutional classifications. Experiments can test how labels alter perception and generalisation.
Example
A digital collection initially groups texts by language. For a question about narrative forms, the same texts are recategorised by perspective and temporal order, revealing different similarities.
Counterexample
Placing two things next to one another is not categorisation unless a criterion of assignment emerges. An official class likewise does not prove that its boundary is natural or adequate for every purpose.
Distinction
Distinguish categorisation from classification, naming, stereotype, and taxonomy. Categorisation is the general assignment process; taxonomies systematically order categories, while stereotypes evaluatively overload social categories.
Effect on thought and perception
Categorisation reduces complexity and enables comparison and inference, but may obscure transitions and solidify administrative or social boundaries.
Resonance
Many individual cases answer to a common form, while every resistant boundary case changes the category’s outline and keeps it mobile.
Etymology
Technical core term; individual etymological review pending
Provenance
Unresolved relation network → core-concept review → Metzler/HWRh cross-check → ATLAS 238
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Categorisation“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-CORE-238-043. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-CORE-238-043The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
Locke approaches categorisation through abstraction and sorting under names. The understanding takes observed similarity as an occasion to form general ideas and treats matching particulars as members of a class. The historical text thus combines two sides: resemblance constrains classification, while selection and naming are acts of understanding. It supports neither wholly pre-labelled natural boxes nor arbitrary classification. The present label categorisation is editorial; Locke does not date the lemma or anticipate later prototype and learning models in full.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
For each category identify the selection criterion, observed similarities, excluded features and purpose of grouping. A useful class enables comparison but may suppress differences among its members.
References for the historical section
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (first published with the date 1690), Books III–IV; Gutenberg transcription identified as based on the second edition · III.iii.6–13, abstraction, general terms and sorting under names
Selected original-English passages read; not collated against first-edition page images. Modern profile labels are explicitly distinguished from the terminology used by Locke. His account of ideas is a historical philosophical position, not a verified contemporary model of language or cognition.