Meanings
plural category mistakes · alternative category-mistake
- A semantic or ontological error by which a property (or category) is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.
"Horses are bipeds" is merely incorrect, but "Horses are binary" is a category mistake.
1 more example
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 16Synonyms: category error
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA semantic or ontological error by which a property (or category) is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.
Origin
Popularized by philosopher Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind (1949), where it is applied to the notion of a ghost in the machine.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
category mistake. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/category%20mistake
“category mistake.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/category%20mistake. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “category mistake,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/category%20mistake.
Source: category mistake on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.