[Lady Sheherazahde's Wiccan Ways : The Snyder Sociology Index Page]
Send comments or complaints to sheherazahde@yahoo.com
Page created 01/03/04 last updated 01/03/04

"Conceptual boundaries are arbitrary and indeterminate."
- Prof. William H. Snyder

Conceptual Categories

Excerpts for scholarly reference from "Moral Politics: What Conservative Know That Liberals Don't" by George Lakoff, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996

Radial Categories (pp 7-8)

"Radial Categories are the most common of human conceptual categories. They are not definable in terms of some list of properties shared by every member of the category. Instead, they are characterized by variations on a central model."

"Radial Categories, with central cases and variations on them, are normal in the human mind."

Types of Prototypes (pp 8-11)

"A prototype is an element of a category (either a subcategory or an individual member) that is used to represent the category as a whole in some sort of reasoning. All prototypes are cognative constructions used to perform a certain kind of reasoning; they are not objective features of the world."

"1. The central subcategory of a radial category: this provides the basis for extending the category in new ways and defining variations."

"2. A typical case prototype: This characterizes typical cases and is used to draw inferences about category members as a whole, unless it is made clear that we are operating with a nontypical case."

"3. An ideal case prototype: This defines a standard against which other subcategories are measured."

"4. An anti-ideal prototype: This subcategory exemplifies the worst kind of subcategory, a "demon" subcategory. It defines a negative standard."

"5. A social stereotype: this is a model, widespread in a culture, for making snap judgments--judgments without reflective thought-- about and entire category, by virtue of suggesting that the stereotype is the typical case."

"6. A salient exemplar: A single memorable example that is commonly used in making probability judgments or in drawing conclusions about what is typical of category members."

"7. An essential prototype: This is a hypothesized collection of properties that, according to a commonplace folk theory, characterizes what makes a thing the kind of thing it is, or what makes a person the kind of person he is."

"Words don't have meanings in isolation. Words are defined relative to a conceptual system." p29

"Most people don't even know that they have conceptual systems much less how they are structured" p388


1