Categories

References and further reading

	Ackrill, J.L. (1963) Aristotle: Categories and De Interpretatione, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Defence of the ‘questions’ approach to Aristotle’s categories.)
	Baumer, M. (1993) ‘Chasing Aristotle’s Categories Down the Tree of Grammar’, Journal of Philosophical Research 18: 341–449. (Defence of the ‘grammar’ approach to Aristotle’s categories.).
	Carnap, R. (1931) ‘Überwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache’, Erkenntnis 2(1), 219–241; trans., ‘The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language’, in H. Adams and L. Searle (eds) Critical Theory since Plato, Boston: Thomson, 2005, 980–989. (Carnap’s explanation of how to dispel illusory problems of metaphysics through the analysis of language.)
	Copi, I. (1971) The Theory of Logical Types, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (A concise introduction to the theory of types and the paradoxes that motivate it, for the general reader.)
	Ganeri, J. (2001) Philosophy in Classical India, London: Routledge. (Chapter 3 provides a clear account of the Vaiśeṣika system of categories.)
	Guarino, N. (2005) ‘Ontologies and Knowledge Bases: Towards a Terminological Clarification’, in N.J.I. Mars (ed.) Towards Very Large Knowledge Bases, Amsterdam: IOS Press, 25–32. (On the use of systems of ontological categories in artificial intelligence.)
	Halbfass, W. (1992) On Being and What There Is: Classical Vaiśeṣika and the History of Indian Ontology, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. (Contains another good discussion of the Vaiśeṣika system of ontological categories.)
	Isaacson, H. (1993) ‘Yogic Perception (yogipratyakṣa) in Early Vaiśeṣika’, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 18: 139–160. (On the Vaiśeṣika idea that meditatively trained perception can directly access the ontological categories.)
	Katz, J.J. (1966) The Philosophy of Language, New York: Harper & Row. (An account of ontological categories in terms of a contemporary take on conceptual containment.)
	Lakoff, G. (1987) Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (On psychological foundations of ontological distinctions.)
	Longuenesse, B. (1998) ‘The Divisions of the Transcendental Logic and the Leading Thread’, in G. Mohr and M. Willascheck (eds) Immanuel Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. (On Kant’s theory of categories in the context of the Critique of Pure Reason.)
	Lowe, E.J. (2001) The Possibility of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity and Time, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (A survey of metaphysics by one of the most important contemporary metaphysicians.)
	Munn, K. and Smith, B. (eds) (2008) Applied Ontology: An Introduction, New York: Walter de Gruyter. (Discusses the role philosophical work on ontological categories can play in designing ontologies for information systems and knowledge representation.)
	Wardy, R. (2000) Aristotle in China: Language, Categories, and Translation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Discussion of the idea of the language-relative nature of systems of ontological categories, includes some discussion of the Sapir-Whorf thesis.)
	Westerhoff, J. (2005) Ontological Categories: Their Nature and Significance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Develops a relativistic account of ontological categories.)