category

category philosophical term that literally means predication or assertion. It was first used by Aristotle, whose 10 categories formed a list of all the ways in which assertions can be made of a subject. Immanuel Kant's 12 categories constitute an exhaustive list of the a priori forms through which a person knows the phenomenal world. The term has also been used in many other senses by various philosophers.

category A key aspect of the measurement process involves placing observations of measurements into groups or categories on the basis of unequivocally shared features. Hence a category is a homogeneous grouping of data. For example, the variable ‘sex’ would have two categories, male and female; the variable ‘social class’ might have three categories, upper, middle, and working. In the former case the rule for assigning cases or observations to the appropriate category is relatively simple. In the latter, the rules would be more complex, and dependent upon the class theory being used. See also CODING; RULES OF CORRESPONDENCE.

category XV. — F. catégorie or its source, late L. catēgoria — Gr. katēgoríā accusation, etc., f. katḗgoros accuser, etc., f. CATA- 4 + agorā́ assembly; see -Y 3.
So categoric XVII, categorical XVI. — F. catégorique or late L. catēgoricus.