A categorical proposition is a part of deductive reasoning that contains two categorical terms, the subject and the predicate, and affirms or denies the latter of the former. Categorical propositions occur in categorical syllogisms and both are discussed in Aristotle's Prior Analytics.
Examples:
- Midshipman Davis serves on H.M.S. Invincible. (subject: Midshipman Davis; predicate: serves on H.M.S. Invincible)
- Some politicians are corrupt. (subject: politicians; predicate: corruptness)
- Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. (subject: people; predicate: getting fired for buying IBM)
The subject and predicate are called the terms of the proposition. The subject is what the proposition is about. The predicate is what the proposition affirms or denies about the subject. A categorical proposition thus claims something about things or ways of being: it affirms or denies something about something else.
Categorical propositions are distinguished from hypothetical propositions (if-then statements that connect propositions rather than terms) and disjunctive propositions (either-or statements, claiming exclusivity between propositions).
Read more about Categorical Proposition: Quality, Quantity and Distribution, Schema
Famous quotes containing the words categorical and/or proposition:
“We do the same thing to parents that we do to children. We insist that they are some kind of categorical abstraction because they produced a child. They were people before that, and they’re still people in all other areas of their lives. But when it comes to the state of parenthood they are abruptly heir to a whole collection of virtues and feelings that are assigned to them with a fine arbitrary disregard for individuality.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)
“Whenever a man acts purposively, he acts under a belief in some experimental phenomenon. Consequently, the sum of the experimental phenomena that a proposition implies makes up its entire bearing upon human conduct.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)