Are categories for producing knowledge bad?
Categories as a means to knowledge, rather than an end in themself, can still be defended. Even as they might be contested.
The act of naming and speech is part of what it is to know, to explore, to find out, to learn. Sorting things by shape, size, kind, is an early learning process.
Categories maybe only become ‘dangerous’ where they essentialise, reduce, ‘ossify’ to a prison like compartmentalisation. Where they are said to determine outcomes.
Whilst categorisation said to be a particularly ‘Western’ mode of knowledge production, I am not so sure. And even if it was, is the task, therefore, merely to do away with it? Is this even possible? Is it desirable?
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