With all the talk about what constitutes a chair lately I thought folks might be interested in a primer on the limits of classical categorization (or taxonomy if you like) and how Prototype Theory can help you avoid spiraling into a nihilistic hellhole where words have no meaning. Don't believe the hype: You know what a chair is.
This post is based primarily on the textbook Women, Fire and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff, which was assigned reading at Evergreen, former home of everyone's second least favorite Weinstein, Brett.
It's important to remember that categories are just tools, and the imperfect taxonomies we see in classical categorization work just fine until they don't. As an analogy if you are measuring something in physics and the object is moving slower than 1/10th the speed of light you don't need Special Relativity; Classical Mechanics will work just fine. It's the point when things don't fit cleanly into our categories t