Categorization is the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Categorization implies that objects are grouped into categories, usually for some specific purpose. Ideally, a category illuminates a relationship between the subjects and objects of knowledge. Categorization is fundamental in language, prediction, inference, decision making and in all kinds of environmental interaction. It is indicated that categorization plays a major role in computer programming.
There are many categorization theories and techniques. In a broader historical view, however, three general approaches to categorization may be identified:
Classical categorization first appears in the context of Western Philosophy in the work of Plato, who, in his Statesman dialogue, introduces the approach of grouping objects based on their similar properties. This approach was further explored and systematized by Aristotle in his Categories treatise, where he analyzes the differences between classes and objects. Aristotle also applied intensively the classical categorization scheme in his approach to the classification of living beings (which uses the technique of applying successive narrowing questions such as "Is it an animal or vegetable?", "How many feet does it have?", "Does it have fur or feathers?", "Can it fly?"...), establishing this way the basis for natural taxonomy.
Stevan Harnad (Hernád István Róbert, Hesslein István, born June 2, 1945, Budapest) is a cognitive scientist.
Harnad was born in Budapest, Hungary. He did his undergraduate work at McGill University and his graduate work at Princeton University's Department of Psychology. He is currently Canada Research Chair in cognitive science at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and professor of cognitive science at the University of Southampton. He was elected external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2001. His research is on categorization, communication,cognition and consciousness and he has written extensively on categorical perception, symbol grounding, origin of language, lateralization, the Turing test, distributed cognition, scientometrics, and consciousness. Harnad is a former student of Donald O. Hebb and Julian Jaynes.
In 1978, Harnad was the founder of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, of which he remained editor-in-chief until 2002. In addition, he founded Psycoloquy (an early electronic journal sponsored by the American Psychological Association), CogPrints (an electronic eprint archive in the cognitive sciences hosted by the University of Southampton), and the American Scientist Open Access Forum (since 1998). Harnad is an active promoter of open access (EPrints, EnablingOpenScholarship (EOS), Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS),SPARC Campus Open Access Policies).
Marc Jacobs (born April 9, 1963) is an American fashion designer. He is the head designer for Marc Jacobs, as well as Marc by Marc Jacobs, a diffusion line, with more than 200 retail stores in 80 countries. He has been the creative director of the French design house Louis Vuitton since 1997. Jacobs is on Time Magazine's "2010 Time 100" list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and ranked 12th on Out Magazine's 2011 list of "50 Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America".
Marc Jacobs was born to a non-observant Jewish family in New York City. When he was seven, his father, an agent at the William Morris agency, died. His mother, who remarried three times, , was “mentally ill” and “didn’t really take care of her kids”, according to Jacobs. As a teenager, he went to live with his paternal grandmother on the Upper West Side, in an apartment in the Majestic on Central Park West.
He graduated from the High School of Art and Design in 1981 and studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York. During his time at Parsons, Jacobs won the Perry Ellis Gold Thimble Award in 1984, and in the same year was also awarded the Chester Weinberg Gold Thimble Award and the Design Student of the Year Award.