Aristotelian true-or-false logic still shapes concept dichotomization in social science.

Evidence

I suspect that this preference for dichotomization is what one might call an “Aristotelian holdover.” Historically, e.g., in Aristotle, logic was dichotomous: something was true or false. To say something is “partially true” was problematic. I suspect that this heritage continues to implicitly inform a lot of thinking about concepts. For example, Sartori, throughout his influential career, argued against “degreeism.” He borrowed most of his methodology from the most influential philosophical logic textbook of the 1930s. This philosophical tradition could explain perhaps the preference for dichotomization in political and moral philosophy, as well as qualitative methods more generally. — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts and Measurement, 410

Categorization

• BMF: The picture of classical logic as a dichotomous true/false grid that engineers cannot see past evokes the formally rationalist world of We (Yevgeny Zamyatin), where citizens and their judgments are permitted only two states.
• SEED: Article angle: ‘The Aristotelian Holdover’ — tracing how 2,300-year-old logic textbook habits quietly determine how modern social scientists draw categories.