Categorical knowledge of others often requires personal biographical knowledge

Evidence

To know another personally is not to eliminate knowing him categorically. Personal knowing supplements categoric knowing; it adds temporal events, nuances of meaning, relational depth to the stark outline of the other’s roles and statuses. It adds adjectives and adverbs and qualifying phrases, as it were, to the simple sentence that is categoric knowing. In some instances, to carry the analogy further, the noun and the verb themselves lack meaning without their modifiers and qualifiers. That is-and the importance of this point will become clear soon-complex categoric knowing is frequently dependent upon personal knowing, categorical placement being dependent upon biographical information. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 106

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Introduces the key distinction between categoric and personal knowing that structures the book’s argument.
• XREF: Connects directly to how Cole’s narrator categorizes strangers in public while lacking the personal knowledge to act reliably; also pairs with Simmel’s stranger concept.

Related

• Categorical knowledge of strangers frequently depends on personal information about them (similarity 0.92)
• Personal knowing always apprehends another as a unique biographical being. (similarity 0.92)
• Personal knowledge distinguishes groups differently than primary-secondary divides do. (similarity 0.85)
• The stranger-known-other distinction is unstable yet practically meaningful. (similarity 0.84)
• Categoric versus personal knowing is a cognitive axis independent of affect. (similarity 0.82)
• City life depends on categorizing strangers rather than knowing them personally (similarity 0.81)
• A stranger is any person personally unknown to the actor of reference. (similarity 0.80)
• Cities mitigate total anonymity through categorical identification of strangers (similarity 0.79)
• Complex categorical placement depends on personal biographical knowledge (similarity 0.78)
• Urban life produced a human type who knows others primarily by category (similarity 0.78)
• A stranger means anyone personally unknown to the observer, however well known by reputation. (similarity 0.78)