Open-mindedness is impossible because thought requires preexisting categories
Evidence
One of Allport’s most provocative and inspiring ideas was that stereotyping is grounded in a basic, unavoidable, categorization process. People are not capable of thought in the absence of concepts. New experiences remain meaningless unless they are incorporated into preexisting categories. Open-mindedness, Allport noted, “is considered to be a virtue. But strictly speaking, it cannot occur. A new experience must be redacted into old categories” (1954/1979, p. 20). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1151 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
One of Allport’s most provocative and inspiring ideas was that stereotyping is grounded in a basic, unavoidable, categorization process. People are not capable of thought in the absence of concepts. New experiences remain meaningless unless they are incorporated into preexisting categories. Open-mindedness, Allport noted, “is considered to be a virtue. But strictly speaking, it cannot occur. A new experience must be redacted into old categories” (1954/1979, p. 20). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1151 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
- XREF: connects to: Classification enables thought but does not itself constitute understanding.; Positivist philosophy imposes an empirical a priori that cannot be transcended — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 671; Even the categories and laws of thought are historically mutable, not fixed — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 690 (+13 more)
Broader Connections
- Humans cannot think without categorizing; even open-mindedness requires old categories.
#corroborates(0.98) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1151 - All thought requires forcing new experiences into preexisting categories
#expands(0.95) - Categorization is an unavoidable prerequisite for all human thought
#expands(0.95) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1151 - Stereotypes can enable efficient thought rather than only distort it
#complicates(0.75) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 505 - Essentialist-sounding definitions can be adopted provisionally without belief in essence
#complicates(0.72) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 453