Category Mistakes Electrified

Abstract Occurrences of sentences that are traditionally considered category mistakes, such as ‘The red number is divisible by three’, tend to elicit a sense oddness in assessors. In attempting explain this oddness, existing accounts the philosophical literature commonly claim occurrences associated with defect or phenomenology unique class mistakes. It might be thought recent work experimental psycholinguistics—in particular, recording event-related brain potentials (patterns voltage variation brain)—holds potential shed new light on debate. I review relevant results, before arguing they present advocates mistakes dilemma: either uniqueness claims should rejected, technique question cannot used test manner philosophers hope.