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What does "categorical approaches" mean here?

So the vast range of the subject matter in this book – contemporary art and science – has presented me with a mapping challenge: how to forge a clear route through the territory without over-prescribing a new set of categorical approaches. In general I have pursued my own curiosities and made my own links in the hope that readers will use them as starting points for their own enquiries, connections and sometimes, too, contradictions.

  1. approaches that classify things in the form of groups

  2. approaches that work with definite concepts

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    Still Sîan Ede; still doesn't mean anything.
    – deadrat
    Commented Jul 11, 2015 at 17:53
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    To me, it means the 2nd thing, because of the compound over-prescribing - to prescribe something is to "state authoritatively and as a rule" (ODO) and when you prescribe rules you are sort of setting definite concepts, right? I think the author is saying that they don't want the reader to take this work as the Bible of contemporary art and science, but more as a guidance from which they should form their own opinions and conclusions. The challenge (for the author) is to do this without being ambiguous.
    – Lucky
    Commented Jul 11, 2015 at 18:31
  • The author is trying to avoid this problem. So roughly, meaning (2).
    – Alan Munn
    Commented Jan 7, 2016 at 22:56
  • 1., 2.: Neither. "categorical approaches," approaches that are not hierarchical, in best to worst, say. As I see it.
    – Kris
    Commented Nov 3, 2016 at 9:11
  • Let me know if you still have questions.
    – Kris
    Commented Nov 3, 2016 at 9:12

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This means that the author doesn't want to divide the works into abstract categories and then discuss those categories. Rather, he wants to analyze specific works, without concerning himself with how they should be categorized. Some categorization might eventually emerge from this process, but the author did not begin his analysis by categorizing the works.

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  • This is possible, but only in the sense that practically any interpretation of postmodern criticism is possible. Do you have any evidence that this what the author (who's a woman, by the way, so a she not a he) means?
    – deadrat
    Commented Jul 11, 2015 at 18:49
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    What would this "evidence" look like? We have the author's words. I don't understand what "practically any interpretation of postmodern criticism is possible" means. The reason I said "he" is because that is the conventional word to use in English when the author's gender is unknown.
    – Val Kornea
    Commented Jul 11, 2015 at 18:53
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    Postmodern criticism doesn't use words in their ordinary sense. We have the author's words, but we don't have her meaning, which in these cases turns out to be essentially private and idiosyncratic, and caged in layers of abstract and figurative language. In particular, postmodernism is heavily invested in the idea that concepts don't have meanings aside from their societal constructions. My comment on the author's sex was in no way a criticism, simply an asdie, something fyi. Your choice of pronoun was appropriate. The OP should have identified Ms Ede.
    – deadrat
    Commented Jul 11, 2015 at 19:09

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