III: Type

 

see also:        chap. XXIV: Mould &/or cast

                        chap. XXV: Original &/or copy

 

content

Types since Antiquity

The English word „type“

Types of today

 

 

Types are not to be confused with abstractions or “ideal types” (Max Weber, 1904).

For these types see chap. II. Abstraction, idealization, sign

 

 

Types since Antiquity

 

Types are formed simply by recognition of common attributes or characteristics. We already know from Old Sumer and Egypt many typologies of men.

 

Around 2400 BC the Sumerians sketched many types in  aphorisms and proverbs, for example:

 

the "moaner" blames the fate for all his failures

the eternal "rogue“ who comes with flimsy pretences

the "badly adapted" contemporaries

the poor and the profiteer

calculating young ladies

the restless, discontented woman ("a restless woman in the house/ joins pains to the pain")

the daughter-in-law

the pugnacious boat man.

 

Similar wisdom we find with the Old Egyptians.

Theophrast’s “characters” (ca. 300 BC) seduce till today to smile.

 

Theophrast’s teacher, Aristotle, initiated taxonomy and, for instance, classified living organisms as plants or animals and the latter by their means of movement or transportation (air, land, water).

 

 

The English word „type“

 

In English the Word “type“ is used since 1470 in the sense of a thing „by which something is symbolized or figured“ (Oxford English Dictionary);  since 1713 as printing type, and only since around 1840 as distinguishing character of a kind or class, or the kind or class itself.

 

 

Types of today

 

Today of some interest are:

 

Personality types:

see bibliographies:

Neuere Persönlichkeitstypologien und Tests dazu

Persönlichkeitspsychologie - Science of character, typology

Menschenkenntnis, Typologie - Good judge of character, physiognomy

some examples in:

Werbe-Morpho-Logisches, Teil 2: Typologien, Polaritäten

Menschentypen

 

Types in biology:

„the taxonomic group whose characteristics are used to define the next higher taxon“

Specialty Definition: Blood type

(Webster’s Online Dictionary)

Oxford English Dictionary has for „type“ in biology (since 1840):

A certain general plan of structure characterizing a group of animals, plants, etc.; hence transf. a group or division of animals, etc., having a common form or structure.

A species or genus which most perfectly exhibits the essential characters of its family or group, and from which the family or group is (usually) named; an individual embodying all the distinctive characteristics of a species, etc., esp. the specimen on which the first published description of a species is based.

 

Types of societies:

e. g. segmentary society, communication society, industrial state, affluent society, democracy, etc.

 

Types of states:

see e. g.: Menschenbilder und entsprechende Staatstheorien

 

Economic types:

Types of economies, markets

 

Types of communication:

e. g. one-way, two-ways, subliminal, double bind.

 

Product types:

Many products as devices, apparatus, cars, etc. are denoted as „type“, i. e. „a subdivision of a particular kind of thing“.

A legend is the „Jaguar E Type“, produced from 1961 till 1975.

 

Theory of types in chemistry:

Already in 1828 the apothecary and chemist Jean Baptiste André Dumas spoke of „theory of types“.

 

Oxford English Dictionary has for „type“ in mathematics:

1891 Cent. Dict., Type 12. In math., a succession of symbols susceptible of + and - signs.

1911 WEBSTER, Type..6, the simplest of the forms equivalent with respect to a group.

 

Type theory in logic:

In 1903 the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell introduced the type theory in logic afterdetecting some problems in the set theory of Gottlob Frege. In 1940 the mathematician Alonzo Church presented „A Formulation of the Simple Theory of Types“.