Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

DICHOTOMY (Gr. bLya, apart, TEµvew, t...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 178 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

See also:

DICHOTOMY (Gr. bLya, apart, TEµvew, to cut)  , literally a cutting asunder, the technical See also:term for a See also:form of logical See also:division, consisting in the separation of a genus into two See also:species, one of which has and the other has not, a certain quality or attribute . Thus men may be thus divided into See also:white men, and men who are not white; each of these may be subdivided similarly . On the principle of See also:contradiction this division is both exhaustive and exclusive; there can be no overlapping, and no members of the See also:original genus or the See also:lower See also:groups are omitted . This method of See also:classification, though formally accurate, has slight value in the exact sciences, partly because at every step one of the two groups is merely negatively characterized and therefore incapable of real subdivision; it is 'useful, however, in setting forth clearly the See also:gradual descent from the most inclusive genus (summum genus) through species to the lowest class (infima species), which is divisible only into individual persons or things . (See further DIVISION.) In See also:astronomy the term is used for the aspect of the See also:moon or of a See also:planet when apparently See also:half illuminated, so that its disk has the form of a semicircle .

End of Article: DICHOTOMY (Gr. bLya, apart, TEµvew, to cut)
[back]
EDWARD DICEY (1832– )
[next]
ROBERT DICK

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click and select "copy." Paste it into a website, email, or other HTML document.