Classification feels like discovery, but it is often decision. The medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides, working through Aristotelian logic in the Guide for the Perplexed, made a point that most working scientists miss: categories are not found in nature, they are imposed on it — and the imposing carries moral weight, because it determines what gets investigated and what gets ignored. A century later, the Franciscan logician William of Ockham pushed this further with his nominalism, arguing that universals — species, types, syndromes, taxa — are names we agree to use, not real joints in the world. The practical consequence: the boundaries you draw around your object of study are not neutral. They are bets. When a cardiologist defines 'heart failure' by ejection fraction, patients whose hearts fail differently fall outside the case definition and outside the research base. The category choice is the hypothesis, made before any data is collected.

In your current work, what phenomenon sits just outside the definition you're using — technically excluded, but probably relevant?

Drawing from Medieval Jewish Philosophy / Scholastic Nominalism — Maimonides (Guide for the Perplexed, c. 1190) in dialogue with William of Ockham (Summa Logicae, c. 1323)