As the preceding discussions suggest, apologies can seem like confounding social exchanges. The considerable variability of apologies across time and cultures can further complicate matters. As I understand apologies, we can think of them as presenting a loose constellation of interrelated meanings. Having isolated and scrutinized the prominent stars in this constellation, we may find it useful to reconfigure them into a more intelligible horizon of meaning. I now suggest grouping a few different arrangements of apologetic meanings into more easily identifiable varieties. If I have been deconstructing the meanings of apologies, we might think of what follows as my attempt at a bit of reconstruction.

On my account, apologies present a potentially infinite variety of particular meanings. Classifying each variation would not be possible. Instead, I name a few of the more commonly occurring varieties in the hope of synthesizing some of the considerations previously discussed into a more manageable nomenclature. I hope that these terms will prove helpful and this convenience warrants the simplifications required.

The Categorical Apology

We can begin with the Categorical Apology, which I consider the most robust, painstaking, and formal of the varieties. We can understand a categorical apology as conveying certain kinds of prescriptively stipulated meanings.