limiting case an individual or subclass of a given background class that is maximally remote from ‘typical’ or ‘paradigm’ members of the class with respect to some ordering that is not always explicitly mentioned. The number zero is a limiting case of cardinal number. A triangle is a limiting case of polygon. A square is a limiting case of rectangle when rectangles are ordered by the ratio of length to width. Certainty is a limiting case of belief when beliefs are ordered according to ‘strength of subjective conviction.’ Knowledge is a limiting case of belief when beliefs are ordered according ‘adequacy of objective grounds.’ A limiting case is necessarily a case (member) of the background class; in contrast a borderline case need not be a case and a degenerate case may clearly fail to be a case at all. See also BORDERLINE CASE, DEGENERATE CASE. J.Cor.