Jorge Luis Borges cited the classification of animals from a fictional Chinese dictionary, and Foucault used that list to demonstrate the relativity of classification systems.

Augustine beat them both to it.  Faustus wants to distinguish neatly between sects and schisms, and concludes that there are only two sects, the Manichean and the children of darkness.  Manicheans do not, as catholics claim, resemble pagans in the least.  Catholics are the ones who resemble pagans.  Well, Augustine says, it all depends on how you group things together:

“things are often divided now in one way, now in another, in accord with many differences, so that what was in one group is found to be in another group in which it was not found before on the basis of other differences.  For example, if one divides all beings of flesh into what can and what cannot fly, quadrupeds are, on the basis of this difference, more like humans than birds because they are equally incapable of flying.  On the other hand, if someone divides them on the basis of another difference, by saying that some are rational and others are non-rational, the quadrupeds are now more like birds than humans.  For they are equally without reason.”  Religions can be classified in different ways too: “if someone divides them by saying that, of those who belong to a religion, some people want one God to be worshiped and others many gods, by this difference pagans are far removed from us, and Manicheans should be included with pagans, while we should be included with the Jews.”