Scientometrics has found many applications in describing, explaining and predicting the scientific status of researchers, educational and research groups, universities, organizations and countries in various national and international arenas. By studying the scientific products of different countries, their status in the production of science can be evaluated. Present study was conducted using a scientometrics approach and using co-word analysis and social network analysis (SNA) to investigate relationships in the field of know­ledge organization. In this regard, research indexed in (...) web of science on the topic of “know­ledge organization” has been analyzed using software including VOSviewer, Gephi, Publish or Perish. The findings of the study show that the most frequently used topics and words are know­ledge organization and classification. Also, the most valuable subject areas were identified based on the maps drawn using the closeness and centrality of indexes, taxonomy, ontology and know­ledge organization systems. Co-authorship analysis revealed that the co-authorship network is discrete and has low-density, with a total of 12,491 citations in all articles. Also, the most prolific author is Hjorland, followed by Smiraglia and Dahlberg. using the co-word map of know­ledge organization, policymakers can plan appropriately through the know­ledge of the research and thematic status of know­ledge organization. (shrink)

The scientific study of emotion has been characterized by classification schemes that propose to 'carve nature at the joints.' This article examines several of these classifications, drawn from both the categorical and dimensional perspectives. Each classification is given credit for what it contributes to our understanding, but the dream of a single, all purpose taxonomy of emotional phenomena is called into question. Such hopes are often associated with the carving at the joints metaphor, which is here argued to (...) be harmful to scientific realism, and better rejected in favor of a pragmatic approach. Questioning the mere discovery theory of scientific progress, I argue that psychologists discover facts about their domain of study, but have to decide how to classify them. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This paper uses two case studies to explore an interest-relative view of taxonomy and how it complements kind pluralism in biology. First, I consider the ABC island bear, which can be correctly classified into more than one species. I argue that this classificatory pluralism can be explained by reference to the range of alternative explanatory interests in biology. In the second half of the paper, I pursue an interest-relative view of classification more generally. I then apply the resultant view to (...) a second case study: whether whales are fish. I argue that this question is not one about scientific vs folk usage, as has been assumed. I also develop a new view: that Fish should be rejected as a category, both from the point of view of biological science, and from the point of view of folk taxonomy. Along the way, I use the interest-relative view to shed light on the circumstances under which higher taxa should be accepted as legitimate categories for biological science. (shrink)

Chronostratigraphy is the subfield of geology that studies the relative age of rock strata and that aims at producing a hierarchical classification of (global) divisions of the historical time-rock record. The ‘golden spike’ or ‘GSSP’ approach is the cornerstone of contemporary chronostratigraphic methodology. It is also perplexing. Chronostratigraphers define each global time-rock boundary extremely locally, often by driving a gold-colored pin into an exposed rock section at a particular level. Moreover, they usually avoid rock sections that show any meaningful sign (...) of paleontological disruption or geological discontinuity: the less obvious the boundary, the better. It has been argued that we can make sense of this practice of marking boundaries by comparing the status and function of golden spikes to that of other concrete, particular reference standards from other sciences: holotypes from biological taxonomy and measurement prototypes from the metrology of weight and measures. Alisa Bokulich (2020b) has argued that these ‘scientific types’ are in an important sense one of a kind: they have a common status and function. I will argue that this picture of high-level conceptual unity is mistaken and fails to consider the diversity of aims and purposes of standardization and classification across the sciences. I develop an alternative, disunified account of scientific types that shows how differences in ontological attitudes and epistemic aims inform scientists’ choices between different kinds of scientific types. This perspective on scientific types helps to make sense of an intriguing mid-twentieth-century debate among chronostratigraphers about the very nature of their enterprise. Should chronostratigraphers conventionally make boundaries by designating golden spikes, or should they attempt to mark pre-existing ‘natural’ boundaries with the help of a different kind of scientific type? (shrink)

This collection of essays examines the ways in which disputes and controversies about the application of scientific knowledge are resolved. Four concrete examples of public controversy are considered in detail: the efficacy of Laetrile, the classification of homosexuality as a disease, the setting of safety standards in the workplace, and the utility of nuclear energy as a source of power. The essays in this volume show that debates about these cases are not confined to matters of empirical fact. Rather, (...) as is seen with most scientific and technical controversies, they focus on and are structured by complex ethical, economic, and political interests. Drs. Engelhardt and Caplan have brought together a distinguished group of scholars from the sciences and humanities, who sketch a theory of scientific controversy and attempt to provide recommendations about the ways in which both scientists and the public ought to seek more informed resolutions of highly contentious issues in science and technology. Scientific Controversies is offered as a contribution to the better understanding of the roles of both science and nonscientific interests in disputes and controversies pertaining to science and technology. (shrink)

This paper examines the ways in which social scientific discourse and classification interact with the objects of social scientific investigation. I examine this interaction in the context of the traditional philosophical project of demarcating the social sciences from the natural sciences. I begin by reviewing Ian Hacking’s work on interactive classification and argue that there are additional forms of interaction that must be treated.

In our paper we investigate a difficulty arising when one tries to reconsiliateessentialis t’s thinking with classification practice in the biological sciences. The article outlinessome varieties of essentialism with particular attention to the version defended by Brian Ellis. Weunderline the basic difference: Ellis thinks that essentialism is not a viable position in biology dueto its incompatibility with biological typology and other essentialists think that these two elementscan be reconciled. However, both parties have in common metaphysical starting point and theylack explicit (...) track of methodological procedures. Methodological inquiry involves less demandingassumptions than metaphysical, and therefore it is justified to analyse abovementioned discrepancy between Ellis and other essentialist in this context. We do it by bottom-up investigation whichfocuses on the practice of taxonomists in the particular field of biology. A case study helps us todiscover four characteristics of biological typology practice: impossibility of algorithmization,relativity, subjectivity and conventionality. These features prove non-realistic and therefore anti-essentialistic character of biological classification. We conclude by saying that any essentialismrelated to the notion of biological kind cannot be regarded as justified by scientific enterprise of creating typologies. (shrink)

We undeniably live in an information age—as, indeed, did those who lived before us. After all, as the cultural historian Robert Darnton pointed out: ‘every age was an age of information, each in its own way’ (Darnton 2000: 1). Darnton was referring to the news media, but his insight surely also applies to the sciences. The practices of acquiring, storing, labeling, organizing, retrieving, mobilizing, and integrating data about the natural world has always been an enabling aspect of scientific work. (...) Natural history and its descendant discipline of biological taxonomy are prime examples of sciences dedicated to creating and managing systems of ordering data. In some sense, the idea of biological taxonomy as an information science is commonplace. Perhaps it is because of its self-evidence that the information science perspective on taxonomy has not been a major theme in the history and philosophy of science. The botanist Vernon Heywood once pointed out that historians of biology, in their ‘preoccupation with the development of the sciences of botany and zoology… [have] diverted attention from the role of taxonomy as an information science’ (Heywood 1985: 11). More specifically, he argued that historians had failed to appreciate how principles and practices that can be traced to Linnaeus constituted ‘a change in the nature of taxonomy from a local or limited folk communication system and later a codified folk taxonomy to a formal system of information science [that] marked a watershed in the history of biology’ (ibid.). A similar observation could be made about twentieth-century philosophy of biology, which mostly skipped over practical and epistemic questions about information management in taxonomy. The taxonomic themes that featured in the emerging philosophy of biology literature in the second half of the twentieth century were predominantly metaphysical in orientation. This is illustrated by what has become known as the ‘essentialism story’: an account about the essentialist nature of pre- Darwinian taxonomy that used to be accepted by many historians and philosophers, and which stimulated efforts to document and interpret shifts in the metaphysical understanding of species and (natural) classification (Richards 2010; Winsor 2003; Wilkins 2009). Although contemporary debates in the philosophy of taxonomy have moved on, much discussion continues to focus on conceptual and metaphysical issues surrounding the nature of species and the principles of classification. Discussions centring on whether species are individuals, classes, or kinds have sprung up as predictably as perennials. Raucous debates have arisen even with the aim of accommodating the diversity of views: is monism, pluralism, or eliminativism about the species category the best position to take? In addition to these, our disciplines continue to interrogate what is the nature of these different approaches to classification: are they representational or inferential roles of different approaches to classification (evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics, phylogenetic systematics)? While there is still much to learn from these discussions—in which we both actively participate—our aim with this topical collection has been to seek different entrypoints and address underexposed themes in the history and philosophy of taxonomy. We believe that approaching taxonomy as an information science prompts new questions and can open up new philosophical vistas worth exploring. A twenty-first century information science turn in the history and philosophy of taxonomy is already underway. In scientific practice and in daily life it is hard to escape the imaginaries of Big Data and the constant threats of being ‘flooded with data’. In the life sciences, these developments are often associated with the socalled bioinformatics crisis that can hopefully be contained by a new, interdisciplinary breed of bioinformaticians. These new concepts, narratives, and developments surrounding the centrality of data and information systems in the biological and biomedical sciences have raised important philosophical questions about their challenges and implications. But historical perspectives are just as necessary to judge what makes our information age different from those that preceded us. Indeed, as the British zoologist Charles Godfray has often pointed out, the piles of data that are being generated in contemporary systematic biology have led to a second bioinformatics crisis, the first being the one that confronted Linnaeus in the mid-18th century (Godfray 2007). Although our aim is to clear a path for new discussions of taxonomy from an information science-informed point of view, we continue where others in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science have already trod. We believe that an appreciation of biological taxonomy as an information science raises many questions about the philosophical, theoretical, material, and practical aspects of the use and revision of biological nomenclatures in different local and global communities of scientists and citizen scientists. In particular, conceiving of taxonomy as an information science directs attention to the temporalities of managing an accumulating data about classified entities that are themselves subject to revision, to the means by which revision is accomplished, and to the semantic, material, and collaborative contexts that mediate the execution of revisions. (shrink)

The scientific investigation of mental disorders is an invigorating area of inquiry for philosophers of mind and science who are interested in exploring the nature of typical and atypical cognition as well as the overarching scientific project of ‘carving nature at its joints’. It is also important for philosophers of medicine and bioethicists who are concerned with concepts of disease and with the development of effective and ethical treatments of mental disorders and the just distribution of mental health (...) services. Philosophical worries surrounding mental health and its care have recently extended beyond the bounds of academia, becoming a vigorous topic of debate in a variety of public domains in the wake of the publication of the most recent revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition , the psychiatric classification system used by mental health professionals in the USA, and increasingly, by those around the world.The DSM-5 lists mental disorders according to the observable symptoms presented by patients. It is designed for pragmatic use across a variety of settings to accomplish several tasks: to facilitate clinical treatment, to provide clear criteria of eligibility for various administrative and policy related purposes ), and primarily, to further scientific research into mental disorder aetiology. Although designed to meet the needs and interests of various stakeholders , the recently revised manual has not fully satisfied any of them. This failure challenges the assumption that a single manual …. (shrink)

Following the proposal of a new kind of selective structural realism that uses as a basis the distinction between framework and interaction theories, this work discusses relevant applications in fundamental physics. An ontology for the different entities and properties of well-known theories is thus consistently built. The case of classical field theories—including general relativity as a classical theory of gravitation—is examined in detail, as well as the implications of the classification scheme for issues of realism in quantum mechanics. These applications (...) also shed light on the different range of applicability of the ontic and epistemic versions of structural realism. (shrink)

Human interaction with the living world, in science and beyond, always involves classification. While it has been a long-standing scientific goal to produce a single all-purpose taxonomy of life to cater for this need, classificatory practice is often subject to confusion and disagreement, and many philosophers have advocated forms of classificatory pluralism. This entails that multiple classifications should be allowed to coexist, and that whichever classification is best, is context-dependent. In this paper, we discuss some practical consequences of (...) classificatory pluralism, in particular with regard to how one is supposed to find the best classification for a given context. We do so by means of a case study concerning oaks, in particular the pedunculate oak (_Quercus robur_ L.) and the sessile oak (_Quercus petraea_ (Matt.) Liebl.), two important putative species that present several classificatory challenges; and by applying one recent philosophical framework conceptualizing classification, the so-called Grounded Functionality Account (GFA) of (natural) kinds. We show how the GFA elucidates several issues related to oak classification and gives directions to optimize classificatory practices, and discuss some implications for scientific taxonomy. (shrink)

In 1972, R.C. Lewontin concluded that it follows from the fact that the large majority of human genetic variation (≈ 85%) is among individuals within local populations that racial taxonomy is unjustified. Three decades later, Edwards demonstrated that while the accuracy with which individuals may be assigned to groups is poor for a single locus, consideration of multi‐locus data allows for highly accurate assignments. Edwards concluded that Lewontin's dismissal of racial taxonomy was unwarranted. Edwards misidentified the aim of Lewontin's critique, (...) which was directed at the utility of racial classification and not at assigning individuals to groups using genetic data. Moreover, Edwards conflated distinct kinds of correlation when sketching out his argument. If we follow Edwards’ argument to its natural terminus, it becomes clear that it is consideration of all of the correlation structure among local groups in human genetic data that renders racial taxonomy scientifically useless. Lewontin considers the correlation structure relevant to his analysis of racial taxonomy and does not make his eponymous misstep. Rather, critics of Lewontin who use racial taxonomies in their work are the primary offenders when it comes to committing Lewontin's fallacy. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss the relation between indigenous and scientific kinds on the basis of contemporary ethnobiological research. I argue that ethnobiological accounts of taxonomic convergence-divergence patters challenge common philosophical models of the relation between folk concepts and natural kinds. Furthermore, I outline a positive model of taxonomic convergence-divergence patterns that is based on Slater's [2014] notion of “stable property clusters” and Franklin-Hall's [2014] discussion of natural kinds as “categorical bottlenecks.” Finally, I argue that this (...) model is not only helpful for understanding the relation between indigenous and scientific kinds but also makes substantial contributions to contemporary debates about natural kinds.to contemporary debates about natural kinds. (shrink)

Writing a book about ‘natural classification’ is not a natural thing to do these days. As the authors of The Nature of Classification point out, classification as a stand-alone topic—separated from discussions of hypothesis testing, experimentation and concept formation—was all the rage in mid-nineteenth century philosophy of science, but interest has steadily dwindled ever since. In most twentieth century philosophy of science, classification was treated either as a pre-scientific endeavor, or as a product of theory-driven science. The general attitude (...) is nicely captured in Carl Hempel’s remarks from his 1966 textbook Philosophy of Natural Science:[I]f a particular way of analyzing and classifying empirical findings is to lead to an explanation of the phenomena concerned, then it must be based on hypotheses about how those phenomena are connected; without such hypotheses, analysis and classification are blind .This was about all Hempel had to say about classifica .. (shrink)

This paper analyses the traditionally recognized dependence between observation statements and theories. The analysis proceeds by working out the interrelationship between classification systems and theoretical frameworks. Cuvier's and Darwin's theories are used as examples to illustrate this issue. The second part of the paper develops a model designed to give an account of the historical development of this interrelationship. It is argued that the interdependence is not circular and that it is an integral part of scientific research. It is (...) suggested that an interdependence of the type reflected in the model can be helpful in evaluating research programmes in the history of all the sciences. (shrink)

This edited volume of 13 new essays aims to turn past discussions of natural kinds on their head. Instead of presenting a metaphysical view of kinds based largely on an unempirical vantage point, it pursues questions of kindedness which take the use of kinds and activities of kinding in practice as significant in the articulation of them as kinds. The book brings philosophical study of current and historical episodes and case studies from various scientific disciplines to bear on natural (...) kinds as traditionally conceived of within metaphysics. Focusing on these practices reveals the different knowledge-producing activities of kinding and processes involved in natural kind use, generation, and discovery. -/- Specialists in their field, the esteemed group of contributors use diverse empirically responsive approaches to explore the nature of kindhood. This groundbreaking volume presents detailed case studies that exemplify kinding in use. Newly written for this volume, each chapter engages with the activities of kinding across a variety of disciplines. Chapter topics include the nature of kinds, kindhood, kinding, and kind-making in linguistics, chemical classification, neuroscience, gene and protein classification, colour theory in applied mathematics, homology in comparative biology, sex and gender identity theory, memory research, race, extended cognition, symbolic algebra, cartography, and geographic information science. -/- The volume seeks to open up an as-yet unexplored area within the emerging field of philosophy of science in practice, and constitutes a valuable addition to the disciplines of philosophy and history of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. -/- Contributions from a diverse group of established and junior scholars in the fields of Philosophy and History and Philosophy of Science including Hasok Chang, Jordi Cat, Sally Haslanger, Joyce C. Havstad, Catherine Kendig, Bernhard Nickel, Josipa Petrunic, Samuli Pöyhönen, Thomas A. C. Reydon, Quayshawn Spencer, Jackie Sullivan, Michael Wheeler, and Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther. (shrink)

By following the arguments between Coenraad J. Temminck and fellow ornithologists Louis J.-P. Vieillot and Nicholas Vigors, this paper sketches, to a degree, the state of zoological classification and nomenclature between 1825 and 1840 in Europe. The discussions revolved around the problems caused by an unstable nomenclature, the different definitions of genera and species and the best method to achieve a natural system of classification. As more and more naturalists concerned with classifying and arranging the groups of birds joined these (...) discussions, a broad platform for debate emerged around the 1840s that gave a major impulse to the disciplines of taxonomy and systematics. Natural history ceased to be dominated by a few influential scientific authorities and became the scientific field where debate preceded agreement and, with it, progress. With this ‘democratization’ of natural history, Temminck’s status significantly changed between 1815 and 1840. After that year, his own views on classification along with certain economical and political developments in The Netherlands led Temminck to abandon the arena of ornithology and therefore, to lose his scientific authority. (shrink)

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Scots Philosophical Association and the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] A. Richards offers a comprehensive introduction to biological classification: ‘the comparison and grouping of organisms, the naming of these groups, the theoretical basis for grouping, and the philosophical foundations for systems of grouping’. This book functions as an introduction to philosophy for biologists, an introduction to biology for philosophers and an (...) introduction to the history of both suitable for a more general audience.In the first chapter, he considers the results of folk and ethno-taxonomy, and related studies in cognitive psychology and developmental linguistics. The results suggest that all humans classify hierarchically, and that there is some agreement between folk and ethno-taxonomy and scientific taxonomy. But, even with this agreement, there is still disagreement about the ‘naturalness’... (shrink)

There is growing agreement among taxonomists that species are independently evolving lineages. The central notion of this conception, evolutionary independence, is commonly operationalized by taxonomists in multiple, diverging ways. This leads to a problem of operationalization-dependency in species classification, as species delimitation is not only dependent on the properties of the investigated groups, but also on how taxonomists choose to operationalize evolutionary independence. The question then is how the operationalization-dependency of species delimitation is compatible with its objectivity and reliability. In (...) response to this problem, various taxonomists have proposed to integrate multiple operationalizations of evolutionary independence for delimiting species. This paper first distinguishes between a standard and a sophisticated integrative approach to taxonomy, and argues that it is unclear how either of these can support the reliability and objectivity of species delimitation. It then draws a parallel between the measurement of physical quantities and species delimitation to argue that species delimitation can be considered objective and reliable if we understand the sophisticated integrative approach as assessing the coherence between the idealized models of multiple operationalizations of evolutionary independence. (shrink)

Italian mycologist Pier Andrea Saccardo is best remembered for his monumental Sylloge Fungorum, the first ‘modern’ effort to compile all identified fungi within a single classification scheme. The existing history of mycology is limited and has primarily focused on developments within England, but this article argues that Saccardo and his collaborators on the Sylloge supported a vital transnational expansion of mycological knowledge exchange and played a crucial role in stabilizing the tangled knot of local naming and identification among the world's (...) amateur and professional mycologists. Written in the ‘universal’ scientific language of Latin, the Sylloge served as an early database of fungal knowledge and symbolized a broader unification of mycological inquiry in a moment of expanded scientific correspondence. The article situates this proto-database in broader histories of big data in biology and shows how the Sylloge formed a globalizing foundation for the twentieth century's major collecting and taxonomic advances in mycology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Folk Taxonomies Versus Official TaxonomiesNick Haslam (bio)Keywordsclassification, DSM-IV, folk taxonomyFlanagan and Blashfield’s paper continues a highly original program of research on clinicians’ understandings of psychopathology. This work is unique in bringing concepts and methods from cognitive anthropology to bear on psychiatric classification. At first blush, it might seem questionable to treat clinicians’ beliefs about psychiatric disorders as folk taxonomies, no different in kind from classifications of (...) birds produced by members of a forest-dwelling tribe. Unlike birds and other natural objects of folk taxonomies, mental disorders are not concrete entities and they cannot be distinguished on perceptual grounds. Unlike tribespeople, clinicians are not simply “folk” whose naïve classifications can be compared with those of scientific authorities. They are, in fact, heavily exposed to the reigning official taxonomy during their professional training, and their thinking can hardly remain unaffected by it. It is a testament to Flanagan and Blashfield’s work that despite these apparent disanalogies, their folk-taxonomic approach manages to illuminate how clinicians carve up the psychiatric domain.This paper reports some careful, creative, and labor-intensive studies to make a few fundamental claims about how clinicians classify. First, the authors argue that clinicians hold simplified taxonomies compared with the official DSM-IV taxonomy: They encompass fewer disorders and classify them in a shallower hierarchy. Second, they claim that clinicians substantially agree in how they classify disorders, and that a consensus classification can therefore be extracted from their individual taxonomies. Third, they argue that clinicians’ taxonomies show only a modest consistency with DSM-IV, and that the discrepancies may be systematic and important. Notably, for example, clinicians did not preserve the fundamental divide between the DSM’s Axes I and II. My comments address the second and third claims.Is There a “Consensus” among the Clinicians?One of the main achievements of Flanagan and Blashfield’s paper is to develop a “consensual taxonomy,” which is laid out in their Table 2a. This taxonomy clearly distils how their clinicians tended to judge the relations among diagnoses. However, it is an exaggeration to present it as a consensus. If, by Romney, Weller, and Batchelder’s (1986) third criterion, “cultural consensus” requires that the primary factor in a principal components analysis accounts for “most” of the variance in clinicians’ judgments, then Flanagan and Blashfield’s analysis [End Page 281] fails to show consensus. Their first factor accounts for only twenty-five percent of the variance, well short of the required majority. This finding implies that there is three times as much inconsistency or variability among clinicians’ taxonomic judgments than there is consistency and commonality. The observed factor-analytic findings are compatible with the average correlation between pairs of clinicians being only about 0.2, a very weak level of agreement.This is not to say that there is no consistency among the clinicians, or that there is no value in summarizing that consistency, but it does indicate that there is a great deal of diversity as well. Clinicians’ folk taxonomies seem to be highly idiosyncratic, more a Babel of distinctive classifications than a chorus of agreement. It is therefore risky to draw strong generalizations about how clinicians classify, and to imply that there is a single consensual taxonomy.Several things are very interesting about this diversity of classifications. First, Flanagan and Blashfield show that it cannot be explained by the clinicians’ differing levels of experience or by the different methodologies used to elicit their taxonomies. The variability among clinicians must therefore have some other basis, which awaits further investigation. Second, the level of agreement (“consensus”) obtained here is significantly lower than what has been found in more orthodox studies of folk taxonomy. By implication, the classification of psychiatric disorders is a slipperier enterprise than the classification of animals and plants. People who have extensive professional experience and training in the field of psychopathology—vocational training that includes the standardizing forces of accrediting bodies and a dominant psychiatric nosology—nevertheless tend not to agree substantially about how to map that territory. One guess about why this might be is that clinicians’ folk taxonomies are not merely descriptive maps of the interrelations among diagnostic entities, but are... (shrink)

By following the arguments between Coenraad J. Temminck and fellow ornithologists Louis J.-P. Vieillot and Nicholas Vigors, this paper sketches, to a degree, the state of zoological classification and nomenclature between 1825 and 1840 in Europe. The discussions revolved around the problems caused by an unstable nomenclature, the different definitions of genera and species and the best method to achieve a natural system of classification. As more and more naturalists concerned with classifying and arranging the groups of birds joined these (...) discussions, a broad platform for debate emerged around the 1840s that gave a major impulse to the disciplines of taxonomy and systematics. Natural history ceased to be dominated by a few influential scientific authorities and became the scientific field where debate preceded agreement and, with it, progress. With this ‘democratization’ of natural history, Temminck's status significantly changed between 1815 and 1840. After that year, his own views on classification along with certain economical and political developments in The Netherlands led Temminck to abandon the arena of ornithology and therefore, to lose his scientific authority. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Plot Taxonomies and IntentionalityJon AdamsEver popular among the various topics occupying non-academic conversations about literature—such as the identity of the real author of the plays attributed to "Shakespeare"—is the notion that there exists only a finite number of storylines, and that all the stories we know are only ever complications or rehearsals of these few, elementary plots. What is the status of that claim? The issue gains a (...) renewed relevance in light of literary criticism's recent interest in the possibilities of employing evolutionary psychology as a means of naturalising literary study, but interest in plot taxonomies stretches a long way back. Why might we seek to categorise plots into a finite taxonomy? And what are the implications of the claim if true?Organising literature into any classificatory scheme is an attempt to achieve something like the coherence that the natural sciences have achieved—in chemistry and physics with the composition of the periodic table, and in biology with Linnaean classification. Much of science's epistemic prestige is rooted in the enormous success with which they have organised and categorised their subject of study. In searching for mechanism and pattern, the natural sciences proceed confidently from the belief that those mechanisms and patterns exist to be discovered, and that (relatively) simple rules underlie the manifest complexity of natural phenomena.Unfortunately, the study of literary fiction has no such security. There are two senses here in which we can talk of literature being patterned. At the micro-level, we have the question of whether individual works can be thought of as internally patterned. Usually, this type of patterning is easy enough to establish and recognise, and something the author is (or ought to be) in a good position to control. But, of course, internal [End Page 102] structures are not always conspicuous, and readers faced with an overtly complex text, like Pound's Cantos, or Finnegans Wake, have no guarantee that there is sense to be made of it. Surface complexity may shield a profound and subtle architecture, or the work may be as unstructured, fragmentary, and chaotic as it initially appears. A frustrated Wayne C. Booth draws attention to the problem: "One can't be sure that Finnegans Wake is not a great novel; perhaps someday readers will discover that the complex structure they now dream of and quarrel about is a realizable structure, an experienced structure. I doubt it, but it may happen. Until then, each new intricacy discovered... reveals precisely nothing more than that: a new intricacy."1 What's missing is a conceptual centre around which overall coherence might be achieved from what had seemed to be unconnected parts. Even so, if this sort of centre cannot be found in the individual work, it may yet obtain between works. In other words, The Cantos or Finnegans Wake may yet occupy nodal roles in a larger system, within which they acquire a previously unrecognized unity and order. This type of organization is something the individual author is obviously in a much less suitable position to control. Nonetheless, mapping out this larger, macro-level order is a task that literary criticism might want to take on. There is the example Borges uses of how Kafka's work retrospectively confers a familial similarity upon previously unconnected works. The quality of being "Kafkaesque" is the only thing common to the pieces, but was not apparent (or rather—the paradox that excites Borges—did not exist) prior to Kafka's writing.2 This is the second sense in which literature might be thought of as patterned; that is, not within works, but across them. On the larger scale, is it possible that literature as a whole could be understood as patterned?The notion that literature can be understood "as a whole," and its corollary, that a literature so understood would submit to taxonomical classification, is an enduring one. Anthropologists and art historians have long acknowledged that there appear to be recurring themes, motifs, and commonalities across world cultures, and consequently, commonalities among the narratives those cultures construct and consume. Cataloguing these similarities has produced a variety of classificatory systems.In the mid-nineteenth century, German scholar Adolf... (shrink)

Good chefs know the importance of maintaining sharp knives in the kitchen. What’s their secret? A well-worn Taoist allegory offers some advice. The king asks about his butcher’s impressive knifework. “Ordinary butchers,” he replied “hack their way through the animal. Thus their knife always needs sharpening. My father taught me the Taoist way. I merely lay the knife by the natural openings and let it find its own way through. Thus it never needs sharpening” (Kahn 1995, vii; see also Watson (...) 2003, 46). Plato famously employed this image as an analogy for the reality of his Forms (Phaedrus, 265e). Just like an animal, the world comes pre-divided for us. Ideally, our best theories will be those which “carve nature at its joints”. While Plato employed the “carving” metaphor to convey his views about the reality of his celebrated Forms, its most common contemporary use involves the success of science -- particularly, its success in identifying distinct kinds of things. Scientists often report discovering new kinds of things -- a new species of mammal or novel kind of fundamental particle, for example -- or uncovering more information about already familiar kinds. Moreover, we often notice considerable overlap in different approaches to classification. As Ernst Mayr put it: No naturalist would question the reality of the species he may find in his garden, whether it is a catbird, chickadee, robin, or starling. And the same is true for trees or flowering plants. Species at a given locality are almost invariably separated from each other by a distinct gap. Nothing convinced me so fully of the reality of species as the observation . . . that the Stone Age natives in the mountains of New Guinea recognize as species exactly the same entities of nature as a western scientist. (Mayr 1987, 146) Such agreement is certainly suggestive. It suggests that taxonomies are discoveries rather than mere inventions. Couple this with their utility in scientific inference and explanation and we have compelling reason for accepting the objective, independent reality of many different natural kinds of things.. (shrink)

Medical classification systems aim to provide a manageable taxonomy for sorting diagnoses into their proper classes. The question, this paper wants to critically examine, is how to correctly systematise diseases within classification systems that are applied in a variety of different settings. ICD and DSM , the two major classification systems in medicine and psychiatry, will be the main subjects of this paper; however, the arguments are not restricted to these classification systems but point out general methodological and epistemological challenges (...) of classifying diseases for differing purposes. Deciding what qualifies as a disease to be included into a classification system as well as choosing a specific validator for correctly systematising diseases is complicated because the broad applicability of medical classification systems simultaneously appears as aim and challenge. Drawing upon the case study of classifying Alzheimer’s disease, this paper will address three dilemmas in designing ‘good’ medical classification systems. They are due to general epistemological problems of medicine, such as the relationship between individual manifestations of diseases and the necessity of building groups in order to scientifically elucidate causes of diseases. Moreover, they involve pragmatic issues of designing usable classifications that allow for easily discriminating between classes of diseases, restricting, however, the completeness of disease representations. This paper wants to trace how the choice of certain validators is unavoidably value-laden and deeply intertwined with epistemological assumptions of how different uses relate to each other, resulting either in a prioritisation of (constrained) coherence or of (vague) pluralistic connectibility. (shrink)

The relation between conservation science and taxonomy is typically seen as a simple dependency of the former on the latter. This dependency is assumed to be strictly one-way to avoid normative concerns from conservation science inappropriately affecting the descriptive discipline of taxonomy. In this paper, I argue against this widely assumed standard view on the relation between these two disciplines by highlighting two important roles for conservation scientists in scientific decisions that are part of the internal stages of taxonomy. (...) I show that these roles imply that the two disciplines should be interdependent and that value-judgments should play a substantial role in both. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 47, Issue 3, pp 429 - 448 Taxonomy is our response to the proliferating variety of the natural world on the one hand, and the principle of unrelieved universality on the other. From Aristotle, through Porphyry to Linneaus, Kant and others, thinkers have struggled to develop taxonomies that could order what we know and also what we do not yet know, and this essay is a reflection on the existential desire that propels this effort. Porphyry’s tree (...) of logic is an exhaustive account of the things we can say about the sort of beings we are; Linneaus’s system of nature reaches completion in the classification of humans; Kant discovers a way to have natural and logical forms coincide in the thought of natural purpose and purposiveness. The stakes are high. When we order the world, we order ourselves: when we enter the taxonomy, it enters us and confronts us with our judgments of kind, race and kin. (shrink)

There seems to be an emerging consensus among many philosophers of science that non-epistemic values ought to play a role in the process of scientific reasoning itself. Recently, a number of philosophers have focused on the role of values in scientific classification or taxonomy. Their claim is that a choice of ontology or taxonomic scheme can only be made, or should only be made, by appealing to non-epistemic or social values. In this paper, I take on this “argument (...) from ontological choice,” claiming that it equivocates on the notion of choice. An ontological choice can be understood either in terms of determining which taxonomic scheme is valid, or in terms of deciding which taxonomic scheme to deploy in a given context. I try to show that while the latter can be determined in part by social values, the former ought not to be so determined. (shrink)

In this paper, recent publications in the field of psychiatric nosology, classification, and diagnosis are reviewed. An attempt is made to group such writings into three broad themes: "essentialist/realist," "anti-essentialist/pragmatic," and "eliminative." The conceptual nature of these groupings is explored, and similarities between some elements of biological psychiatry and phenomenological psychiatry are outlined. The paper attempts to undercut current ways of thinking about psychiatric disorders by drawing on John McDowell's criticism of the idea of a value-free objective standpoint, and further (...) relates our difficulties in thinking about mental disorders to McDowell's wider diagnosis of problems in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Although naming biological clades is a major activity in taxonomy, little attention has been paid to what these names actually refer to. In philosophy, definite descriptions have long been considered equivalent to the meaning of names and biological taxonomy is a scientific application of these ideas. One problem with definite descriptions as the meanings of names is that the name will refer to whatever fits the description rather than the intended individual (clade). Recent proposals for explicit phylogenetic definitions of (...) clade names suffer from similar problems and we argue that clade names cannot be defined since they lack intension. Furthermore we stress the importance of tree-thinking for phylogenetic reference to work properly. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“What Is Actually Being Measured?”: Causality and Underlying Scientific Thinking Process in the Assessment of DepressionGreta Kaluzeviciute-Moreton, PhD (bio)Depression is a complex mental health phenomenon due to its multifaceted nature. For one, depression is thought to have a significant genetic component, with studies suggesting that heritability is a significant factor in the development of the disorder (Sullivan, Neale, Kendler, 2000). In clinical psychology, environmental factors such as childhood (...) trauma, chronic stress, social isolation and negative life events (e.g., the loss of a loved one) have been documented as significant risk factors for the development of depression or as trigger events for depressive episodes (Fu & Parahoo, 2009; Kendler, Kuhn, & Prescott, 2004; Neitzke, 2016). Despite this, causal theories of mental health conditions are often tricky and/or scarcely reflected in both diagnostic and rating scales. For instance, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classifies mental health disorders primarily based on observable symptoms and behaviors, rather than on the underlying psychological and neurobiological processes that may contribute to these symptoms (Kendler, 2006).Similarly, rating scales for depression are typically designed to assess the severity of symptoms, rather than their underlying causes, that is, most rating scales are used as screening tools to identify individuals who may require further evaluation and treatment. Some rating scales may include items related to causal factors, such as the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) includes an item that asks about “loss of interest in sex,” which could be related to either biological or psychological factors. Several rating scales include items assessing risk factors for depression, such as family history of depression or personal history of trauma. This may be indicative of both genetic and environmental risk factors, such as the Patient Health [End Page 255] Questionnaire-9, includes an item that asks about family history of depression. However, while risk and causal factors are related, they are distinct in the assessment of depression. Risk factors refer to factors that increase the likelihood of developing depression, while causal factors refer to factors that directly contribute to the development of the condition. The presence of a risk factor does not necessarily mean that an individual will develop depression (Peterson & Seligman, 1984). However, the two are frequently blurred and equated in psychotherapy research (Westen & Bradley, 2005).As such, the historical issues of rating and diagnostic scales, aptly depicted by the Le Moigne (2023) as full of “composite, if not contradictory, heritage, weaving together the classificatory and discontinuous tradition of psychiatry, on the one hand, and the psychometric and continuous tradition of psychology, on the other” (p. XX ), suffer from an epistemological oversight when it comes to the assessment of causal factors in complex mental health conditions, such as depression. In turn, this contributes to a wider psychometric issue: what is actually being measured? Le Moigne’s detailed overview predominantly focuses on “superficial” symptomatology of depression (which contributed to two distinct forms of evaluation: hetero- and self-evaluation), and its subsequent impact on the classification and taxonomy of depression throughout history. However, the overarching conceptualization of depression (including a more detailed consideration of causal factors and their assessment) and the usefulness of rating scales in applied research (such as psychotherapy) remain in the background.The question of “what is actually being measured” is obviously not new in psychometrics. However, it is important to continuously revisit this issue, given that rating scales (such as the BDI) are considered to be universally applicable “evidence-based” tools (Rogers, Adler, Bungay, & Wilson, 2005) as well as a common and well-accepted form of scientific thinking in psychotherapy research (Kaluzeviciute & Willemsen, 2020). From an epistemological point of view, a scientific thinking style entails not only cognitive operations common to methodology, but also practices of generating, sharing, assimilating and transforming knowledge(Hacking, 2012).Therefore, it is important to acknowledge that any scientific tool, including rating scales, encompasses not just what but also how researchers find out about their studied phenomena (i.e., a scientific thinking style conveys a performative quality) (Kaluzeviciute & Willemsen, 2020). As identified by Le Moigne (2023), taxonomy leads toward a category-based logic in that it considers the examined phenomenon to be shared by only a... (shrink)

Nobody wants unnatural kinds. Just as we prefer all natural ingredients in our food, so also we prefer natural kinds in our ontology and epistemology. Philosophers contrast natural with merely “conventional” kinds, and scientists advocate for natural rather than artificial classification systems. A central plank of the desired naturalness is “mind independence”—the property of existing independent of human interests and desires. Natural kinds are discovered, not made. They reflect the structure of the world (“nature’s joints”) and for this reason justify (...) the practice of inductive inference. Conventional kinds, by contrast, are dependent on human classificatory activities. They are created with an end in view and therefore lack “a real existence in nature” (J. S. Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive [London: Longmans, 1843], 1:165). Since their existence is dependent on human activities, nominal kinds need not track nature’s joints. Because scientists are interested in groupings that really exist in nature—not those fabricated for human purposes—their classificatory practices aim to achieve natural-kind classifications. Achieving these classifications is crucial to the success of science. (shrink)

The history of science often has difficulty connecting with science at the lab-bench level, raising questions about the value of history of science for science. This essay offers a case study from taxonomy in which lessons learned about particular failings of numerical taxonomy in the second half of the twentieth century bear on the new movement toward DNA barcoding. In particular, it argues that an unwillingness to deal with messy theoretical questions in both cases leads to important problems in the (...) theory and practice of identifying taxa. This argument makes use of scientific and historical considerations in a way that the authors hope leads to convincing conclusions about the history of taxonomy as well as about its present practice. (shrink)

Natural kinds is a widely used and pivotal concept in philosophy – the idea being that the classifications and taxonomies employed by science correspond to the real kinds in nature. Natural kinds are often opposed to the idea of kinds in the human and social sciences, which are typically seen as social constructions, characterised by changing norms and resisting scientific reduction. Yet human beings are also a subject of scientific study.Does this mean humans fall into corresponding (...) kinds of their own? In The Epistemology and Morality of Human Kinds Marion Godman defends the idea of human kinds. She first examines the scientific use and nature of human kinds, considering the arguments of key philosophers whose work bears upon human kinds, such as Ian Hacking, John Searle, Richard Boyd and Ruth Millikan. Using the examples of gender, ethnic minorities and Buddhism she then argues that human kinds are a result of ongoing historical reproduction, chiefly due to pre-existing cultural models and social learning. Her novel argument shifts the focus away from the reductionism characteristic of research about human kinds. Instead, she argues that they are “multiply projectable” and deserving of scientific study not in spite of, but because of their role in explaining our identity, injustice and the emergence of group rights. (shrink)

This article explores the explanation of incommensurable theories as alternative conceptual schemes based on different categorical or taxonomic structures. The concept of incommensurability, which is a cornerstone of the late philosophy of Thomas Kuhn, is elucidated, reflecting his approach to avoid assessing the history of science in terms of the truth and falsity of scientific paradigms. It is shown how Kuhn has combined Frege – Russell’s descriptivist semantics and the causal theory of reference by Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke. (...) His version of semantics consists in redefinition of natural kinds in terms of neuropsychology, in substantiating mentalist and internalist perspective on language. Kuhn’s philosophical position is identified as post-Darwinian Kantianism. It is expressed not in a priori nature of knowledge, but in its determination by conceptual schemes and sociocultural relativity. Despite the fact that the incommensurable terms seem to occur in the history of knowledge, incommensurability remains not the clearest and most consistent way of thinking on the history of science. Kuhn repeatedly refined his views on incommensurability, ultimately aligning it more closely with alternative classifications of objects serving as a framework for subsequent theories. Natural kind concepts, like taxonomic units, distribute the perceived objects into hierarchies reflecting structures of external world. On the one hand, kinds differentiate objectively existing objects into groups. On the other hand, kind terms are both mental modules and cultural constructs that are used to organize the experience of language speakers, identify objects, and provide the basis for group beliefs. Kuhn posits that the development of scientific theories constitutes an evolution of conceptual schemes characterized by disparities and incommensurability. (shrink)

Understanding the biological basis of consciousness is one of the central challenges for modern science. Is a mature scientific explanation really possible, and if so, how should consciousness science be organized so as to achieve this? This thesis is a collection of four papers which approach these questions via an account of the natural categories or ‘kinds’, drawn from philosophy of science, to which paradigmatic mental phenomena like consciousness belong. The central claims defended in the thesis are twofold. Firstly, (...) that to facilitate a mature science of consciousness it is crucial to explicitly introduce a new organizing concept of consciousness modelled on the kinds of concepts which underpin previous successful explanations of other natural phenomena – that of a natural kind concept of consciousness. This draws on the general observation that some concepts are better suited to scientific theorizing about the world than others, and thus that progress in scientific and philosophical domains can be (and indeed, has often been) made by working to refine our existing conceptual schemes to reflect this. Secondly, that a mature science of consciousness will be one which recognizes the reality and explanatory importance of a particular category of mental phenomena called ‘global states of consciousness’ which includes dreaming and wakefulness. Examination of this latter claim leads to a third idea explored and motivated in the thesis which brings consciousness science into closer connection with psychiatry. This is the hypothesis that Major Depressive Disorder involves a change to a subject’s global state of consciousness, marking a change from a state of ordinary wakeful consciousness to an altered ‘depressive state’ of consciousness akin to a dream or psychedelic state. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Clinicians’ “Folk” Taxonomies and the DSM: Pick Your PoisonG. Scott Waterman (bio)Keywordsnosology, classification, diagnosis, psychopathologyWith attention turning to the process of formulating the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V; e.g., Kendler et al. 2008), the study by Flanagan and Blashfield (2007) of the similarities and differences between clinicians’ “folk” taxonomies and psychiatry’s official one is timely, and its lessons are in (...) need of analysis. In this commentary I first address questions raised by the existence of multiple de facto taxonomies, and by the characteristics of those taxonomies themselves, before focusing attention on the DSM diagnostic system and its attributes that make acceptance by its constituencies far less than complete. Although the aim of Flanagan’s and Blashfield’s study is explicitly descriptive rather than normative, it provides an important opportunity to examine the extent to which our taxonomies serve the purposes for which they were constructed—whether by experts or by clinicians.There are certainly reasons to expect significant deviations between clinicians’ everyday taxonomies and the official one. Perhaps the most glaring reason is the fact that—even if it were desirable—no one can be familiar with the enormous number of categories codified by the DSM. On the other hand, the remarkable hegemony of the DSM—in the education and training of physicians and clinical psychologists, in clinical communication, and in the ubiquitous administrative functions of billing and coding—makes such deviations at least somewhat surprising and in need of scrutiny and explanation. The first question, however, is whether one should be concerned by the existence (surprising or otherwise) of multiple taxonomies. Flanagan and Blashfield make the compelling case that, given the high rate at which Americans seek clinical attention for psychiatric problems, the stakes are commensurately high for our efforts at categorizing those problems in valid and useful ways. And the extent to which a gulf exists between the way psychiatry and clinical psychology are written about and taught on the one hand, and conceptualized and practiced by clinicians on the other, invites a multitude of problems—among which cynicism about our disciplines may be one of the most pernicious.At least as important as their finding of only moderate correlations between clinicians’ taxonomies [End Page 271] and that of the DSM are the characteristics of clinicians’ diagnostic systems themselves. One potentially major artifact of their methodology, however, must be borne in mind: the instruction to the clinicians in their study to “[p]ut together the diagnoses that have similar treatments…” (emphasis mine). Although they cite previous work (Flanagan and Blashfield 2006) in defense of the proposition that such instruction did not unduly influence their findings, it was certainly an avoidable potential problem, which itself likely reflects the history of our clinical disciplines in which the treatment cart frequently pulled the diagnosis horse. It is, therefore, not unlikely that clinicians’ taxonomies might emphasize treatment considerations even if they had not been directed to do so. The fallacious reasoning behind such intuitively appealing practice, however, must be exposed. The implicit assumption that treatment response is a proxy for other important characteristics of illnesses is predicated on the false proposition that our treatments exert their effects via similar mechanisms across the various indications for their uses, thus allowing us to infer from such responses that what was awry in the first place among the conditions for which a given treatment is effective must be closely related. Categorizing mania and trigeminal neuralgia together by virtue of their shared responses to anticonvulsant therapy, or considering autoimmune platelet deficiencies to be closely related to abdominal trauma due to the fact that each sometimes requires splenectomy, are examples of the potential results of acting on that false premise.Another parameter on which the clinicians in the current study based their nosologies—most explicitly by the “dimensional experts”—is the “environmental” versus “biological” one. Given that a coherent dichotomy would either distinguish environmental from genetic etiological factors, or would contrast psychological (i.e., subjective or first-person) from biological (i.e., objective or third-person) manifestations of illness, a taxonomy one of whose axes purports to represent an environmental/biological continuum cannot... (shrink)

Between 1937 and 1940 the Taxonomic Principles Committee of the newly-founded Association for the Study of Systematics in Relation to General Biology (later the Systematics Association) attempted to define the relationship between evolution and taxonomy. The people who took part in the discussion were W.T. Calman, C.R.P. Diver, J.S.L. Gilmour, J.S. Huxley, W.D. Lang, J.R. Norman, R. Melville, O.W. Richards, M.A. Smith, T.A. Sprague, H. Hamshaw Thomas, W.B. Turrill, B.P. Uvarov, A.F. Watkins, E.I. White, and A.J. Wilmott. Most of the (...) botanists asserted that taxonomy was a practical matter to be kept distinct from phylogenetic speculation, and most of the zoologists insisted that taxonomists must strive to represent evolution if they wished to be scientific. The disagreement seemed to be hardening rather than approaching compromise when World War Two stopped the committee's work. (shrink)

In this paper the relation between scientific problems and the constraints on their solutions is explored. First the historical constraints on the solution to the blackbody radiation problem are set out. The blackbody history is used as a guide in sketching a working taxonomy of constraints, which distinguishes various kinds of reductive and nonreductive constraints. Finally, this discussion is related to some work in erotetic logic. The hypothesis that scientific problems can be identified with structured sets of constraints (...) is interesting; however, a full defense of the identification thesis requires the resolution of some unsolved problems. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that the classification by the American Psychiatric Association in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of a distinct listing of disorders known as Culture-Bound Syndromes is misguided. I argue that the list of CBS comprises either genuine disorders that should be included within the main body of the DSM; or ersatz-disorders that serve a practical role for psychiatrists dealing with patients from certain cultures but will one day be eliminated or assimilated by bona (...) fide DSM classifications. In support of these views I draw on claims from two key themes in the philosophy of science: the claim that all folk explanations for phenomena are thoroughly theoretical and therefore fallible; and the occurrence of theoretical elimination in the history of science. I contend that any ersatz-disorders located in the DSM that are judged to be radically false do not differ in kind from eliminated theories in the history of pre-science. (shrink)

The reputations of scientists among their contemporaries depend not only on accomplishment, but also on interactions affected by influence and personality. The historical lore of most fields of scientific endeavor preserve these reputations, often through the identification of founders, innovators, and prolific workers whose contributions are considered fundamental to progress in the field. Historians frequently rely on the historical lore of scientists to guide their studies of the development of ideas, exhibiting justifiable caution in reassessing reputations in the light (...) of current knowledge. However, the transmission of historical lore can obscure the relative importance of accomplishment, influence and personality in shaping contemporary reputations, leaving the historian to either accept reputations at face value or attempt to reconstruct the context in which they were created. The science of taxonomy, because of its rules of priority, leaves a relatively accurate record of historical accomplishment through the persistence of taxa in catalogues and faunal guides. These records allow the modern historian an unbiased means to assess the relative accomplishments of historical figures and therefore a means to critically reassess reputations independent of personality and influence. In the historical lore of North American ichthyology, Louis Agassiz at Harvard and Spencer Baird at the Smithsonian emerge as central figures in the early development of the field during the mid-1800s, contributing not only through the quality and quantity of their science, but also through their roles as institutional leaders and mentors to workers who followed. Charles Girard, originally a student of Agassiz's and later a coworker with Baird, receives little notice in the history of ichthyology, and his reputation is that of a minor player in the initial description of the North American fish fauna, and one whose work appears to have been flawed or even careless when compared to his contemporaries. However, a review of both contemporary and modern taxonomic works reveals that Girard's productivity far exceeded that of either Agassiz or Baird. Furthermore, an examination of the tendency of Girard and his contemporaries to introduce synonymous names into the literature, which might reflect careless or uncritical work, suggests that Girard was among the more accomplished workers of his era, including Agassiz and Baird. Girard's low ranking in the folklore of North American ichthyology, therefore, can not be attributed to discernible shortcomings in his scientific work, but rather to a public and private campaign of criticism waged by Agassiz after Girard's departure from Harvard. While Agassiz's dispute with Girard stemmed from their personal interactions, he expressed them as criticisms of Girard's work, and thus helped shape Girard's scientific reputation as it has been transmitted through the lore of ichthyology. This case study reveals how scientific reputation may not always rest on accomplishment, but can be influenced by personal interactions obscured by time but nonetheless important to history. (shrink)

What is it to be clear? And will that question have the same answer in science, poetry, and philosophy? This paper offers a taxonomy of clarity, before focusing on two notions that are pertinent to the notions of clarity in science, poetry, and, in particular, philosophy. It argues that “scientific clarity,” which is marked by its reliance on technical terms, is, though often appropriate, not the only way in which something can be clear. In particular, poetry entirely eschews technical (...) terms—but can nonetheless be crystal clear. Poetry achieves this clarity by sensitivity to the richness of language: rhythm, ambiguity, and so on. The paper argues that some philosophy uses language in this same way to achieve its philosophical ends. Accordingly, we should allow that this is a legitimate philosophical method and should not judge the clarity of such philosophy by the standards of scientific clarity. (shrink)

Within philosophy of science, debates about realism often turn on whether posited entities exist or whether scientific claims are true. Natural kinds tend to be investigated by philosophers of language or metaphysicians, for whom semantic or ontological considerations can overshadow scientific ones. Since science crucially involves dividing the world up into categories of things, however, issues concerning classification ought to be central for philosophy of science. Muhammad Ali Khalidi's book fills that gap, and I commend it to readers (...) with an interest in scientific taxonomy and natural kinds. He works through general issues to craft a useful philosophical conception and uses the account to think through a wide range of specific examples. Although there are differences in the details, that one-sentence summary of Khalidi's book could just as well describe my own recent monograph on natural kinds. (shrink)

There are many ways of construing the claim that some categories are more “natural" than others. One can ask whether a system of categories is innate or acquired by learning, whether it pertains to a natural phenomenon or to a social institution, whether it is lexicalized in natural language or requires a compound linguistic expression. This renders suspect any univocal answer to this question in any particular case. Yet another question one can ask, which some authors take to have a (...) bearing on the issue of the naturalness of categories, is whether a system of categories constitutes a unique way of organizing a particular set of entities or phenomena, or whether there are other legitimate classification schemes that can coexist with it. Another way of putting this is by asking whether systems of categories can cut across one another, and if so, under what circumstances. Some philosophers have claimed that crosscutting systems of categories cannot exist as genuine natural kinds. This paper examines that claim and puts forward some counterexamples, concluding that this notion of natural kind is not in tune with scientific classification and ought to be rejected in favor of an alternative. (shrink)