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Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect

A famous debate between John Ray, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Augustus Quirinus Rivinus at the end of the seventeenth century has often been referred to as signalling the beginning of a rift between classificatory methods relying on logical division and classificatory methods relying on empirica...

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Autor principal: Müller-Wille, S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3783897/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2013.783109
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author Müller-Wille, S.
author_facet Müller-Wille, S.
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description A famous debate between John Ray, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Augustus Quirinus Rivinus at the end of the seventeenth century has often been referred to as signalling the beginning of a rift between classificatory methods relying on logical division and classificatory methods relying on empirical grouping. Interestingly, a couple of decades later, Linnaeus showed very little excitement in reviewing this debate, and this although he was the first to introduce the terminological distinction of artificial vs. natural methods. In this paper, I will explain Linnaeus's indifference by the fact that earlier debates were revolving around problems of plant diagnosis rather than classification. From Linnaeus's perspective, they were therefore concerned with what he called artificial methods alone – diagnostic tools, that is, which were artificial no matter which characters were taken into account. The natural method Linnaeus proposed, on the other hand, was not about diagnosis, but about relations of equivalence which played a vital, although largely implicit role in the practices of specimen exchange on which naturalists relied to acquire knowledge of the natural world.
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spelling pubmed-37838972013-09-26 Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect Müller-Wille, S. Ann Sci Research Article A famous debate between John Ray, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Augustus Quirinus Rivinus at the end of the seventeenth century has often been referred to as signalling the beginning of a rift between classificatory methods relying on logical division and classificatory methods relying on empirical grouping. Interestingly, a couple of decades later, Linnaeus showed very little excitement in reviewing this debate, and this although he was the first to introduce the terminological distinction of artificial vs. natural methods. In this paper, I will explain Linnaeus's indifference by the fact that earlier debates were revolving around problems of plant diagnosis rather than classification. From Linnaeus's perspective, they were therefore concerned with what he called artificial methods alone – diagnostic tools, that is, which were artificial no matter which characters were taken into account. The natural method Linnaeus proposed, on the other hand, was not about diagnosis, but about relations of equivalence which played a vital, although largely implicit role in the practices of specimen exchange on which naturalists relied to acquire knowledge of the natural world. Taylor & Francis 2013-06-08 2013-07 /pmc/articles/PMC3783897/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2013.783109 Text en © 2013 The Author. Published by Taylor & Francis http://www.informaworld.com/mpp/uploads/iopenaccess_tcs.pdf This is an open access article distributed under the Supplemental Terms and Conditions for iOpenAccess articles published in Taylor & Francis journals (http://www.informaworld.com/mpp/uploads/iopenaccess_tcs.pdf) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Müller-Wille, S.
Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect
title Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect
title_full Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect
title_fullStr Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect
title_full_unstemmed Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect
title_short Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect
title_sort systems and how linnaeus looked at them in retrospect
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3783897/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2013.783109
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