The essentialism story is a version of the history of biological classification that was fabricated between 1953 and 1968 by Ernst Mayr, who combined contributions from Arthur Cain and David Hull with his own grudge against Plato. It portrays pre-Darwinian taxonomists as caught in the grip of an ancient philosophy called essentialism, from which they were not released until Charles Darwin's 1859 Origin of Species. Mayr's motive was to promote the Modern Synthesis in opposition to the typology of idealist morphologists; (...) demonizing Plato served this end. Arthur Cain's picture of Linnaeus as a follower of 'Aristotelian' (scholastic) logic was woven into the story, along with David Hull's application of Karl Popper's term, 'essentialism', which Mayr accepted in 1968 as a synonym for what he had called 'typological thinking'. Although Mayr also pointed out the importance of empiricism in the history of taxonomy, the essentialism story still dominates the secondary literature. The history of the first telling of the essentialism story exposes its scant basis in fact. (shrink)

Whereas his contemporaries were explicitly aware that the limits of memory called for scrupulous arrangement of one?s papers, Boyle?s papers remained chaotic throughout his life, necessitating a habitual recourse to memory. This invites consideration of Boyle?s views on the use of memory and notes, taking account of the precepts and options of his day. Like many other early modern virtuosi, Boyle made copious notes comprising both textual extracts and empirical information, but he did not maintain large commonplace books of the (...) kind recommended by Renaissance humanists; nor did he publicize an account of his note?taking methods, as John Locke did. However, through his early contacts with Samuel Hartlib, Boyle was exposed to the ways in which diverse information could be noted, stored and used. Furthermore, his practice exemplified the well?known dual function of notes as both prompting memory and relieving it. Boyle did not pause to write a sustained essay on these issues; nevertheless, scattered throughout his prefaces, advertisements, works, notebooks and manuscripts there are significant comments on his practice of making what he called ?loose notes?. Boyle was aware of the kinds of notes he kept and his reliance on both memory and notes as prompts to reflection and thought. (shrink)

The concept of similarity plays a crucial role in biology, especially in natural history. Despite its apparent familiarity it has been subject again and again to reinterpretations — it may even be stated that the main streams of theoretical thinking in the life sciences are reflected and condensed in its ever changing meaning. The changing content of the concept is analyzed from Linnaean systematics through classical morphology and comparative anatomy to Darwinian evolutionary thinking. It appears that the meaning of similarity (...) is inseparable from the function of the concept in theory, viz. its operational determination. In addition a remarkable correspondence has to be recognized between the notion of similarity and the conceptualization of an organism as the basic unit of life. (shrink)

While much has been written on the cultural and intellectual antecedents that gave rise to Carolus Linnaeus?s herbarium and his Systema Naturae, the tools that he used to transform his raw observations into nomenclatural terms and categories have been neglected. Focusing on the Philosophia Botanica, the popular classification handbook that he published in 1751, it can be shown that Linnaeus cleverly ordered and reordered the work by employing commonplacing techniques that had been part of print culture since the Renaissance. Indeed, (...) the functional adaptability of commonplace heads allowed him to split and combine the book?s chapters and tables and played a notable conceptual role in the way in which he spatialized words and, to a certain extent, specimens. (shrink)

Early Renaissance naturalists worked to identify the plans described in ancient sources. But during the middle decades of the sixteenth century, naturalists instead began to describe and name plans unknown to the ancients. They also divided nature much more finely, distinguishing species that their predecessors had lumped together. As a result, they created an information overload. Dictionaries of synonyms and local flora were invented in the early seventeenth century as partial solutions to this problem of information overload.

This article surveys some of the ways in which early modern scholars responded to what they perceived as an overabundance of books. In addition to owning more books and applying selective judgment as well as renewed diligence to their reading and note-taking, scholars devised shortcuts, sometimes based on medieval antecedents. These shortcuts included the use of the alphabetical index, whether printed or handmade, to read a book in parts, and the use of reference books, amanuenses, abbreviations, or the cutting and (...) pasting from printed or manuscript sources to save time and effort in note-taking. (shrink)