In the received version of the development of science, natural kinds are established in the preliminary stages and made more precise by measurement. By examining the move from nineteenth- to twentieth-century biology, this paper unpacks the notion of species as ‘natural kinds’ and grounds for discourse, questioning received notions about both kinds and species. Life sciences in the nineteenth century established several ‘monster-barring’ techniques to block disputes about the precise definition of species. Counterintuitively, precision and definition brought dispute and disrupted (...) exchange. Thus, any attempt to add precision was doomed to failure. By intervening and measuring, the new experimental biology dislocated the established links between natural kinds and kinds of people and institutions. New kinds were built in new places. They were made to measure from the very start. This paper ends by claiming that there was no long-standing ‘species problem’ in the history of biology. That problem is a later construction of the ‘modern synthesis’, well after the disruption of ‘kinds’ and kinds of people. Only then would definitions and precision matter. A new, non-linguistic, take on the incommensurability thesis is hinted at. (shrink)

The development of paper-based information technologies in the early modern period is a field of enquiry that has lately benefited from extensive studies by intellectual historians and historians o...

‘Type’ in biology is a polysemous term. In a landmark article, Paul Farber (Journal of the History of Biology 9(1): 93–119, 1976) argued that this deceptively plain term had acquired three different meanings in early nineteenth century natural history alone. ‘Type’ was used in relation to three distinct type concepts, each of them associated with a different set of practices. Important as Farber’s analysis has been for the historiography of natural history, his account conceals an important dimension of early nineteenth (...) century ‘type talk.’ Farber’s taxonomy of type concepts passes over the fact that certain uses of ‘type’ began to take on a new meaning in this period. At the closing of the eighteenth century, terms like ‘type specimen,’ ‘type species,’ and ‘type genus’ were universally recognized as referring to typical, model members of their encompassing taxa. But in the course of the nineteenth century, the same terms were co-opted for a different purpose. As part of an effort to drive out nomenclatural synonymy – the confusing state of a taxon being known to different people by different names – these terms started to signify the fixed and potentially atypical name-bearing elements of taxa. A new type concept was born: the nomenclatural type. In this article, I retrace this perplexing nineteenth century shift in meaning of ‘type.’ I uncover the nomenclatural disorder that the new nomenclatural type concept dissolved, and expose the conceptual confusion it left in its tracks. What emerges is an account of how synonymy was suppressed through the coinage of a homonym. (shrink)

Biological taxonomists rely on the so-called ‘type method’ to regulate taxonomic nomenclature. For each newfound taxon, they lay down a ‘type specimen’ that carries with it the name of the taxon it belongs to. Even if a taxon’s circumscription is unknown and/or subject to change, it remains a necessary truth that the taxon’s type specimen falls within its boundaries. Philosophers have noted some time ago that this naming practice is in line with the causal theory of reference and its central (...) notion of rigid designation: a type specimen fixes the reference of a taxon name without defining it. Recently, however, this consensus has come under pressure in the pages of this journal. In a series of articles by Alex Levine, Joseph LaPorte, and Matthew Haber, it has been argued that type specimens belong only contingently to their species, and that this may bode problems for the relation between type method and causal theory. I will argue that this ‘contingency debate’ is a debate gone wrong, and that none of the arguments in defense of contingency withstand scrutiny. Taxonomic naming is not out of step with the causal theory, but conforms to it. However, I will also argue that this observation is itself in need of further explanation, since application of the type method in taxonomic practice is plagued by errors and ambiguities that threaten it with breaking down. Thus, the real question becomes why taxonomic naming conforms to the causal theory in the first place. I will show that the answer lies in the embedding of the type method into elaborate codes of nomenclature. (shrink)

Historians and philosophers of science have interpreted the taxonomic theory of Carl Linnaeus as an ‘essentialist’, ‘Aristotelian’, or even ‘scholastic’ one. This interpretation is flatly contradicted by what Linnaeus himself had to say about taxonomy in Systema naturae , Fundamenta botanica and Genera plantarum . This paper straightens out some of the more basic misinterpretations by showing that: Linnaeus’s species concept took account of reproductive relations among organisms and was therefore not metaphysical, but biological; Linnaeus did not favour classification by (...) logical division, but criticized it for necessarily failing to represent what he called ‘natural’ genera; Linnaeus’s definitions of ‘natural’ genera and species were not essentialist, but descriptive and polytypic; Linnaeus’s method in establishing ‘natural’ definitions was not deductive, but consisted in an inductive, bottom-up procedure of comparing concrete specimens. The conclusion will discuss the fragmentary and provisional nature of Linnaeus’s ‘natural method’. I will argue in particular that Linnaeus opted for inductive strategies not on abstract epistemological grounds, but in order to confer stability and continuity to the explorative practices of contemporary natural history. (shrink)

The Development of Modern Taxonomy Taxonomy has a long history, going back to the ancient Greeks and to forerunners even less sophisticated in systematics. Our interest here is centered on modern taxonomy itself, and we shall largely ...

This paper addresses early modern botanical nomenclature, the practices of identifying and publishing synonyms in particular, as a collaborative “information science”. Before Linnaean nomenclature became the lingua franca of botany, it was inevitable that, over time, the same plant was given several names by different people, which created confusion and made communication among botanists increasingly difficult. What names counted as synonyms and actually referred to the same plant had to be identified by meticulously comparing living and dried specimens of this (...) and similar plants as well as relevant illustrations und descriptions in the botanical literature. Identifying synonyms required and generated an ever-expanding mass of data, which was used continuously to adjust and rearrange plant names. Despite the greatest care, judgements on synonyms were not definitive, which meant that published lists of synonyms for individual species of plants were in a state of flux and had to be constantly updated, corrected, and rewritten. This required long-term international collaborations, the accumulated results of which were not published once but consecutively, in augmented and corrected editions of a book. As a result of this networked approach, synonyms are networked names that reflect the epistemic interconnectedness of the botanical community. These questions will be discussed with a focus on the Dutch botanist Johannes Burman, who placed synonyms at the centre of his work as posthumous editor—and co-author—of the botanical manuscripts that were left behind by other botanists. (shrink)

Summary This essay aims to elucidate the collaborative dimension of the knowledge-making process in eighteenth-century Linnaean botany. Due to its ever increasing and potentially infinite need for information, Linnaean botany had to rely more and more heavily on the accumulation and aggregation of contributions by many people. This, in turn, had a crucial impact on the genesis and form of botanical publications: the more comprehensive the project, the larger the effect. It was the botanist Carl Linnaeus who managed to establish (...) himself as the centre of this contributory knowledge-making process. Given the exponential growth in the number of known species and the resulting need for observation, this was the necessary condition which allowed him continuously to update and correct his systematic works, and allowed them to maintain their status as the central catalogues of a global botany for decades. (shrink)

This paper addresses early modern botanical nomenclature, the practices of identifying and publishing synonyms in particular, as a collaborative “information science”. Before Linnaean nomenclature became the lingua franca of botany, it was inevitable that, over time, the same plant was given several names by different people, which created confusion and made communication among botanists increasingly difficult. What names counted as synonyms and actually referred to the same plant had to be identified by meticulously comparing living and dried specimens of this (...) and similar plants as well as relevant illustrations und descriptions in the botanical literature. Identifying synonyms required and generated an ever-expanding mass of data, which was used continuously to adjust and rearrange plant names. Despite the greatest care, judgements on synonyms were not definitive, which meant that published lists of synonyms for individual species of plants were in a state of flux and had to be constantly updated, corrected, and rewritten. This required long-term international collaborations, the accumulated results of which were not published once but consecutively, in augmented and corrected editions of a book. As a result of this networked approach, synonyms are networked names that reflect the epistemic interconnectedness of the botanical community. These questions will be discussed with a focus on the Dutch botanist Johannes Burman, who placed synonyms at the centre of his work as posthumous editor—and co-author—of the botanical manuscripts that were left behind by other botanists. (shrink)

The current picture of the history of taxonomy incorporates A. J. Cain's claim that Linnaeus strove to apply the logical method of definition taught by medieval followers of Aristotle. Cain's argument does not stand up to critical examination. Contrary to some published statements, there is no evidence that Linnaeus ever studied logic. His use of the words “genus” and “species” ruined the meaning they had in logic, and “essential” meant to him merely “taxonomically useful.” The essentialism story, a narrative that (...) has most pre-Darwinian biologists steeped in the world view of Plato and Aristotle, is ill-founded and improbable. (shrink)