Taxonomy, Language and Reality
- 31 October 1950
- journal article
- research article
- Published by University of Chicago Press in The American Naturalist
- Vol. 84 (819) , 419-435
- https://doi.org/10.1086/281639
Abstract
For the analysis of scientific language, mathematical logic provides some simple technics whose application shows that statements characterizing taxonomic groups and categories by means of such expressions as "objective," "real," "exist," "natural," "arbitrary," "subjective," "abstract," and "artificial" are taxonomically relevant only if they are construed as tacit references to methodological rules governing the construction of adequate taxonomic systems, and not as ontological statements.This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- THE SPECIES CONCEPT: SEMANTICS VERSUS SEMANTICSEvolution, 1949
- THE SPECIES CONCEPT: A SEMANTIC REVIEWEvolution, 1949