Müller-Wille Staffan
ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society, University of Exeter, Byrne House, Exeter, Devon, UK.
Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci. 2007 Sep;38(3):541-62. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2007.06.010. Epub 2007 Sep 7.
Historians and philosophers of science have interpreted the taxonomic theory of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) 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 (1735), Fundamenta botanica (1736) and Genera plantarum (1737). This paper straightens out some of the more basic misinterpretations by showing that: (1) Linnaeus's species concept took account of reproductive relations among organisms and was therefore not metaphysical, but biological; (2) Linnaeus did not favour classification by logical division, but criticized it for necessarily failing to represent what he called 'natural' genera; (3) Linnaeus's definitions of 'natural' genera and species were not essentialist, but descriptive and polytypic; (4) 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.
科学史学家和科学哲学家将卡尔·林奈（1707 - 1778）的分类理论解释为一种“本质主义”、“亚里士多德式”甚至“经院式”的理论。然而，林奈本人在《自然系统》（1735年）、《植物学基础》（1736年）和《植物属志》（1737年）中对分类学的阐述与这种解释完全相悖。本文通过阐明以下几点纠正了一些更基本的误解：（1）林奈的物种概念考虑了生物体之间的生殖关系，因此并非形而上学的，而是生物学的；（2）林奈并不赞成通过逻辑划分进行分类，而是批评这种方法必然无法呈现他所谓的“自然”属；（3）林奈对“自然”属和物种的定义并非本质主义的，而是描述性的和多模式的；（4）林奈建立“自然”定义的方法不是演绎的，而是由一个自下而上、对具体标本进行比较的归纳过程组成。结论部分将讨论林奈“自然方法”的碎片化和临时性本质。我将特别指出，林奈选择归纳策略并非基于抽象的认识论理由，而是为了赋予当代自然史探索实践以稳定性和连续性。
