Rieppel Olivier
Department of Geology, The Field Museum, 1400 S Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605-2496, USA.
Cladistics. 2006 Apr;22(2):186-197. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-0031.2006.00097.x.
The definition of taxon names as formalized by the PhyloCode is based on Kripke's thesis of "rigid designation" that applies to Millian proper names. Accepting the thesis of "rigid designation" into systematics in turn is based on the thesis that species, and taxa, are individuals. These largely semantic and metaphysical issues are here contrasted with an epistemological approach to taxonomy. It is shown that the thesis of "rigid designation" if deployed in taxonomy introduces a new essentialism into systematics, which is exactly what the PhyloCode was designed to avoid. Rigidly designating names are not supposed to change their meaning, but if the shifting constitution of a clade is thought to cause a shift of meaning of the taxon name, then the taxon name is not a "rigid designator". Phylogenetic nomenclature either fails to preserve the stability of meaning of taxon names that it propagates, or it is rendered inconsistent with its own philosophical background. The alternative explored here is to conceptualize taxa as natural kinds, and to replace the analytic definition of taxon names by their explanatory definition. Such conceptualization of taxa allows taxon names to better track the results of ongoing empirical research. The semantic as well as epistemic gain is that if taxon names are associated with natural kind terms instead of being proper names, the composition of the taxon will naturally determine the meaning of its name.
《系统发生分类法》所规范的分类单元名称的定义基于克里普克适用于密尔专有名称的“严格指示词”理论。而将“严格指示词”理论引入分类学，又是基于物种和分类单元是个体这一理论。本文将这些主要的语义学和形而上学问题与一种分类学的认识论方法进行了对比。研究表明，“严格指示词”理论若应用于分类学，会在系统分类学中引入一种新的本质主义，而这恰恰是《系统发生分类法》旨在避免的。严格指示词不应该改变其含义，但如果一个分支的构成变化被认为会导致分类单元名称含义的改变，那么这个分类单元名称就不是一个“严格指示词”。系统发生命名法要么无法保持它所宣扬的分类单元名称含义的稳定性，要么就与其自身的哲学背景不一致。本文探讨的另一种方法是将分类单元概念化为自然类，并将分类单元名称的分析性定义替换为解释性定义。这种对分类单元的概念化使得分类单元名称能够更好地追踪正在进行的实证研究结果。语义学和认识论上的收获在于，如果分类单元名称与自然类术语相关联而非专有名称，那么分类单元的构成将自然地决定其名称的含义。
