Making claims on nature

Abstract

Federico Cesi was a pioneer in his concern to bring scientific order to the diversity of the natural world, previously arranged in allegorical or symbolic frames or celebrated in cabinets of curiosity where natural objects jostled in wonder but without rank or relationship. In the development of the disciplines of taxonomy and nomenclature which followed, we see a continuing tension between the keen eye which the lincei cultivated and proprietorial claims upon nature, evident in acquisitive collecting, the personal and territorial jealousies of nomenclature and the copyrighting of genomes. Even before Cesi, thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas were well aware of the temptations of the concupiscent eye, a curiosity about the natural world which worked towards the vain accumulation of knowledge without deeper delight and moral concern. In their perspective, naming plants and animals does not make proprietorial claims nor commodify nature but can be seen as a performative utterance that celebrates intrinsic value. Recent sociological insights warn us against the hubristic quest of meta-taxonomies and global databases and the power of policy to enshrine taxonomies that are far removed from the keenness of observation which Cesi cherished.