Abstract
Summary A famous debate between John Ray, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Augustus Quirinus Rivinus at the end of the seventeenth century has often been referred to as signalling the beginning of a rift between classificatory methods relying on logical division and classificatory methods relying on empirical grouping. Interestingly, a couple of decades later, Linnaeus showed very little excitement in reviewing this debate, and this although he was the first to introduce the terminological distinction of artificial vs. natural methods. In this paper, I will explain Linnaeus's indifference by the fact that earlier debates were revolving around problems of plant diagnosis rather than classification. From Linnaeus's perspective, they were therefore concerned with what he called artificial methods alone – diagnostic tools, that is, which were artificial no matter which characters were taken into account. The natural method Linnaeus proposed, on the other hand, was not about diagnosis, but about relations of equivalence which played a vital, although largely implicit role in the practices of specimen exchange on which naturalists relied to acquire knowledge of the natural world.
Highlights
Summary A famous debate between John Ray, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Augustus Quirinus Rivinus at the end of the seventeenth century has often been referred to as signalling the beginning of a rift between classificatory methods relying on logical division and classificatory methods relying on empirical grouping
In this article, I have been largely looking through the eyes of one historical figure on taxonomic methods in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
Linnaeus’s claim that he was the first to see the artificiality of previous systems generated through logical division, and that he was the first to propose a ‘natural’ method needs to be taken with a grain of salt
Summary
S. Müller-Wille knowledge of the essence of things classified. Sloan supposes, mobilized this critique against his two ‘continental’ opponents. Rivinus and Tournefort stuck to a tradition going back to the Italian natural philosopher Andrea Caesalpino (1519–1603), who had demanded that botanical classifications should proceed by logical division paying heed to structural features of the flower and fruit only, that is, organ systems that served reproductive functions and constituted ‘essential parts’ of plants. In contrast, favoured a ‘multi-criterial classification’ that considered all sorts of characters, including natural habitats and medical virtues. Because knowledge of essences is not attainable, Ray argued according to Sloan’s interpretation, classification needs to proceed by ‘empirical collection of a large number of “accidents”, “secondary qualities”, or “simple ideas”’.1.
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