The Philosophy of As If: A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind by Hans Vaihinger

Author:Hans Vaihinger [Vaihinger, Hans]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random Shack
Published: 2015-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

PART II

AMPLIFIED STUDY OF SPECIAL PROBLEMS

§1

Artificial Classification46

As a substitute for actual reality, in this case for a group of objects with a common constitutive complex of characters, we find one arbitrarily selected character. This selected character cannot, of course, be anything unreal. But it is not the true principle of classification. Thus, in place of the highly complicated reality, we obtain a simplification which is substituted for it. Phenomena in all their variety are then arranged according to this character as though it were the real and adequate principle.

The botanical system of Linnaeus is the most famous example of this method. He took as a basis of classification the number of stamens and pistils. Classes and orders were formed in accordance with these, but as a result, organisms were sometimes grouped together in one species which possessed only this character in common, and not all their essential and unalterable characters. Of course, where the type of plant organization was of such a nature that the constituent elements were modified according to their specific characters, related forms were properly grouped. But where this was not the case, heterogeneous plants (the oak and the violet) were brought together and forced into an uncomfortable proximity, whereas homogeneous plants were separated and placed at points far removed from one another in the system, merely because they differed in respect of some particular organ that had been used as the basis of classification. In these instances, the differentiae, which are the modifications of the selected principle of classification x, are not those which actually determine and form the species; so that, instead of collecting individuals similar in their totality, those are grouped together that share only a limited number of characters. In other words, the relationships of the species, as far as their position in the system is concerned, do not correspond to their actual relationships. Yet this system with its 24 classes and 117 orders is of great advantage, for plants can be easily identified by these readily recognizable characters which are not difficult to find.47

Classifications based on the color of the flowers, the serration of the leaves, etc., are just as artificial.

Those attempted by Jussieu and Tournefort are, in part, also based upon single organs (anthers, corona) instead of upon the organism as a whole. It was de Candolle, Endlicher and others who first used the internal anatomical structure, growth, etc., as the basis for a systematic classification.

The same holds for all other fields of natural science. The artificial systems of grouping found in mineralogy48 were formerly, and are still, based upon more or less arbitrary external characters. So long as there is no natural system based upon chemical constitution, etc., such an artificial system has considerable practical value. Aristotle’s classification of animals according to their toes and claws, or that of Linnaeus according to their teeth, are other examples.

In many fields we are thus forced to give up, either temporarily or finally, the hope of constructing a natural classification, and as Taine49

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