Individuals, Species and the Development of Mineralogy and Geology

Abstract

In recent years, philosophers and historians of science have belatedly begun to pay serious attention to taxonomy, largely as the result of work by David Hull and other philosophers of biology. Their interest has yet to spill over into inquiries into taxonomic practice in the other sciences. But since all sciences, even those with relatively sparse ontologies such as physics, must find some way of categorising the objects with which they deal, it seems reasonable to suppose that, just as our understanding of theories has been enriched by looking beyond physical theories, so too might our understanding of taxonomy be heightened by looking beyond biological systematics.