Taxonomy, Language and Reality

Abstract

For the analysis of scientific language, mathematical logic provides some simple technics whose application shows that statements characterizing taxonomic groups and categories by means of such expressions as "objective," "real," "exist," "natural," "arbitrary," "subjective," "abstract," and "artificial" are taxonomically relevant only if they are construed as tacit references to methodological rules governing the construction of adequate taxonomic systems, and not as ontological statements.