Classical and non-classical taxonomy: another view

A. P. Rasnitsyn

Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences
117868 Moscow, Russia
Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
e-mail: rasnaa@mail.ru

Biological taxonomy has never been a really classical science, if to consider the latter as seeking for universal laws and eternal truth (Pavlinov, 2006, and references therein). Biological taxonomy takes its origin from the folk one which is non-classical in that it is seeking for natural boundaries (hiati) within the observed biodiversity, rather than to impose ideal (universal and eternal) borderlines upon the biodiversity. Discussion between the classical and non-classical approaches started since Plato has explicated both the classical method of logic dichotomy and non-classical method of the folk taxonomy as a metaphor of cutting the nature at its joins. This discussion has been continuing till now, with the most classical approach being the cladistic one, and the least classical the phenetic one. The phyletic approach as defined by Ponomarenko & Rasnitsyn (1971; phylistic after Rasnitsyn, 1996) is also non-classical, although not as strict as the phenetic one.