Typology Reconfigured: From the Metaphysics of Essentialism to the Epistemology of Representation
Typology Reconfigured: From the Metaphysics of Essentialism to the Epistemology of Representation
复制标题
类型学的重新配置：从本质主义的形而上学到表象的认识论
作者：
A. Love
本文的目的是鼓励对生物学类型学的讨论进行重新配置，远离本质主义的形而上学，走向为实证调查的目的对自然现象进行分类的认识论。首先，我简要回顾了有关“类型学思维”、本质主义、物种和自然种类的争论，突出了它们占主导地位的形而上学性质。第二，我用科学的目的、战略和战术之间的区别来说明如何实现从形而上学到认识论的转变。类型思维可以被理解为一种科学策略，涉及使用理想化和近似来表示自然现象，从而通过抽象和概括来促进解释、调查和理论化。第三，介绍了来自生物学不同领域的各种类型学，以强调这种表征推理的多样性。一个特别的例子是用来检查如何可以有类型学和进化分析之间的认识论冲突。这表明，不同的类型思维策略的出现是由于不同学科的研究人员使用不同的方法论来解释不同的目标。最后，我从类型学的认识论重构中提出了几个研究问题。
The goal of this paper is to encourage a reconfiguration of the discussion about typology in biology away from the metaphysics of essentialism and toward the epistemology of classifying natural phenomena for the purposes of empirical inquiry. First, I briefly review arguments concerning ‘typological thinking’, essentialism, species, and natural kinds, highlighting their predominantly metaphysical nature. Second, I use a distinction between the aims, strategies, and tactics of science to suggest how a shift from metaphysics to epistemology might be accomplished. Typological thinking can be understood as a scientific tactic that involves representing natural phenomena using idealizations and approximations, which facilitates explanation, investigation, and theorizing via abstraction and generalization. Third, a variety of typologies from different areas of biology are introduced to emphasize the diversity of this representational reasoning. One particular example is used to examine how there can be epistemological conflict between typology and evolutionary analysis. This demonstrates that alternative strategies of typological thinking arise due to the divergent explanatory goals of researchers working in different disciplines with disparate methodologies. I conclude with several research questions that emerge from an epistemological reconfiguration of typology.