Cladistics does not change the fact that classification is ultimately paradoxically contradictory
Classification is ultimately paradoxically contradictory. This fact can be understood by the simple fact that every class contains at least two classes, but was also demonstrated logically by Bertrand Russell in 1901 (ie, Russell’s paradox). It means that there simply isn’t any classification that is BOTH consistent AND unambiguous to be found, but that every possible classification instead is EITHER inconsistent (internally contradictory) OR ambiguous (externally).
This fact can we relate to in only one of two possible ways:
1. accept it and devise a system of classification that avoids the contradiction, like Linnean systematics and evolutionary taxonomy, or
2. deny it, like cladistics.
Denial of it is consistently performed by recognizing contradiction itself as a class, for example the class Willi Hennig called “monophyletic group” but today is called “clade”, which thus is consistently inconsistent (consistently internally contradictory), that is, paradoxically contradictory, per definition, just as the fact it denies means. The denial does thus actually compose support for the fact it denies by confirming it. It is actually proof for the fact it denies.
The fact that classification is ultimately paradoxically contradictory, like all other facts, can we thus not escape, but instead have to relate to. Cladistics does not change this fact, but actually composes support for it by being paradoxically contradictory. The problem with cladistics is that some people confuse its paradoxical contradiction with unambiguity, as if two wrongs can make one right.
Another contribution to understanding of conceptualization http://menvall.wordpress.com/
2013-01-08 03:03:17
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