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How to cure a cladist?
Many biological systematists that “do research on” evolutionary relations within the biological diversity spend a main part of their lives looking at line drawings that illustrate relations between a kind of kinds they call “species” (called “cladists”). Such cladists pose a major problem for the rest of biological systematists.
The problem is that cladists do not agree with this definition of themselves, but on the contrary claim that: “species” is not a kind of kinds; that they do not look at line drawings, but illustrate relationships between species; and that evolutionary relations are not within the biological diversity, but between species. They thus have an orthogonal comprehension of what they are to the rest of biological systematists, and at the basis of this difference resides the orthogonal disagreement about whether “species” is a kind of kinds (which the rest of us say) or not (which cladists say).
So, what do cladists say that “species” is? Well, they are split between many different ideas, but the most general appears to be “a kind defined by an apomorphy”. However, since this definition actually applies on single species, the fact that the term “species” itself denotes all species, ie, the kind “species”, means that also their definition actually reads “a kind of kinds”, although they claim it doesn’t. So, cladists actually acknowledge our definition of them although they deny it, ie, are hypocritical.
This hypocritical approach leads cladists into the notion that a thing that splits into two things forms a what they call “natural group” of three things, although the thing that splits actually forms the two things it splits into, a notion that forms a platform for their hypocritical approach. From this platform, they go on into “only acknowledging” such “natural groups”, actually meaning that they only acknowledge hypocrisy.
The problem with hypocrisy is that it promotes typological thinking (like race biology) and that its truth actually is a paradoxical contradiction. It means that the rest of us have many reasons to actively combat it. However, this we can only do by convincing cladists that they actually are hypocritical (not knowing whether it is conscious or unconscious), which is impossible if cladists refuse to be convinced.
The major problem with cladists for the rest of humanity is thus that it is impossible to get rid of them if they refuse to be getting rid of, although they are hypocritical. Hypocrisy is simply impossible to get rid of. It is like snot on the index finger. This problem did Amos Oz discuss in his book “How to cure a fanatic?”, but, unfortunately, neither he found a cure to this disease.
Another contribution to understanding of conceptualization http://menvall.wordpress.com/
Source: https://menvall.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/how-to-cure-a-cladist/
