Lists as Research Technologies

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Lists as Research TechnologiesBy Staffan Mü ller-Wille* and Isabelle Charmantier* ABSTRACTThe Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is famous for having turned botany into a systematic discipline, through his classification systems-most notably the sexual system-and his nomenclature. Throughout his life, Linnaeus experimented with various paper technologies designed to display information synoptically. The list took pride of place among these and is also the common element of more complex representations he produced, such as genera descriptions and his "natural system." Taking clues from the anthropology of writing, this essay seeks to demonstrate that lists can be considered as genuine research technologies. They possess a potential to generate research problems of their own but also pose limitations to inquiries that can be overcome only by the use of new media.A LIST OF STIMULANTS particular to each continent (tea to Asia, coffee to Africa, chocolate to America, and beer to Europe); a list enumerating "equivocal names for fishes [nomina piscium aequivoca]"-that is, names that designate other animals like birds or reptiles as well; and a list entitled "plants described in Linder's Art of Dyeing [örter i Linders färgakonst beskrifna]": these are just three of the many lists one can find in a notebook that belonged to the naturalist Carl Linnaeus. He began to compile such lists in 1727, when he took up his medical studies at the University of Lund in southern Sweden, and he continued this practice while pursuing his studies at the University of Uppsala. 1 Most of the information digested in these lists was culled from the libraries of professors Linnaeus lodged with-initially, as he later recalled, in secret and at night because he was afraid to ask for permission. 2 As other contributions in this Focus section show, the list was a handy means to present and preserve knowledge in a concise and structured yet

Specimens, slips and systems: Daniel Solander and the classification of nature at the world's first public museum, 1753–1768

“…These slips were designed in accordance to the description of a catalogue Solander proposed in his letter to the Trustees in 1763; each contains information on an individual species and has the genus name and page reference to Species Plantarum at the top, followed by notes on that species and a reference to the specific catalogue in the Museum collection. 115 Solander's ideas of what constituted a catalogue were very different from what the Trustees envisaged; they anticipated a smartly bound inventory of the collection as opposed to detailed systematically arranged descriptions on manuscript slips. 116 In order to satisfy the Trustees, Solander eventually gave Spöring the task of creating an inventory catalogue, of which only one volume survives, entitled 'Descriptions of plants from various parts of the world'.…”

Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect

“…42 The logic of the natural system, one could say, is not topical, but relational, and thus strikingly different from artificial systems. 43 That Linnaeus wanted to see 'natural definitions' restricted to the flower and fruit has a simple reason. For him, these were not parts of the plant, but rather the plant itself in its last, developmental stage -'in actu generationis' as Linnaeus put it in Classes plantarum.…”

“…The genus served as a kind of 'box' to absorb and process information on species. 46 The 'natural method' finally differs from artificial systems in a way that leads us to the heart of Linnean natural history. Grouping plants because they agree in their 'nature', rather than distinguishing them for diagnostic purposes, implies that the various members of one and the same natural genus or order can, in a sense, stand in for or replace each other.…”

O essencialismo na classificação de Lineu e a repercussão dessa controvérsia na Biologia

“…Que o conhecimento sobre o uso local de um determinado tipo de planta ou animal pode ser generalizado até mesmo para seus "parentes" mais próximos, seja em áreas próximas ou em países distantes, não é uma simples questão empírica. Trata-se de um pressuposto teórico em si mesmo, cujo significado específico everificação empírica dependem, além do mais, do que se entende por essa indescritível relação de "afinidade natural" 70.…”

“…"[...] Philosophia botanica era um compêndio que era um gênero em si mesmo. No entanto, quando seus capítulos foram extraídos e transformados em livros separados, estes se tornaram independentes, gêneros mais específicos, por conta própria"68 .Para Müller-Wille e Charmantier69 as ciências naturais eram vistas por Lineu, em decorrência da tradição, como uma tecnologia útil, por isso o vimos desenvolver processamentos e sistemas de organização das informações.…”