The naming of things Much of philosophy is about how we divide
the world up - into things, ideas, species, breeds, genera - and
the people at the coal-face of this work are the naturalists.
This week, we learn about the great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus,
who invented the the modern system of plant classification and,
in doing so, changed the world. Alan Saunders: Hello and welcome
to The Philosopher's Zone. I'm Alan Saunders. The subject of
this show is the great Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné, better
known now by his Latin name Linnaeus. And what has a naturalist
got to do with philosophy? Well, we're talking about taxonomy
here. In other words, we're talking about looking at the great
booming buzzing confusion that is the world we live in, dividing
it up and giving names to the bits. Whoever does it, that is a
philosophical activity, and in the case of Linnaeus we're
talking about somebody who lived in that great time of
philosophical activity that we call the Enlightenment. So to
talk about Linnaeus, I