[tcs-lc] Clarification
Richard Pyle
deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Wed Mar 2 22:10:01 PST 2005
I neeed to clarify something I said:
> The identifier knew what it meant in his/her own mind, but in many (most?)
> cases did not specifically map it to (or derive it from) a previous
> definition.
The meaning of that sentence would have been better communicated as:
"The identifier knew what it meant in his/her own mind, but in many (most?)
cases did not map it to (or derive it from) any *particular* previous
definition."
Obviously, the concept definition will have, in most cases, existed
previously in one form or another (although in cases of taxonomic experts
working on a huge monograph, the mental concept may preceed and published
version of it by years or even decades). My point was that when I (and I
think many taxonomists) apply a scientific name to a specimen via an
identification event using a mental construct of a concept, that concept may
or may not happen to be congruent with one or more particular publsished and
well-defined concepts, but was not directly connected to the identification
event. It's a sublte but important difference.
Sorry for using even more bandwidth...
Aloha,
Rich
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