The Geometrization of Nature:The Plant Classification Ideas of Andrea Cesalpino
The Italian botanist Andrea Cesalpino is generally regarded as the founder of modern plant taxonomy and the"first true systematist"in the history of plant taxonomy.In constructing his system,he combined Aristotelian'a priori'principles with his practical experience in observing and dissecting plants,adopted the logical division method and took the morphology of the fruiting parts as the main basis for classification.Because of the division method,his system was often criticized by later scholars as"unnatural".Although in fact Cesalpino was aware of this,the limited number of plants known at the time left him with few options.His more important contribution to plant taxonomy was that he limited the classification criteria to geometric forms,excluding other attributes such as color,habitat,and use,which was closely related to the development of the concept of"form"by scholars at the time.Basing classification on form and describing form in mathematical language implied that the study of living or-ganisms in Europe in the 16 th and 17 th centuries was also under the influence of the trend of mathematization and geometrization of nature.
Andrea Cesalpinohistory of plant taxonomygeometrization of natureformessence
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