(no subject)

[timelets]

The sharp-cut scientific classifications are essential for scientific method. But they are dangerous for philosophy. Such classification hides the truth that the different modes of natural existence shade off into each other.

There is the animal life with its central direction of a society of cells, there is the vegetable life with its organized republic of cells, there is the cell life with its organized republic of molecules, there is the large-scale inorganic society of molecules with its passive acceptance of necessities derived from spatial relations, there is the infra-molecular activity which has lost all trace of the passivity of inorganic nature on a larger scale.

Whitehead. Modes of Thought, Chapter 8, Nature Alive. 1938.
https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Whitehead/Whitehead_1938/1938_08.html

Comments

[ppk_ptichkin]

>The sharp-cut scientific classifications are essential for scientific method.
But are they?

[timelets]

Yes. Classification is typically the first step in figuring out a phenomena. Quantification usually follows.