toward a perceptual model of folk biological classification¹

Abstract

The notion of taxonomic structure has played a central role in recent descriptions and analyses of folk systems of biological classification. The increasingly apparent inadequacies of that notion as a model of folk classification processes justify a fundamental theoretical reorientation. Reasonably interpretable and formally adequate definitions of inductive classification ( Postulate I ) and of dissimilarities in a classification space ( Postulate II) are more adequate than the taxonomic model for understanding patterns observed in folk biological classification systems. A non‐rigorous extension of this “perceptual model” deals with the key problem of taxonomic ranks .