Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences
Doi
Abstract
Linnaeus was no philosopher, neither by profession, nor by inclination. He prided himself on writing simple prose, and disliked public disputes. His idiosyncratic natural philosophy built on baroque syncretism and rash theorizing by analogy, but always carried the mark of the naturalist and physician. As such, his work is exemplary of what Louis Althusser has called the “spontaneous philosophy” of scientists (Althusser 1990). This can explain why his impact on the history of philosophy was nonetheless profound. His self-styled “reform” of botanical and zoological taxonomy redefined the terms of philosophical debates about classification, and his concept of an “economy of nature” identified an entirely new level of phenomena at which life could be seen to operate on an evolutionary scale
