Principios de Taxonomia

52j 3 Is the Biological Species a Class or is it an Individual?
problems or contradictions. However, the class as a group in itself is a fictive object
that does not exist at a certain location or in a certain time. The class is a universal.
However, as an individual organism that is formed by common descent and by
gene flow cohesion, the Polar Bear exists in reality. The Polar Bear exists at a
certain location and in a certain time; it arose at a certain point in time, and it will
disappear at a certain location or at a certain time.
2) The individual consists of parts, the class of elements or instances: A class consists
of elements that have equivalent traits and are independent from each other.
These instances or elements of a class are neither cohesively connected to each
other, nor do they causally or ontologically depend on each other with regard to
their existence. If you remove one red ball from the class of red balls, the other
balls are not affected; beyond identity or similarities in traits, the red balls are
unrelated.
However, an individual as a whole consists of parts, not elements. In contrast
to the elements of a class, the parts of an individual are connected to each
other. These connections may be (1) cohesive bonds, (2) causal dependences or
(3) ontological cohesions. Cohesively connected signifies that one is physically
linked to the other. Causally connected signifies that one is the cause of the other.
Ontologically connected signifies that one would not exist or not make sense if
the other wasn t there.
(1) The Eiffel Tower is an individual (not a class of metal elements) because its
iron parts are physically connected to each other.
(2) Aparticular thunderclap is part of a particular, individual thunderstorm (and
not an element of a class of meteorological events) because thunder is the
causal consequence of the electrical discharges that occurs during a thunderstorm.
Lightning and thunder are mutually dependent.
(3) A football team is an individual (and not a class) and its players are the team s
parts because the goalkeeper cannot be a goalkeeper without the other players.
The goalkeeper would lose his meaning without the team. The removal of one
player affects the entire team. Even if the football team goes separate ways for a
time, the goalkeeper does not lose his existence as a part of the team as long as
there are the other players on the team and the team does not decide to
permanently end their cohesion. The existence of every part of an individual
depends on the existence of the other parts of the individual.
Let us apply this to the Polar Bear. If you remove one Polar Bear from the group
of Polar Bears, this does not have a large impact on the other Polar Bears. However,
in principle, it has an influence. The Polar Bear that is removed cannot reproduce
or further influence the other polar in any other way. In principle, all other Polar
Bears are affected, at least to a minor extent.
The two vertically arranged groups of boys (left) and girls (right) in Figure 2.5
are examples of a class formation. At all times, one can assign a group of children
to classes of girls or boys. The two horizontally arranged groups, however, are
individuals because the children mutually touching are cohesive groups and their
cohesion is a historically fleeting occurrence with a beginning and an end.
The difference between the parts of an individual and the elements of a class can