Classify and measure: on the use of scientific classifiers

This article examines the role of scientific classifiers in structuring scientific knowledge and shaping the disciplinary organization of science. The author analyzes the epistemological foundations of classification systems, arguing that their significance lies not in whether they reflect a structure of natural kinds or the communicative architecture of scientific knowledge. Instead, the analysis emphasizes that classifiers do not merely reflect reality but actively construct the system of science by establishing the frameworks for scientific communication. Particular attention is paid to the problem of disciplinary uncertainty in frontier research. Using the example of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, the article demonstrates how discoveries originating within one discipline can be initially linked to ideas and problems from another, illustrating the migration of problems and results across disciplinary boundaries. In this context, the classifier functions as a mechanism for the initial assignment of a result to a specific discipline. This process is illustrated by the metaphor of the “collapse of the wave function”. A scientific result produced in a frontier area possesses potential affiliations with multiple disciplines, yet for its formal recognition and communication, it must be correlated with a single one. This choice is made by the scientist or research group, with the classifier acting as a “measurement device” that fixes the result within a specific disciplinary cell, thereby “collapsing” the spectrum of possible disciplinary affiliations into one definitive assignment. The author ultimately reveals the dual function of scientific classifiers. They can be viewed as a map on which society and the scientific community navigate, with scientific fields and disciplines charted upon it. Simultaneously, the classifier acts as the tool used to plot these very achievements onto the map of science. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

Keywords

Authors

References