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    Classification of ecological phenomena is not theoretical... — Carmelics
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    Classification of ecological phenomena is not theoretically innocent — the structure of phenomena is partly determined by the models used to represent them.

    Philosophy of LanguageTruth & Knowledge
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Whether a given event (e.g., a flood preventing a reptile from breeding) counts as environmental or demographic stochasticity depends on how it is modeled, not solely on intrinsic features of the event.
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    • 2.When a new discipline is being formed, the models chosen to represent phenomena partly determine how those phenomena are distinguished and classified.
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    • 3.If models determine classification, then classification is not a neutral, theory-free activity.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Natural kinds in ecology (predation, competition, succession) exhibit mind-independent causal structures that constrain which classifications are empirically tractable.
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    • 2.The fact that models influence how phenomena are *distinguished* does not entail that models *constitute* the phenomena distinguished — a conflation of epistemic access with ontological structure.
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    • 3.Philosophers like Ian Hacking distinguish 'interactive' from 'indifferent' kinds: ecological entities like organisms are largely indifferent kinds, unresponsive to how we classify them, preserving realist classification.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.The argument from stochasticity conflates classificatory underdetermination with theoretical constitution: multiple models can track the same real phenomenon without that phenomenon being model-dependent.
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    • 2.Willard Quine's thesis of ontological relativity implies scheme-dependence of reference, yet even Quine maintained that empirical constraints from the world prune admissible theoretical schemes, preserving a substantive role for mind-independent reality in classification.
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    Related

    If models determine classification, then classification is not a neutral, theory...Natural kinds in ecology (predation, competition, succession) exhibit mind-indep...Philosophers like Ian Hacking distinguish 'interactive' from 'indifferent' kinds...The argument from stochasticity conflates classificatory underdetermination with...
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    The fact that models influence how phenomena are *distinguished* does not entail...When a new discipline is being formed, the models chosen to represent phenomena ...Whether a given event (e.g., a flood preventing a reptile from breeding) counts ...Willard Quine's thesis of ontological relativity implies scheme-dependence of re...

    Similar

    A concept can have a naturalist structure regardless of whether anythi...75%Whether detection of environmental features must involve representatio...75%Explaining a phenomenon consists in constructing a model that fits the...73%The quasi-causal model of metaphysical explanation is not the only ava...72%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: ecology
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    It is the third criterion that is often called into question by Shaffer's classification of stochasticity primarily because of formalization indeterminacy. Consider some small reptile that fails to breed because a flood creates a barrier across its habitat that it cannot cross and there are no available mates on its side of the barrier. Is this environmental or demographic stochasticity? On the one hand, it is obviously environmental because floods are precisely the type of mechanism by which en
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    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit