ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the general nature of classification. It emphasizes that identifying or constructing a classification is the first step in bridging the gap between the concrete particulars of ordinary experience and the abstractions of science. Classification is the first stage of scientific inquiry. A classification embodies the classes or kinds of particulars that constitute the subject matter of a science. A pristine science invents a new classification or, alternatively, adopts a preexisting classification. Events are concrete particulars that occupy time, and objects are concrete particulars that occupy time and space. Concrete particulars consist not only of the phenomena of daily life but also of phenomena available to human observers through special instruments of observation. Consensible knowledge goes beyond concrete particulars to the abstract inhabitants of natural domains. A species-individual structure is implicit in ordinary language in that the class names of ordinary language identify classes and particulars. In fact, a species-individual structure pervades the whole of consensible reality.
