Disorder

Abstract

This paper begins with some brief intellectual autobiography, recalling my first engagement with philosophy of biology. The substantive part of the paper then focuses on the plurality of possible classifications central to the theses of scientific disunity and metaphysical disorder developed in my early career. After discussing this in terms of biological classification, and introducing the reasons for thinking of classifications as typically value-laden, I discuss two sets of human classifications bearing on normatively vital questions, those around sex and gender and those involved in the distinctions between human races.