Relativism vs. universalism: a preliminary discussion

Many interesting attempts to retrace the cultural evolution of human thought about nature, and the consequent creation of taxonomic systems, have been carried out by scholars whose theoretical discussions start from the Aristotelian positions expressed in Partes Animalium and proceed to the so-called modern systematics of Carl von Linné. Many studies, focalising on perceiving, recognising and categorising the external world by human beings, have been carried out by scholars of different disciplines, and, within the terms of a multidisciplinary approach, involve scientists, anthropologists, (ethno-)linguists, etc. The first two aspects (perception, recognition) have become central in recent neurolinguistic research, the third (categorisation) in modern semantic and ethno-linguistic studies. Here we discuss some general topics such as the very nature of natural categories, generalisation in name creation processes and the existence of common trends in the bidirectional shift ‘generic’< > ‘intermediate’< > ‘life form’.