Axiomathes Where Science Meets Philosophy 22: 355-383. DOI 10.1007/s10516-012-9185-0 Hierarchical Structures Stanley N. Salthe Professor Emeritus, Biology, City University of New York Visiting Scientist in Biological Sciences, Binghamton University 42 Laurel Bank Avenue, Deposit, New York 13754, USA
[email protected] 607-467-2623 Abstract This paper compares the two known logical forms of hierarchy, both of which have been used in models of natural phenomena, including the biological. I contrast their general properties, internal formal relations, modes of growth (emergence) in applications to the natural world, criteria for applying them, the complexities that they embody, their dynamical relations in applied models, and their informational relations and semiotic aspects. Keywords change; composition; development; emergence; heterarchy; levels; meronomy; process; semiosis; subsumption; taxonomy Introduction Hierarchical models have been appearing in increasing numbers in scientific papers in recent years (see the Further Readings below), but without any fully developed reference on these forms. In this paper I aim to remedy this lacuna. My focus is on biology, where both forms of hierarchy have been used, but I have included references from all fields where I have discovered attempts to use these forms. Simpson (1961) noted that particularly influential relationships among objects have been ‘association by similarity’ and ‘association by contiguity’. These conceptual modes have come to be utilized in biology as hierarchical forms in connection with, respectively, biological classification (Rieppel, 2010), and physiological - ecological structure (Salthe, 1985; Ahl and Allen, 1996). Stanley (1979) and Eldredge (1985) enlisted association by contiguity to enlarge the scope of biological evolution discourse beyond the population, and this form also contextualized the ‘levels of selection’ discourse (Price, 1970; Wilson and Dugatkin, 1997; Gould, 2002).