The Classification of International Organizations, I

Pitman B. Potter

American Political Science Review, 1935, vol. 29, issue 2, 212-224

Abstract: Classification is regarded by some as a very elementary and a very barren scientific device or method. For those who attach most importance to applied science, and to the achievement of practical ends, classification seems a dry and futile procedure. For those likewise who insist upon the importance of moral standards and purposes, the brutally empirical inductive process of classification seems inhuman, possibly even anti-social.That classification is an elementary task of science, in the sense of occurring early in the whole scientific process, no one could deny, albeit only some one who has had immediate and serious experience in classification can appreciate the advanced problems, both of theory and of application, which can be encountered therein. From the point of view of human interest, something would depend upon what is being classified, whether pearls or potatoes, for example, although it would seem to be an implied tenet of pure science that no knowledge of the universe is without value and that we are not able to say beforehand how important a given piece of knowledge will turn out to be.

Date: 1935
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