Logical Division

Logical division is a process which takes a class and creates a tree of classes from some subclasses of the class. The resulting tree of classes can be used for classification. The tree has a "root," a summtimgenus, which is the original class, and "leaves," infima species. The classification structure created by division has some admirable properties; any item to be classified has its own unique place in a leaf class and inherits attributes from the unique branch going from that leaf to the root. The structure embodies the maximum amount of general attribute information about the items being classified. Such classification structures have proved viable and useful both for classification of non-animate natural kinds and for classification of artificial kinds. Classification structures created by logical division seem unsuitable for living organisms. This is largely because classification of living organisms seems to require attention to ancestry and common ancestry and not just to shared characteristics. Logical division sheds no light on ancestry.