Reforming Hierarchy

This point is critical, for one of the key strengths of the BCC is the various problems with hierarchy that it overcomes.

Most importantly, the BCC, by stressing the use of linked notation for complex subjects, simply does away with the need to place complex concepts within hierarchies. Most of the abuses of hierarchy in the literature -- such as treating packaging as a subclass of food, or treating recycling as a subclass of garbage -- result from attempts to fit complex concepts into a hierarchy when they are much better treated as combinations of basic concepts. And basic concepts, it turns out, are much easier to place in logical hierarchies.

A common critique of hierarchy is that there are multiple ways of subdividing classes. The choice made may privilege some groups and individuals over others. Here again the approach of the BCC is very useful. Here is a quote from "Classifying for Diversity":

"It has often been noted, for example, that pharmacologists might want to classify drugs in terms of physiological effect, while chemists will want to classify them by chemical composition. The former can easily be rendered as, say (drugs)(reduce)(blood pressure). The latter can only be captured through a ‘type of’ approach. In other words, the classification wished for by pharmacologists is a classification of relationships, whereas the classification sought by chemists is a classification of subsidiary types of real things."

Much if not all of the challenge of choosing how to subdivide a class disappears within the web-of-relations approach of the BCC.

Issues of hierarchy are addressed in many published works, but especially "Classifying for Diversity" and "A Pluralistic Approach to the Philosophy of Information Science." See Published Works that Support the BCC.