A Historical Development of Modern Classification Theory

Those who study classiication theory, whether it be in the form of statistical pattern recognition, syntactical pattern recognition, or neural approaches to classiication are aware of the recent achievements and advances of their elds. For example names such as Bayes, Fisher, Wald, Fu, and Rosenblatt are well known for their pioneering contributions to classiication theory. However, few are aware or even conjecture to the events which led to the development of a structured study of classiication. This paper examines the precursors which led to advent of modern classiication theory; philosophy and mathematics. While subjective in nature, this paper provides a historical development and examines the reenement of the human concepts of knowledge and intelligence which led to Sir Thomas Bayes' theorem. From this theorem, the \modern" era classiication theory is established.