"In truth, Linnaeus's genius consists not so much in the resoluteness with which he places man among the primates as in the irony with which he does not record---as he does with the other species---any specific identifying characteristic next to the generic name Homo, only the old philosophical adage: nosce te ipsum {know yourself}. Even in the tenth edition, when the complete denomination becomes Homo sapiens, all evidence suggests that the new epithet does not represent a description, but that it is only a simplification of that adage, which, moreover, maintains its position next to the term Homo. It is worth reflecting on this taxonomic anomaly, which assigns not a given, but rather an imperative as a specific difference."

-- Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal, p 25

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