%0 Book Section %T On the principles of fuzzy classification. publisher IEEE %D 1999 %U 0-7803-5211-4 %@ https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/60881 %X In this paper we analyze the concept of fuzzy partition, starting from the classical key definition given by E.H. Ruspini (1969). Our main claim is that such a definition is too restrictive, since it assumes a particular set of classes that in practice may be reached only after a long learning process. As a consequence, some principles to be taken into account in fuzzy classification methods are discussed %~