RE: SUO: RE: Re: Starter Ontology Version 2
Chris,
Those notes do indeed raise some very serious issues in logic,
ontology, and the use of language (both natural and artificial)
for expressing the logical and ontological distinctions.
>What I am not so sure about is whether it is useful to claim that
>necessarily corresponding to (referred to by) the two predicates (in the
>language) are two properties/universals (in the world).
This is an important philosophical issue, and your choice
of philosopher will make a major difference in your views of
ontology, language, and logic -- and the terminology you use
for discussing them.
>Your point about non-trivial equivalence of extension (in all possible
>worlds) as an indicator of different meanings is a good one. But if we
>construct an example involving particulars we have a similar situation
>where we have a strong intuition....
Your example illustrates some interesting issues, but
some of the confusion is created by the terminology of
"universals" and "particulars" and the question of which,
if any of those terms, refers to something in "reality".
And the word "possible world" is so dubious that it is
probably the worst possible notion to take as an undefined
primitive.
The philosopher who I believe is the most profound and
clear headed on these issues is C. S. Peirce, who developed
a framework of terms that I would recommend as a foundation
for the SUO.
Peirce certainly believed in a reality "that is independent
of how we may think of it", which includes physical entities,
perceptual phenomena by sentient beings, and law-like aspects
of the universe that govern future possibilities. That already
brings in more kinds of entities than you can classify with
just a two-way distinction between universals and particulars.
When you mention "strong intuitions" about universals and
particulars, you are talking about terminology that is colored
by thousands of years of speculation by people of divergent
points of view. Intuitions based on such shaky grounds are
a questionable foundation for ontology.
Peirce chose *sign* as the fundamental category in his approach
because it is a more general and flexible notion. Signs can
refer to what some people call universals or particulars.
They can refer to what the physicists are hypothesizing or
what nonscientists may see, hear, and think about.
Signs are more general than language or logic, since they can
include pictures, diagrams, events, processes, and entities
of any and every kind. If anything humanly conceivable can
ever be "ontologically neutral", signs are probably the best
candidate, since every human conception is a sign.
Bottom line: A systematic study of signs and their use in
both ordinary language and in the more esoteric reaches of
science and philosophy is a more secure foundation for logic
and ontology than anybody's "intuitions" about universals,
particulars, and possible worlds.
John Sowa