Re: SUO: Remembrance Of Things Parsed
Folks --
Here's the way I think of the problem before us, starting from a key
paragraph of
Jon's quote from CSP below:
| We usually say that the word 'homme' stands to a Frenchman for 'man'.
| It would be a little more precise to say that it stands to the
Frenchman's
| mind -- to his memory. It is still more accurate to say that it
addresses
| a particular remembrance or image in that memory. And what 'image', what
| remembrance? Plainly, the one which is the mental equivalent of the word
| 'homme' -- in short, its interpretant. Whatever a word addresses then or
| 'stands to', is its interpretant or identified symbol. ...
In a recent post John Sowa has reminded us of the criteria for any
adequate ontology, as propounded by the NCTIS T2 Committee. These
criteria are based on the ability to define terms used in major scientific
fields,
such as physics, chemistry, and biology and in major areas of business,
engineering, and agriculture.
It seems to me that those *terms* are what Peirce means when he says:
| Consider, what a word or symbol is; it is a sort of representation.
In the first quote, then, Peirce is giving us a framework for the
*definition* of those
terms. It must be in relation to the interpreter (the Frenchmen, and all
their analogs
in the world) and the interpretants (the mental equivalent of the term for
the specific
interpreter).
From a methodological point of view, it seems to me that most fruitful line
of attack
is to articulate the universe of interpreters that should be considered for
this project.
Someone else has said that everything in our ontology is a class, which
should
simplify the problem of building the ontology of interpreters by at least
ten orders of
magnitude. That is, we don't need to catalog all the actual interpreters
in the world,
which would be some number followed by nine or more zeros. We only ... ;-)
... need
to be concerned with all the relevant types of interpreters. We have a
start on that from
our T2 criteria:
Interpreters in the field of physics
Interpreters in the field of chemistry
Interpreters in the field of biology
Interpreters in business
Interpreters in engineering
Interpreters in agriculture
This will become a very long list, of course. We will have to articulate
Retail banking loan officer interpreters
Dot.com futures arbitrageur CEO interpreters
Salesmen of chemicals to agricultural conglomerates interpreters.
etc.
What we are ultimately trying to get at, I believe, is the interpretant.
That is,
what is actually in the mind of the Frenchman or the agricultural chemical
salesman. This is the bulk of the stuff of the ontology, that stands
alongside
the lexicons of terminology and allows us to define those terms, as
envisioned
by the T2 committee. To do this we need to understand not just the role or
category of interpreter, but the purpose behind particular usages of terms.
For instance, for an astronomer_interpreter we need to ask about the
purpose for
talking about such things as the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. Is it to
catalog visible
features on planetary surfaces, or is it to discuss the dynamics of
celestial
atmospheres?
We can't hope to actually know in detail the interpretant inside any
individual
human mind at any particular point in time. However, this perspective
gives us
the tools we need to provide practical disambiguation (or definition) of
terms.
By articulating classes of interpreters, and classes of purposes, we can
create
classes of interpretants that can be brought to bear in various
combinations to
define domain specific word-or-phrase/sense packages (terms).
This methodology still leaves us with a daunting task. This argues for an
early
start on the actual work. It also argues for a divide and conquer
approach. This
is why I support Nicola Guarino's recent call for a modular approach to
reference
ontologies. I'm not sure I support a call for a vote, because my
interpretation of
the Scope and Purpose was that we were already intending to take this
modular
approach: "this standard will provide a structure and a set of general
concepts
upon which domain ontologies ... could be constructed".
Doug McDavid
mcdavid@us.ibm.com
Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>@ieee.org on 03/10/2001 09:24:27 PM
Please respond to Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
Sent by: owner-standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
To: Meersman Robert <meersman@vub.ac.be>
cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
Subject: SUO: Remembrance Of Things Parsed
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Meersman Robert wrote:
>
> [John Sowa wrote:]
> >
> > ... I think that the distinction between the terms "continuant"
> > and "occurrent" can be quite nicely defined in Whitehead's terms:
> > A continuant is something that we can recognize at multiple encounters.
> > An occurrent is something that does not have enough distinctive
characteristics
> > that we can be sure whether another encounter is with "the same" or "a
similar" entity.
>
> ### a most enlightening definition I must say.
> But in it, and in fact in all of the above,
> who are these "we" and "I" who do the
> recognizing and identifying ...
Robert,
Myself, I usually call such an agent
by any one of the following names:
Interpreter (I), Observer (O),
Interpretant Observer (IO),
Observant Interpreter (OI),
at time, neologistically,
the Interrupreter.
For a pragmatician, I dare say, these are all different titles for the same
job,
due to the indiscernibility between interpreting and observing one's
experience.
It is a standard exercise in the Peircean theory of signs
to try one's hand at coming to grips with the relationship
between interpreters, putative agents of the interpretative
process, or as they say, of the ongoing "semiosis", and the
so-called "interpretant signs" that intervene in this action
between the object of a sign and the initial sign in question.
A big portion of my dissertation work is directed toward trying
to make sense of this relationship in a system-theoretic setting.
Here is how I discuss what I regard to be one of the most critically
illuminating
passages in Peirce's entire treatment of this "interpretant-interpreter"
question:
[ Acronym Glossary:
|
| IM = interpretive moment
| MOI = model of interpretation
| SOI = system of interpretation
]
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1.3.4.18 C'est Moi
From the emblem unfurled on a tapestry to tease out the
working of its loom and spindle, a charge to bind these
frameworks together is drawn by necessity from a single
request: "To whom is the sign addressed?" The easy,
all too easy answer comes "To whom it may concern", but
this works more to put off the question than it acts as
a genuine response. To say that a sign relation is
intended for the use of its interpreter, unless one has
ready an independent account of that agent's conduct,
only rephrases the initial question about the end of
interpretation.
The interpreter is an agency depicted over and above the sign relation,
but in a very real sense it is simply identical with the whole of it.
And so one is led to examine the relationship between the interpreter
and the interpretant, the element falling within the sign relation to
which the sign in actuality tends. The catch is that the whole of the
intended sign relation is seldom known from the beginning of inquiry,
and so the aimed for interpretant is often just as unknown as the rest.
These eventualities call for the elaboration of interpretive and objective
frameworks in which not just the specious but the speculative purpose of
a sign can be contemplated, permitting extensions of the initial data,
through error and retrial, to satisfy emergent and recurring questions.
At last, even with the needed frameworks only partly shored up, I can
finally ravel up and tighten one thread of this rambling investigation.
All this time, steadily rising to answer the challenge about the identity
of the interpreter, "Who's there?", and the role of the interpretant,
"Stand and unfold yourself", has been the ready and the abiding state
of a certain system of interpretation, developing its character and
gradually evolving its meaning through a series of imputations and
extensions. Namely, the MOI (the SOI experienced as object) can
answer for the interpreter, to whatever extent that the called for
conduct can be formalized, and the IM (the SOI experienced in act,
in statu nascendi) can serve as a proxy for the momentary thrust of
interpretive dynamics, to whatever degree that the called for process
can be explicated.
To put a finer point on this result I can do no better at this stage
of discussion than to recount the "metaphorical argument" that Peirce
persistently uses to illustrate the same conclusion.
| I think we need to reflect upon the circumstance that every word implies
| some proposition or, what is the same thing, every word, concept, symbol
| has an equivalent term -- or one which has become identified with it, --
| in short, has an 'interpretant'.
|
| Consider, what a word or symbol is; it is a sort of representation.
| Now a representation is something which stands for something. ...
| A thing cannot stand for something without standing 'to' something 'for'
| that something. Now, what is this that a word stands 'to'? Is it a
person?
|
| We usually say that the word 'homme' stands to a Frenchman for 'man'.
| It would be a little more precise to say that it stands to the
Frenchman's
| mind -- to his memory. It is still more accurate to say that it
addresses
| a particular remembrance or image in that memory. And what 'image', what
| remembrance? Plainly, the one which is the mental equivalent of the word
| 'homme' -- in short, its interpretant. Whatever a word addresses then or
| 'stands to', is its interpretant or identified symbol. ...
|
| The interpretant of a term, then, and that which it stands to are
identical.
| Hence, since it is of the very essence of a symbol that it should stand
'to'
| something, every symbol -- every word and every 'conception' -- must have
an
| interpretant -- or what is the same thing, must have information or
implication.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, 'Chronological Edition', CE 1, 466-467.
| http://www.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/inquiry.htm
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> I tried to observe before that all of semantics constitutes
> an agreement among cognitive agents (e.g. two persons who agree
> they are pointing at the same occurrent; or one agent who agrees
> with himself that he is looking at an instance of the same continuant
> after a while, etc etc. Is this too trivial to mention, or am I too
> obtuse, in hypothesizing that we include these cognitive agents, AND
> perhaps the procedure by which they arrive at their agreements, AND
> the contexts that must restrict or qualify these agreements, as
> first-class citizens in any ontological design process? Or has
> somebody been there & done that? I'd like a reference so I may
> catch up in that case.
Myself, I have spoken of this facet of interpretation so often here
and elsewhere that it would be difficult for me to recount them all,
but here are some links that leap to mind:
http://www.shss.montclair.edu/inquiry/fall95/awbrey.html
http://www.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/integrat.htm
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00683.html
...
> ### In John's statement above, the key hidden elements
> in my opinion again are these implied silent agents who
> are "given assurance", allegedly "are mistaken" and have
> or not "reasonable doubt". Without the implied agreement by
> them in spite of these mistakes, doubts, ... the identification
> process and its result would be, in a quite formal sense, meaningless.
>
> --Robert Meersman
Many Regards,
Jon Awbrey
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