SUO: Reparse Of Things Remembered
Douglas McDavid wrote:
>
> 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).
Yes, pretty much, only we need to remember that this study of signs and their
interpretation, whether we title it "hermeneutics", "pragmatics", "semiotics",
or whatever, starts with its subject matter in a much more inchoate, incipient,
and even chaotic condition of flux, than what we would normally, "normatively",
call a "logic", with axioms, definitions, rules, sentences, theorems, and so on,
although, of course, all of the latter is encompassed as a specialized substudy.
> 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:
That's the 'Good' Terminator, right!?
> 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.
Yes, for many purposes (if you will excuse the anticipated recursion)
we can replace the parameter that names the interpreter with the name
of the relevant purpose. And you may find it useful to remember here
the "Just So Story" that tells "How pragmatic thinking got its name",
to wit, by way of the Antic Greek word "pragma", the many-busied one.
> 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.
That is why we usually ask a person to supply
yet another interpretant sign, and this time,
one that we can hear, or see, and understand.
> 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.
That's why I started thirty years ago.
And Peirce began a hundred before that.
> 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.
Modular is nice, of course, if and when you can get it.
There is a catch here though, "triadic irreducibility".
> 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
Thanks for taking the time to think about this,
Jon Awbrey
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