RE: SUO: RE: Criteria that an ontology must satisfy
John,
See my comments below:
Regards,
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: sowa@bestweb.net [mailto:sowa@bestweb.net]
Sent: 09 March 2001 18:05
To: Chris Partridge; sowa@bestweb.net; standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
Subject: Re: SUO: RE: Criteria that an ontology must satisfy
Chris,
I don't understand why you are so devoted to the terms
"perdure" and "endure" or their corresponding "-isms".
I just checked the two books by Peter Simons: his 1987
book, _Parts: A Study in Ontology_, and his 1992 book,
_Philosophy and Logic in Central Europe from Bolzano to
Tarski_. Neither book mentions those words in its index.
If Simons doesn't use them, I don't see why you feel the
need to use them. As I said before, they are causing more
confusion than clarification.
CP> As I said in an earlier email, these terms come from David Lewis
(Plurality of Worlds). If you do a Google search on either of the terms, you
find papers that refer to Lewis.
CP> The reason I am keen on making people note they have made a
'metaphysical' decision for Perdurantism (or Endurantism) is to avoid the
time-consuming problems of dealing with backsliding later. There are a lot
of consequences of this decision that people are not always keen to accept.
By agreeing up front that the decision has been made, it is easier to
discuss a retreat from the position later.
>Your notion of some entry criteria seems sensible - though I suspect you
may
>have set the bar so high that nothing will be able to get in (though this
>does depend on how you interpret 'satisfy').
I don't see anything about them that is impossible. It would
certainly be difficult to define "every" word in the dictionary,
but all that I claimed is that we must be "able to" define
every word. Potentiality is easier to achieve than actuality.
For reference, following are the three criteria:
> 1. The ability to define any and all terms used in well
> established laws and theories of the major scientific
> fields, especially physics, chemistry, and biology. That
> may also include defining some terms, such as phlogiston
> and ether, which eventually become obsolete, but which
> are reasonable hypotheses at the time they are proposed.
> 2. The ability to define any and all terms used in major
> areas of business, engineering, agriculture, and other
> fields that do enough useful work that people are willing
> to pay them to keep doing it.
> 3. The ability to support inferences with those definitions
> that agree with established usage in the fields in which
> the terms are used.
These are the requirements that we have been discussing for
years. This is what Cyc has been trying to do, and it is
certainly the goal of the T2 ontology workshops, in which we
explicitly set the goal of merging WordNet with Cyc. And the
ability to support modern science and engineering is essential
for supporting companies like Boeing, IBM, etc.
CP> I agree that these are good goals - and should influence our 'criteria
for entry'.
>CP> In fact, I would have thought they are a useful way of characterizing
an
>aspect of the Whiteheadian view and contrasting it with the opposing
>Enduring-Continuant view.
But that is not our problem. We have to define a suitable
ontology for the SUO that meets the above criteria. We don't
have to compare and contrast every view under heaven. That is
not our job. If we find some particular metaphysics ill-suited
to the task, we can safely ignore it. The people who propose
such things have the duty to convince us, if they want us to
adopt their point of view.
>In your case, you can use it to record your
>ontological preference - which, like Pat, you see as overwhelmingly
>obvious - for a particular choice. In fact, if you are looking for lattice
>of theories, it seems to me that these could usefully form two (disjoint)
>nodes on the lattice, even if one of the nodes is left to wither, as you
>recommend.
Yes, that is possible. But all I am proposing to do is to
adopt a framework with an infinite lattice of theories in it.
It is not my job to characterize every one of them -- especially
not those that I find rather ill-suited to the task of meeting
the above requirements. If Nicola wants to put his ontology
into the lattice, he can do so. My job is like the librarian
who has to catalog all the books in the library, but is under
no obligation to read them or to recommend them to anyone else.
>It is my experience that unless one is prepared to get down to
>nitty-gritty issues such as the E vs P question, we cannot hope to achieve
>this.
I believe that we have already done our duty. We studied the
issue, listened to all sides, and chose the one that we would
recommend. We also provide room for the people who disagree
to put their theories into the lattice, where we can safely
ignore it.
>CP> Reading the Whitehead article and your book (e.g. pp 70 onwards), it
>would seem to me that for both of you everything extended in time can be
>considered either as a process or an event.
Please remember that the 1920 article is not as definitive as
Whitehead's 1929 book, Process and Reality. But it is a good
overview of the general ideas. In my terminology, an event is
a kind of process, and an object is the characterization of
a continuing process according to some form (in W's later
terminology "a form of definiteness") which enables us to
recognize it as "the same" in different encounters.
> It is also
>unclear to me how Whitehead would distinguish an object from a process -
>apart from how one considers it.
Processes are the most basic entities. An object is some
continuing process that can be characterized by a "form of
definiteness", which enables us to have "recurring event types"
which we recognize as "the same thing" at different times.
The forms are mathematical structures, such as cubes, spheres,
the general outline of the human body, etc.
We may have two different forms, such as Statue and LumpOfClay,
which may both characterize some process at a particular time.
Perhaps one or the other might characterize it for a different
length of time: the extension of the LumpOfClay is longer than
the extension of the Statue.
CP> And a suitable process may be characterized by both a continuant and an
occurrent - as it the Statue/Clay example.
> And this seems to be your approach. I am,
>of course, quite happy with this. But it seems to me then that the
>'distinctions' are not fundamental.
I don't know what you mean by fundamental. Everything that
exists is a process. Some processes can be characterized by
"forms of definiteness", which we call objects. What could be
more fundamental than that?
CP> It seems to me that the word 'can' here is equivocal. It seems to me
that if we work hard enough almost all processes could be characterized as
either continuants or occurrents. However, some times some people will do
one, some people will do the other and some people will do both. And, as
people's knowledge grows (or diminishes) this will change. So being a
continuant or occurrent (for a person X) is a relationship between how X
knows a process (maybe Barry Smith's Epistemology) and the process. The
reason it seems to me not to be so fundamental for integrating (or
translating between) ontologies is that it does not make sense to use
continuant or occurrent as a starting point for the translation (unlike
process, for example) as persons X and Y can quite correctly (depending upon
their knowledge) classify a thing differently.
CP> I presume, because I cannot find you saying otherwise, that you do not
regard all processes as inherently continuant or occurrent. That all
processes are absolutely either continuant, occurrent or both.
>>And it seems to me that adopting an extensionalist
>>viewpoint (for both objects and properties) enables one to have a formal
>>principle of identity.
>
>That is another issue. I believe that the intension of "clay"
>is different from the intension of "statue". But when you
>apply those terms to the "same thing" they happen to coincide.
>
>> I am not sure how any real ontological analysis can
>>proceed without some consideration of principles of identity.
>
>Whitehead and I have perfectly fine definitions of identity
>that agree with usage in both science and ordinary language.
>CP> Whitehead's view is characterized as mereological essentialism by Peter
>Simons - where, if two things have the same events as parts, they are the
>same thing. Right?
Where does he say that? I just checked the index to his Parts
book, and the set of references to "mereological essentialism"
are disjoint from the set of references to "Whitehead". If you
find what he says, please send the exact quotation to the list.
CP> Sorry a typo- I meant 'extensionalism' not 'essentialism', hence my
comments on parts (rather than change) - Look at p.81 Section 2.9
Non-classical extensional mereologies and then Section 2.9.1 Whitehead's
Mereology of Events.
In any case, I am not happy with using mereology as a foundation
for ontology. For continuous stuff, mereology is a better tool
than set theory, but it is just as extensional. Whitehead's
definitions are intensional -- they are determined by the forms
of definiteness. You have to recognize the forms if you want
to say why two things are the same by intension. You can't
adequately capture intensional concepts in terms of purely
extensional things, such as sets or mereological fusions.
>>To summarise - I think the meanings of the E and P words are quite clear
>and
>
>>simple - and well established. And that despite their ugliness, we should
>>stick with them as they are established in the literature.
>
>There are enormous numbers of obsolete terms in every branch of
>philosophy. I don't believe that there is any need to keep them
>in the SUO glossary of recommended terms. I have no objection
>to including those terms in a footnote, citing some people who
>use them, and suggesting a better way of talking about ontology.
>CP> Just a small point - as a point of fact, something actually easy to
>check, these terms (and the distinctions they describe) are not normally
>regarded as obsolete. One can find them in most of the recent introductory
>textbooks on metaphysics.
Let's put it this way: There is an awful lot of obsolete
philosophy being written today. I regard any book on philosophy
that does not mention C. S. Peirce to be obsolete. Peirce is
much more up-to-date than 90% of the metaphysics that was
written during the 20th century. (And that includes practically
everything that was written by people at Oxford U. -- there have
been some good people at Oxford, but they are mostly ignored
by the ones who are best known.)
CP> I am sure that we could find some people in the philosophical
community - even some that did not go to Oxford - who have a different
definition of 'obsolete'.
John