SUO: Re: Conformance
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I think that we need to look at the question of conformance the other way round.
1. What leads us to put forward a conceptual system as something worth conforming to?
2. How do we normally acquire the kind of confidence in our conceptual systems that
leads us to propose them as normative systems to which others might well conform?
3. Is this confidence justified? How can we tell?
How do we justify it, or even just examine it,
when it is challenged by Nature or by others?
There is a larger issue here. Ontologies may start out as descriptive systems,
but when we recommend them to others as ideals, norms, standards, or even just
as simple suggestions for their consideration and potential emulation, then we
are involved in a normative activity, and we need to ask whether the reasoning
that we have been using for descriptive purposes is adequate to handle the new
burden of arguing and even making decisions about aims, ends, goods, and so on.
Jon Awbrey
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