RE: SUO: Re: Foundations, Foundlings, Fountains, etc... Of Ontology
-----Message d'origine-----
De : owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]De la part de
John F. Sowa
Envoyé : mardi 23 octobre 2001 01:57
À : Jon Awbrey; standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org; robert marty; John F.
Sowa; seweb-list@cs.vu.nl
Objet : Re: SUO: Re: Foundlings Of Ontology
I do not know if John Sowa maintains his claims concerning the relation of
the Peircean categories to the modes of reasoning despite the detailed
arguments put forward by Jean Marc Orliaguet.
The question is not of theological nature.
There are 6 bijections of the set { 1,2,3 } onto the set { abduction,
deduction, induction } and only one is correct. If the one chosen by John
Sowa is among the 5 false ones, then the maxim of pragmatism ensures us that
his ontological constructions will collapse.
Indeed this mistake would be comparable with that of a chemist who'd believe
that the valency of chlorine were 3. Such a mistake would obviously bear no
consequence if the bottle containing the chlorine solution should remain on
the shelf. Indeed, for a mistake to be acknowledged, especially in the
academic world, a condition is that it should have practical consequences,
i.e. a false conception will first affect theoretical constructions and
later it will affect the practical applications.
John Sowa apparently makes a correct use of the term 'abduction':
quote 1:
"In looking for the missing third, he discovered the principle of abduction,
which generates new hypotheses, which are further tested by the techniques
of deduction and induction "
Quote 2:
" Beneath it all, there is a real world, which the entire community of
inquirers learns to approximate through repeated cycles of observation,
induction, abduction, deduction, and testing."
although I don't agree with the order of the elements which should be
instead abduction, induction, deduction since the idea of the law is a
Firstness (abduction) logically precedes the scope of the law (induction)
which is then verified by deduction.
For that matter, it is the case in this debate: the debate is so far purely
academic and will remain so, as long as its practical consequences (obtained
by deduction) are not put through a reality check.
Robert Marty
Professeur en Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication
Université de perpignan
http://come.to/robert.marty
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