RE: SUO: Re: Critique Of Non-Functional Reason
Dear Doug,
Let me give you my take on the difference between Epistemology
and Ontology with a simple example.
An ontological view of you will say that if you exist as a
person, you have a mother.
An Epistemological view of you will recognise that just because
I know who you are, doesn't mean I have to know who your mother
is.
Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.r.west@is.shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Douglas McDavid [mailto:mcdavid@us.ibm.com]
> Sent: 25 November 2001 15:01
> To: Chris Menzel
> Cc: IEEE Standard Upper Ontology List
> Subject: Re: SUO: Re: Critique Of Non-Functional Reason
>
>
>
>
> Chris --
>
> Thanks for the reply. I have floated out this ontology/epistemology
> assertion several times over the last year or so, and this is
> the first
> time that someone who actually may have an answer has risen
> to "de-bait" !
>
> My Shorter OED defines:
>
> Epistemology: The theory or science of the method or grounds of
> knowledge.
>
> Ontology: The science or study of being; that department of
> metaphysics which
> relates to the being or essence of things, or to
> being in the
> abstract.
>
> Further, Michael Loux on p. 15 of his Metaphysics writes about an "
> 'official' philosophical inventory of things that are. Such
> an 'official'
> inventory is usually called an _ontology_ " [emphasis in the
> original] .
>
> Based on these definitions, my own thinking is that all of the items I
> enumerated below fall clearly in the category of the methods
> of knowledge
> rather than the inventory of things that are. I welcome your
> more learned
> opinion on where I have gone wrong. It may be that the
> reading I have done
> is inadequate to fully understand the concept of
> epistemology, and if so I
> apologize to the list for perpetrating an ignorant
> distraction. At the
> same time, I have a few lingering qualms about applying these
> philosophical
> concepts to such mundane purposes as interoperability among
> software and
> database applications.
>
> It is exactly this interoperability that I am interested in.
> I quote it
> below, in the useful form that Jon Awbrey has been using as a
> basis for his
> current extended inquiry:
>
> | B. Inter-Operability (IO)
> |
> | The standard will provide a basis for achieving
> Inter-Operability
> | among various software and database applications.
>
> It is fair to say that I can be thought of as playing the role of a
> potential customer of the IEEE work. My concern is
> specifically in the
> area of making software and database applications work
> together in support
> of human social systems, such as commercial enterprises. Clearly a
> non-trivial aspect of that interoperability is at the level of
> representation and interoperable technology. As you suggest, I have
> pondered this at length, along with the rest of the Working Group over
> these last months, going on years. Given that my preferred
> representation
> language is not in the running, I am happy enough with KIF,
> especially with
> the nice browsable version provided by Teknowledge.
>
> Having said that, in my current corporate incarnation I am
> surrounded by
> colleagues who are expert at producing interoperability at
> the level of
> software languages and protocols. I came to this working group with
> enthusiasm for the prospect of a standardized "inventory of
> things that
> are". In my opinion this is the unique, and uniquely difficult,
> undertaking that was promised by this standards effort. This
> is what I
> hope, ultimately, to be an enthusiastic customer of.
>
> Jon piqued my interest when he juxtaposed two concepts, that
> of "price" and
> that of "charge". I thought to myself that here was an opportunity to
> explore some subtle distinctions and relationships that have
> interesting
> commercial ramifications. I could envision a discussion of the
> interoperability issues that arise from the fact that various pricing
> algorithms might be used for a particular charge in the context of a
> specific transaction. I though it might be interesting to
> tease out the
> polysemes of "charge" as an amount requiring payment and
> "charge" in the
> sense of payment method. I was "shocked" to see that Seth had taken
> "charge" in such a completely divergent sense - in such a
> different part of
> the inventory of things that are, i.e. in the sense of
> energized electrons.
>
> Of course, I wasn't really shocked. This simply provided an
> interesting
> opportunity to raise the issue that I try to raise in a
> friendly way once
> every couple of months or so. This is my theme, and I'm
> sticking to it!
> As a potential customer of this work, I continue to be sensitive to
> progress toward interoperability at the level of
> standardization of "things
> that are". I jumped into the recent outbreak of discussion about
> organizations, since this is central to my working interests.
> Unfortunately, this debate closed down before exploring (in
> my opinion) any
> truly interesting issues of interoperability. And part of
> this debate is
> whether those interesting issues even have a place in an upper (vs. a
> domain) ontology, as witnessed by the brief exchange between Jon and
> Matthew on the subject of concepts to reuse for CRM applications.
>
> I think Jon has a good point in a later post that my concern
> is not so much
> over "a category mistake as a different emphasis". This is
> probably a more
> accurate way to say it. I am concerned that the emphasis on
> the method of
> representation has a tendency here to overwhelm the emphasis on the
> inventory of things.
>
> I really am interested, Chris, to be enlightened as to why
> epistemology vs.
> ontology is the wrong way to think about this distinction of
> emphasis. I'm
> happy to abandon that terminology, if it is inappropriate.
>
> But don't expect me to abandon my emphasis on the distinction!
>
>
> Doug McDavid
>
> Certified Executive Consultant
> Member of IBM Academy of Technology
> mcdavid@us.ibm.com
>
>
> Chris Menzel <cmenzel@tamu.edu>@majordomo.ieee.org on
> 11/23/2001 07:29:47
> PM
>
> Please respond to Chris Menzel <cmenzel@tamu.edu>
>
> Sent by: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
>
>
> To: IEEE Standard Upper Ontology List
> <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
> cc:
> Subject: Re: SUO: Re: Critique Of Non-Functional Reason
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, 23 Nov 2001, Douglas McDavid wrote:
>
> > It is frustrating to me that the bulk of the discussion on this list
> > has to do with ascii vs. mento graphs, KIF, vs. XML, vs. controlled
> > English, some order logic vs. category theory vs. speech acts. Etc,
> > etc., etc., etc. I've said before, and I'll assert again, that all
> > this discussion of notation and representation is not about
> ontology,
> > but about epistemology.
>
> It may not have to do with ontology, but it has even less to do with
> epistemology.
>
> > The fact that we spend so much time on it here is evidence of an
> > apparently deep-seated category error in this community
> that confuses
> > issues of things to be represented with issues of representation.
>
> That some people on the list regularly confuse representation with the
> represented is undeniable. But why you should take
> discussion of, e.g.,
> KIF vs XML (vis-a-vis representation languages) or FOL vs category
> theory (vis-a-vis foundations) as evidence for the confusion is less
> than clear. An alternative explanation you might ponder is that
> some people see some relevance in those issues to ontology that you
> don't.
>
> -chris
>
>
>
>
>