SUO: Re: CG: Re: Common Logic Standard
Jon,
There is much more to knowledge representation than just FOL.
FOL is a prerequisite to any and every full-bodied knowledge
representation. It is necessary, but not sufficient.
But nonetheless, it is necessary.
Jon Awbrey wrote:
JA> Logic today is in a horrible mess -- it is dissociated from all
> of the real action in mathematics, programming, and science generally,
> and it is not fair to blame Peirce for the state that has resulted.
I agree. The person I consider the most to blame for the sorry state
of logic today is Bertrand Russell. But that does not contradict the
point I stated in paragraph #1 of this note.
JA> What we have, in the common logical formalisms that are taught in
> the textbooks, amounts to what little Russell & Whitehead &
> Wittgenstein were able to comprehend of the work of Boole, DeMorgan,
> and Peirce that managed to filter through the accounts of Peano &
> Schröder.
I would also add that the teaching of logic in most universities
today is far more debased than in the 13th and 14th centuries.
It has even gone down significantly since the watered-down versions
of Peter of Spain's textbook were published in the 19th century.
I have tried to remedy that problem in my books and papers.
But that does not contradict paragraph #1.
JA> Very little of the basic insight of the relation of logic to
> inquiry that Peirce had in 1870, much less what he embodied
> in his Systems of Logical Graphs, is left in what passes
> for FOL today.
What passes for FOL today is what Frege dimly saw in the 19th
century and what Peirce understood far more deeply. But nonetheless
that doesn't contradict paragraph #1.
> You know this. I accept that political
> compromises are necessary, though I've never developed
> any art in them myself, but sometimes you just gotta
> tell it like it is, no matter what. Peirce's logic
> is not just another notation for FOL, as we know it.
Of course not. It is the foundation for a much richer system,
but the content of that representation can be filtered through
other notations, such as KIF and XML, and be reconstituted at
the other end by systems that add the life-giving elixir.
Bottom line: If we don't provide FOL plus contexts plus metalevels
(as the CL standard is designed to do), we are going to be stuck
with kludges built on top of RDF and XML for another 50 years.
John Sowa