Re: Axiomatic ontology
Avril,
I agree:
AS> Already at first steps, idealism causes unnecessary difficulties
> with plain common sense -we can't make a good case out of bad
> materials. The conclusion is that naive realism is a more
> economical way to do analysis than naive idealism.
But I have no patience with phony doubts as the starting point,
and a Cartesian methodology of lying in bed, staring at the
ceiling, and daydreaming.
I have more sympathy with Samuel Johnson kicking a stone
to demonstrate that something outside of himself is capable
of making an impression on his toe.
But even that won't get us very far toward an ontology that
people can actually use in knowledge-based systems.
AS> This is just a raw example, but it is not hard to see the
> overwhelming success of axiomatic ontology.
That argument will not convince anyone to go learn logic in
order to write axioms for a knowledge-based system.
I found your MS thesis to be better than this.
John