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If one of the set of 500-page books expresses a Perfect Philosophical Ontology, then the terms used in that book are the the terms of General Systems. Care to debate? -- D4. All postings to the Ontology list-server should be stated in the terms of general systems. On Mar 12, 2008, at 3:48 PM, John F. Sowa wrote: Avril, Just one comment: > Of course, anti-foundationalists in ontology, like John Sowa, > maintain that it is not even a good goal to try to achieve PPO. I very strongly object to being labeled, so please do not call me an anti-foundationalist. As I have said many times, I am not opposed to foundations or to people and projects that study foundations. But what I strongly oppose is anybody or any proposal that says, suggests, or even hints that the one true perfect foundation has been found or is likely to be found within this century or the next. John On Mar 12, 2008, at 1:26 PM, Avril Styrman wrote: A short summary of the topic D1. Philosophical ontology PO can benefit computer science ontology CO only indirectly. That is, so indirectly that it seems very strongly that reaching a consensus in what is the right PO is not a fruitful topic in these sorts of discussion forums. However, discussions very often seem anyway to get driven into the kinds of questions that the would-be perfect PO, PPO, should settle. Of course, anti-foundationalists in ontology, like John Sowa, maintain that it is not even a good goal to try to achieve PPO. In any case, the conception of PPO is totally intelligible. Take e.g. all 500-page books: all the 500-page long combinations of unicode symbols. One of these books must be a pretty good candidate for the PPO, since the set of these book contains about all that can be written. Again, what the PPO is, is an interesting topic, perhaps the most interesting of all topics. It doesn't harm anyone if someone wants to share views about it. However, even though the process of debating over it can be interesting and amusing, it can also be painful. cheers, Avril |