RE: SUO: RE: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
Chris,
I was not intending to suggest that there should be an axiomatisation of
immateriality (or space) in the 'holes theory'. Merely that its 'dependence'
on immateriality should be noted somehow.
I think we both agree that the upper ontology should contain the
material/immaterial distinction (if it is going to be anywhere).
I am not sure that the relationship between C&Vs theory of holes and
immateriality is as 'oblique' as you seem to suggest. Immateriality is
clearly mentioned in the book (and in the text you provided) - and it seems
to me (and perhaps David Lewis) that their theory is motivated by their
views on immateriality. (As you say this can be related to notions of
space - but I think I would agree with you if you suggested that this is an
'oblique' relationship.)
Be that as it may. My concern is more general. We do not have a section of
the upper ontology now that deals with immateriality (I presume). If we did
then (presumably) you would have shown a relationship with it. But given we
do not have, would it not make sense to provide some kind of link (maybe
even just a note) rather than hope someone looking at the theory later will
know (guess?) that these should be there. Maybe also post a reminder
somewhere that this section of the upper ontology (and so links with it) is
missing. I was not suggesting that these 'concepts' needed to be axiomatised
here.
In particular, it seemed to me that the 'holes theory' could provide a good
reminder of one of the things that what we want in the upper ontology - and
we should take advantage of this opportunity.
One of the reason that I am concerned about this is that I reckon that (and
I believe Pat Hayes made a similar point somewhere) an ontology is an
intricate thing and we need to be careful about trying to take out parts
from one and combining this with another - and anything we can do to make
this easier is worth doing.
So, I suppose, my point is that if we are going to build the SUO piecemeal
(not necessarily a bad idea), then it would help if we set some guidelines
about how we can make integrating these later easier.
Regards,
(another) Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: cmenzel@philebus.tamu.edu [mailto:cmenzel@philebus.tamu.edu]
Sent: 11 December 2000 07:59
To: Chris Partridge
Cc: Standard-Upper-Ontology (E-mail)
Subject: Re: SUO: RE: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
Chris Partridge wrote:
> It seems to me that the [KIF-ification of Casati & Varzi's ontology
> of holes] skips over some key ontological points (but maybe I have
> missed this) - which I believe at least some of the members of this
> list regard as important.
> Excerpt:
> "(documentation "The main thesis is that a hole is an immaterial body
> located at the surface (or at some surface) of a material object. Since
the
> notion of a surface is essentially a topological one, and since the
> property of being immaterial is reflected in the morphological property of
> being fillable, the ontological basis is concerned first and foremost with
> the general dependence of a hole on its host.")"
>
> This excerpt (and Achille and Roberto's book) seems to presuppose two
basic
> (and distinct) ontological kinds; material and immaterial. However, these
> do not seem to get mentioned in the KIF, only indirectly on their impact
on
> the notion of hole. I would have thought that basic ontological
> distinctions such as these should be stated up front.
But why? Material objects, and some immaterial objects like holes,
occupy space as well, and space is a basic ontological concept, yet
C&V don't provide any axioms for space or spatial occupation
generally. Nor should they. For what they are interested in are the
more specialized topological properties of spatial objects. So they
axiomatize those. Similarly, C&V are not interested in immateriality
per se, but only certain more specialized morphological properties
that holes possess in virtue of their immateriality, notably,
fillability.
Of course, the immateriality of holes might prove relevant to some
other ontology with similarly oblique connections to immateriality,
and that is the point where an upper ontology might prove useful. But
it is precisely because we don't want to require every ontology to
include all the details of its background ontology that an upper
ontology is being developed, isn't it?
Regards,
-chris
--
Christopher Menzel # web: philebus.tamu.edu/~cmenzel
Philosophy, Texas A&M University # net: chris.menzel@tamu.edu
College Station, TX 77843-4237 # vox: (979) 845-8764