re:Re: SUO: Continuants and Occurrents in 4D
>Robert,
>
>Your point about agents is well taken. That is another
>area where I disagree with Nicola and even more strongly with
>Barry. They don't provide any means for including the agent
>in the formalism. To be brief, "I" and "we" in that discussion
>can be considered any agent (human, animal, robot, or whatever).
John, you seem to live a double life. On the one hand, you have
argued vigorously and effectively for the centrality of FOL as a
representational formalism for ontology use, and as you know I agree
with you. On the other hand, you seem to now be arguing that any kind
of assertional logic cannot possibly be adequate, since such logics
do not (either in their syntax or their sematnics) pay even passing
attention to any notion of "agency", and certainly do not "include
the agency in the formalism", whatever that means. I am left
wondering what your position actually is.
> >>.... in fact, I think that the distinction
> >>between the terms "continuant" and "occurrent" can be quite
> >>nicely defined in Whitehead's terms: A continuant is something
> >>that we can recognize at multiple encounters. An occurrent is
> >>something that does not have enough distinctive characteristics
> >>that we can be sure whether another encounter is with "the same"
> >>or "a similar" entity.
>
> >### a most enlightening definition I must say. But in it, and in
> >fact in all of the above, who are these "we" and "I" who do the
> >recognizing and identifying... I tried to observe before that all
> >of semantics constitutes an agreement among cognitive agents (e.g.
> >two persons who agree they are pointing at the same occurrent; or
> >one agent who agrees with himself that he is looking at an instance
> >of the same continuant after a while, etc etc. Is this too trivial
> >to mention, or am I too obtuse, in hypothesizing that we include
> >these cognitive agents, AND perhaps the procedure by which they
> >arrive at their agreements, AND the contexts that must restrict or
> >qualify these agreements, as first-class citizens in any ontological
> >design process? Or has somebody been there & done that? I'd like a
> >reference so I may catch up in that case
>
>I have been arguing very strongly for recognition of the
>methods by which "identity" can be established. Barry Smith
>simply dismissed that issue as "confusing ontology with
>epistemology". And I simply dismissed Barry.
I agree with Barry on this one, and I will dismiss Peirce. (He did
neat work on notations and deserves to have his historical influence
acknowledged, but all that is an aside. I dismiss 'pragmatism' as a
guide for ontology.)
Your move.
Pat
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