>Chris, John,
>
>The topic itself seems to me interesting.
>
>You may be able to shed some light on this.
>
>>From what little I know, it seems as if at the beginning of the 20th
>century, philosophical opinion tended towards regarding logic as a potential
>candidate for ontology. By the end of the century, ontology is about what
>exists and logic about what can be inferred.
>
>It seems to be the case, as noted below, that "ontological considerations
>might play a role in the choice of an appropriate formalism" and presumably
>that a formalism (such as FOL) might have implicit ontological implications. (01)
Hmm. I wish ChrisM has not agreed to this quite
so readily. I think this dictum, while of course
defensible, can be very misleading if understood
too strongly, as a kind of Whorfian view of
logic. All the formal and I would suggest
informal evidence seems to point to FOL, in some
incarnation, as the single best 'ontologically
neutral' logic. This is because the *only*,
repeat ONLY, assumption that FOL makes about its
universe is that is is a nonempty set (and if you
are willing to live with a free logic, which Im
not, you can even allow it to be empty). And,
moreover, it is the ONLY logic which does make
only this minimal assumption. All other logics
seem to impose extra conditions on their
universes: HOL requires it to be closed under
relational comprehension, modal and context
logics require it to support some kind of
neo-Kripkean structure, etc.. Now, it is hard for
me to image what could possibly be *less* of an
ontological commitment than that the elements of
the universe can be viewed as members of a set:
this is almost a prerequisite for *any* kind of
thing that can possibly be describe
mathematically, i.e. using the apparatus of a
modern precise semantic theory. So FOL - again,
understood model-theoretically, so the term can
encompass quite a wide variety of actual logics -
seems to me to be as ontologically bland, as
ontologically un-Whorfian, as it is possible for
a logical framework to get. MOreover, virtually
all the various alternative formalisms that have
been suggested for serious ontology use can be
easily transliterated back into FOL or a suitable
FOL theory (eg for modalities one needs to
introduce possible worlds, aka states, aka
situations, aka contexts, and quantify over them
in an appropriate way.) Can we all simply agree
on this, and move forward? We have serious
engineering points to get solved, and it is very
discouraging to find ourselves debating and
re-debating issues that were interesting in
technical philosophy a century ago but which have
been laid to rest in every practical sense for
about 30 years now. (02)
>I wonder whether either of you (or anyone else on the list) could point to
>philosophical research on the links between the two.
>
>One thing that puzzles me, for example, is whether something like an axiom
>that states the whole-part relation is transitive is implying that there is
>some kind of ontological dependence between the parental and ancestral
>whole-part relations. (03)
Say what you mean by 'ontological dependence'.
That axiom certain asserts that there is an
inferential connection between them: it allows
you to infer statements involving one of them
from statements involving the other. Is this an
'ontological dependence'? (04)
>And if so, why? And under what conditions does
>inference imply ontological dependence? (05)
I have no idea, because I don't know what the second phrase means. (06)
>Why is this interesting? Well, understanding it may help us in choosing our
>formalisms. (07)
Lets just choose (your favorite subset of) FOL,
and move forward. Everyone else does, whether
they admit it or not. (08)
Pat (09)
>
>Regards,
>Chris
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
>Sent: 16 March 2007 13:44
>To: [ontolog-forum]
>Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] The Relation Between Logic andOntology in
>Metaphysics
>
>Chris,
>
>Fine. We can all agree on that:
>
> > I certainly agree that ontological considerations might
> > play a role in the choice of an appropriate formalism.
>
>And the converse is also true: the formalism can affect
>or bias the choice of ontological categories and the
>way they are developed, studied, and used.
>
>John
>
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