On Sat, Mar 17, 2007 at 09:16:02PM -0000, Chris Partridge wrote:
> Chris,
>
> I think you are being a little disingenuous here. (01)
Here? Where? Oh, you mean way down below where I'm supposed to scroll
down and figure out what you're referring to? (C'mon folks, its just
plain uncivil to top-post and force your interlocutor to figure out what
particular comment you are talking about.) (02)
Ok, never mind, I'll fix it. I'm also going to take the liberty of
altering your "initials in the first line" style of quoting, which is
extremely difficult to parse when comments become nested within other
comments. (Don't you use an editor that preserves comments at their
appropriate level of nesting when you reply?) (03)
Chris P wrote:
> Chris Menzel wrote:
> > > > if you are talking about the usual sort of first-order language
> > > > in which predicates cannot also be arguments to other
> > > > predicates, then of course there will be loss of expressivity.
> > >
> > > If one interpreted this as saying that there are no higher order
> > > properties, then surely that would be an ontological implication.
> >
> > Surely it would not; it would be a logical howler. From the
> > inability to say there are Xs nothing whatever follows about the
> > existence or nonexistence of Xs.
>
> I think you are being a little disingenuous here. (04)
Well, what I said might be wrong, but it was certainly not disingenuous. (05)
> If you say:
>
> a) FOL is an excellent tool for describing ontologies
> b) You have the "usual sort of first-order language in which predicates
> cannot also be arguments to other predicates".
> c) Properties are described using predicates.
>
> AND
>
> d) A significant number of the properties are properties of properties.
>
> This would seem a bit odd, as one could not describe the d) properties -
> seemly inconsistent with a). (06)
Well, ok, but it seems to me you have presented a very different
scenario. You originally spoke of a situation where someone simply
inferred that there are no properties of properties from the fact that
traditional first-order language do not permit predicates to be
arguments to other predicates. That's all I was responding to. (07)
> Of course, if no-one was claiming a), that FOL was any good for
> describing ontologies, then there would be no seeming inconsistency,
> but I thought that is what was being claimed here. (08)
I'm afraid I'm getting a little lost as to what was claimed where. I
just saw what looked like a bad argument. Sorry if I missed some of the
back story. (09)
> Anyway, the point seems to be that it is b) that gives in the current
> scheme of things. That is one does NOT have the "usual sort of
> first-order language in which predicates cannot also be arguments to
> other predicates". I have no argument with this. (010)
Ok then. (011)
-chris (012)
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