Pat & All: (01)
Sorry for being AWOL on this for a while ... (02)
Pat Hayes wrote:
> At 11:44 AM -0400 5/11/08, rick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> John, Pat, Chris & All:
>>
>> Over the past few months I've been a bit of a bookworm trying to better
>> understand interpretation and meaning. I have a few questions about a)
>> RDF and CL interpretations and b) what Jospeh Goguen called "a
>> relational theory of meaning" here ...
>>
>> http://cse.ucsd.edu/~goguen/pps/notn.ps
>>
>> Many thanks in advance for your time in answering my questions.
>>
>>
>> The RDF semantics states a) that it restricts meaning to what "can be
>> captured in mechanical inference rules" and b) that equates a particular
>> world with an interpretation.
>
> The RDF semantics document tried to be both a standards specification
> and an informal tutorial in the basic ideas of model theory, which in
> retrospect was probably a bad idea. Calling an interpretation a 'world'
> was part of the attempt to be tutorial. Model theory of course describes
> these 'worlds' mathematically, which succeeds because only a tiny part
> of the actual structure of the world is relevant to the truth of formal
> logical sentences, i.e. to model theory. (03)
Well, I got something out of it and it gave me a bit of a foothold on
some hard stuff, so thanks. (04)
>>
>> Is it fair to say that vocabularies that satisfy interpretations under
>> RDF and CL allow us to extend meaning with to what Goguen called
>> representational and relational theories or meaning. For example, in a
>> semiotic vocabulary in which various signs without interpretants could
>> satisfy a representational theory of meaning, Then interpretants could
>> satisfy for relational theory of meaning?
>
> Sorry, I have no idea what you are asking here. (05)
Sorry, I didn't form the question very well. Let me take another shot at
it. The way I understand Tarski's semantic conception of truth is that
it defines truth as material adequacy, but that says nothing about
meaning. In fact, Tarski says that in the paper and you (Pat) also say
that in the RDF semantics document. (06)
What Goguen says in "On Notation" is that representation is insufficient
to establish meaning. A representational theory (object and sign) is
missing two legs in the triangle of signification. Meaning requires both
representation and interpretation and this is what Goguen calls that the
relational theory of meaning. (07)
Actually, he's not alone. I just read a new paper from Scott Soames that
surveys truth and meaning since Tarski. Soames refutes Davidson's
attempt to derive a theory of meaning from Tarski's Semantic Conception
of Truth and, like Goguen, he concludes that meaning implies interpretation. (08)
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~soames/forthcoming_papers/Truth_and_Meaning.pdf (09)
So, a while back I started to represent Peirce's "On a New list of
Categories" in OWL with the intent of providing an RDF vocabulary that
allowed an ontologist to specify meaning based on a relational theory.
Assuming the RDF vocabulary based on Peirce's Categories does establish
meaning as I claim, my observation is that meaning is still independent
of truth as defined by the RDF semantics. In other words, it's only by
the convention and the knowledge of the ontologist that meaning is
established. Meaning remains independent of RDF model theory and there's
nothing in let's say the Tableaux algorithms running in a description
logic reasoner that makes something meaningful. (010)
So, I guess additional work is required to develop a model theory that
incorporates meaning and truth. The structural characteristics - the
three nodes and three legs of a triangle implied by this relational
theory of meaning - would have to be incorporated into the RDFS
Interpretations (Sec 4.1). Anything beyond the structural
characteristics of the triangle is the semiotic domain expressed in this
and other Peirce manuscripts. As his theory extends well beyond this
early manuscript, the domain specification would be extensive. The good
news is, even in his later manuscripts, he's always working in 3s. And
seeing as the revisions to the model theory require only three nodes and
three edges, the changes in the model theory would remain small. (011)
Sorry, I guess this isn't as much a question at this point as much as it
is a hunch on my part. So, thanks for taking the time to read this and
hope you all can share your thoughts. (012)
> Pat
>
>>
>> Again, many thanks in advance !
>>
>>>
>>> John Sowa
>>>
>>>
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>>
>> --
>> Thanks Rick,
>> blog http://spout.rickmurphy.org
>> web http://www.rickmurphy.org
>> cell 703-201-9129
>>
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>
> (013)
--
Thanks Rick,
blog http://phaneron.rickmurphy.org
web http://www.rickmurphy.org
cell 703-201-9129 (014)
--
Thanks Rick,
blog http://phaneron.rickmurphy.org
web http://www.rickmurphy.org
cell 703-201-9129 (015)
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