Dear Pre-post-moderns,
We can indeed agree that an ontology that
approximates reality (in a certain set of contexts) is VERY useful. And
that’s all we need right now.
We’ll leave perfection to God (or an
approximation thereof) and to the software engineers inclined in that
direction.
So let’s move to post-post-modern
and realize that the context-dependence of our discourse is important and of
great value – and cannot stop us from solving problems like making money
or keeping a job.
(By the way, there’s a new novel by
Nabokov soon... Maybe we’ll have to change our ideas about
everything?)
Oz
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Godfrey Rust
Sent: Friday, 30 October, 2009
2:30 PM
To: Bill Andersen; [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Just
What Is an Ontology, Anyway?
I agree with your conclusion on agreement. What I was
objecting to, really, was what I perceived to be another straw man argument,
because I hardly think there is anyone on this forum who argues against the possibility
of ontology - plenty of argument about the nature and usefulness (and
otherwise) of it.
I note Chris Menzel's latest contribution to this thread,
and Sean Barker's separate discussion to Matthew West on reality, and they seem
to me to be about much same thing. Most of us believe there are
"real" things, and we make assumptions about them, about which we
agree or disagree. Ontology is both about "reality" and our way of
talking about it. There may be a few diehard postmoderns (from whom Chris
Menzel disassociates himself, and I would guess everyone else in this
particular set of exchanges?) who believe there is no external reality but
only our views of it, but in using their ontologies they will still
find themselves engaged in negotiating agreement or disagreement over whether
they share a common view of unreality with anyone else, so it seems to amount
to the same thing in practice.