On Feb 9, 2010, at 4:36 AM, Ian Bailey wrote:
> Hi Chris (M),
>
> You wrote:
>
>> I have to say again, I don't think there's much practical upshot here.
>> Seems pretty unlikely to me that any real world ontology is going to be
>> interested in declaring that there exists some specific finite number of
>> things.
>
> I may have missed the context of this statement, but it seems rather at odds
> with my experience. Singleton and doubleton classes are not that unusual in
> ontology, and their membership is finite. (01)
Of course, but I am not denying that. I am not saying it is unusual for an
ontology to say such things as "There are exactly N Fs", e.g., "There are
exactly 100 US Senators". I am saying it would be unusual for an ontology to
say "There are exactly N things", PERIOD; that is, it would be weird for an
ontology to specify precisely the number of things, of any kind whatever, that
exist in the (relevant) universe. (02)
-chris (03)
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