Thanks, Chris, John, Todd, David for your clarifications. I apologize for not
going over the CL spec more closely. Now I see what I missed. (01)
I come from more of a formal natural language semantics background, where
intensionality and intensional logics nearly always leads one into modal logic,
and with that, possible worlds semantics. See, e.g.: (02)
Gamut, L.T.F. 1991. Logic, Language, and Meaning, Volume 2: Intensional Logic
and Logical Grammar. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London.
(L.T.F. Gamut is a collective fictitious name for Dutch logicians and linguists
Johan van Benthem, Jeroen Groenendijk, Dick de Jongh, Martin Stokhof and Henk
Verkuyl, along the lines of Nicolas Bourbaki). (03)
So I am always rather surprised to see a non-modal FOL that addresses
intensions. (04)
Thanks,
Leo (05)
-----Original Message-----
From: cl-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cl-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of John F. Sowa
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2010 10:43 AM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Discussion of ISO Common Logic Standard (ISO/IEC 24707)
Subject: Re: [CL] [ontolog-forum] [ontology-summit] FW: [ontolog-invitation]
Invitation to a brainstorming call for the 2011 Ontology Summit (06)
Chris and David, (07)
This discussion illustrates problems that we should address in
(a) a revised version of the CL standard, and (b) CL tutorials. (08)
CM:
> I'm not sure it is possible, when discussing any technical subject
> matter informally, to avoid saying things that might be confusing
> for people who don't bother to study and learn the subject matter
> in question. (09)
I agree. But ISO standards are not intended as tutorials, and
they should avoid extraneous material. (010)
CM:
> Well, I was talking to Leo, who's really smart and not prone
> to confusion. (011)
Leo is the kind of person for whom the CL standard was written,
but even he was not clear about whether the word 'class' is an
official technical term in Common Logic. It's a bad sign when
people in the intended audience are misled. (012)
DP:
> Leo may be a smart guy... but I'm a reader too & am most
> decidedly NOT in his class. (013)
I assume no pun on 'class' was intended. (014)
DP:
> For instance... I have no idea what "tuples" (much less "n-tuples")
> are, nor "classes." How many dictionaries do I have to check?... (015)
Another word for 'tuple' is 'sequence', and an n-tuple is a sequence
of n items. Other terms are 'list' or 'vector'. In database theory,
a 'tuple' is another term for a row in a table. (016)
CM:
> Well, of course, no one knows what those things are absent either
> definitions or reasonably complete axiomatizations. (017)
Yes indeed. But any definitions that are not needed for the ISO
standard should not be included in the ISO standard. (018)
CM:
> ... there is probably a need for some "gentler" introductions to CL
> that could be very useful to practitioners. (019)
Yes. The probability is 1.00000000 -- but it has to be written as
a separate book, not by throwing a few comments into the standard. (020)
JFS:
>> The word 'property' is another technical-sounding word that
>> is not used in CL. (021)
CM:
> I'd suggest it be added, defined simply to be an object whose
> relation extension contains only objects, not n-tuples. (022)
Introducing properties and objects into CL would lead to ontological
mush. Those terms and many others (attributes, characteristics,
universals, particulars, abstract-particulars, etc.) have been
kicked around for millennia in confused and confusing ways. (023)
I suggest that you look up those words in your favorite English
dictionary. In Longman's, the most relevant of 9 word senses
for 'property' is "5. A quality, power, or effect that belongs
naturally to something." (024)
In M-W 9th Collegiate, 'property' has 3 major senses, with 9
variations. The most relevant are special cases of sense 1:
"1a: quality or trait...", "1b: an effect...", "1c: VIRTUE 3",
"1d: an attribute common to all members of a class." (025)
Since you were talking about classes, I would guess that you
had sense 1d in mind. So we can go to 'attribute', where we
find another bunch of word senses, including "a characteristic".
If we then go to 'characteristic', we find that it is defined,
among other things, as a trait, quality, or property. (026)
If you want to see more ontological mush, I suggest that you
look up the words 'class' and 'object' and follow the words
in their definitions. I'm not blaming the lexicographers --
they're just reporting common usage. (027)
JFS:
> Since CL semantics does not have classes... (028)
CM:
> Well, I disagree with your saying that without qualification.
> It is most certainly the case that relation extensions of
> some objects in an interpretation can be restricted to classes. (029)
Of course. All that could be defined, but there are systems
that define such things in different ways in different terms.
The goal of CL is to support an open-ended variety of formalisms
in a way that is as ontologically neutral as possible. (030)
In short, we need two things: (a) a revised CL standard, and
(b) a gentler introduction in book form (possibly more than one). (031)
John
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