On 12/18/2012 10:37 PM, Pat Hayes wrote:
> My objection is to the very idea that these questions are in
> any sense "foundational". They are indeed obscure, hard to decide,
> and rest upon very fragile intuitions. But they are not foundational
> in the sense that anything important rests upon them or depends on
> getting them right. They are, in fact, almost completely irrelevant
> to any matter of concern to practical ontology design, and can
> (and should) be ignored, unless one has far too much time to waste. (01)
I completely agree. I have been trying to say that in several
different ways, but the point just doesn't get across. (02)
> It is not an architectural decision at all: more like a decision
> about what color smoke to blow up the chimney. (03)
Actually, I would claim that the smoke question is more significant
because it has some observable effects in the real world. (04)
> Here is one way to decide the matter: anything that can be described
> or referred to is, ipso facto, an individual. And of things that cannot
> be described or named, we must be silent. (05)
If you want to say that formally, you can add the following axiom
to your ontology: (06)
(Ax)isIndividual(x). (07)
Since this axiom is trivially true of everything in the ontology,
it is totally useless. But it has the advantage of making its lack
of utility completely formal -- if anyone cares about such things. (08)
John (09)
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