John, could you give a couple of examples of Peircean triads, as the
concepts are not intuitive for me, and perhaps some others. (01)
-----Original Message-----
From: John F Sowa
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 1:36 PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What is Data? What is a Datum? 2013-01-09-0930 (02)
Sjir, (03)
> I would just have said that a datum is a proposition that is taken to
> be, or asserted to be, true. The context for that role is any context
> in which the proposition is taken to be true. (04)
I agree. (05)
I would also add that not all data is propositional. For example,
the list of names and numbers in a telephone book consists of paired
instances of two kinds of data. Each pair becomes a proposition
when the instances are inserted in an appropriate schema: (06)
"The person named _________ has the telephone number ________." (07)
And of course, all phone books contain errors at the moment they're
printed. Over time, the errors increase until a new phone book is
issued. A computerized phone book can be updated more quickly,
but it still contains inevitable errors. (08)
More generally, every kind of data is some kind of sign. My two-way
distinction of natural type and role type, which I wrote in 1984,
is a special case of Peirce's much more detailed semiotics. Since
then, I have studied and used his distinctions more systematically. (09)
For example, Peirce's widely quoted type-token distinction is actually
two thirds of a triad: (010)
1. A *mark* is anything observable. It might be interpreted
in an open-ended number of ways by different observers
for different reasons. (011)
2. A *token* is a particular interpretation of a mark. (012)
3. A *type* is general pattern that some sentient being
(human, animal, plant, robot, alien, God, angel, ...)
uses for some reason to interpret a mark as a token. (013)
This triad leads to my preferred definition of ontology: (014)
A semiotic system for interpreting marks as tokens
of various types. (015)
This definition provides more guidance than just saying
"Ontology is the study of existence." It also avoids
the more problematical term 'conceptualization'. (016)
John (017)
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