May I enquire of fellow
Ontologgers what ontologies (metaphysical) they embrace? Surely they lead to interestingly different
ontologies (computational) and different theories of meaning.
Watching the “person, boy,
man” game from the touchline I wondered by what ontological (m not c) rules do
the participant play? Surely those basic assumptions would illuminate their
discussions.
I favour a kind of actualism
that recognises as existing only things that a responsible agent can perceive
here and now as affordances, which are invariant repertoires of behaviour
(following James Gibson’s Theory of Affordances). This suits my temperament as an engineer. An agent may be an individual or an
institution. An affordance usually
depends for its existence upon the coexistence of some ontological antecedents
(these carry role names linked to the relevant affordance). A community may confer personhood on either
and take it away. Social norms also determine the existence of childhood and
adulthood and even womanhood (American history interesting on this point). Variant universal affordances are shared as
perceptual norms over various, particular communities, whose social norms also supply
the authorities governing the starts and finishes of affordances, both
universal and particular.
Ontologies (m) that presume
the existence of 3 or 4 dimensions lead to ontologies (c) quite different from
actualist ontological dependency schemas.
Ordinary linear time, for example is a sophisticated construct from the
labels of the starts and finishes of affordances; starts and finishes cannot be
examined in the here-and-now because they are always in the past or the future,
so we only know them as signs /records of them and their relationships. Topology tells us about spaces that afford
one different kinds of routes and access between places, including different
dimensions.
Other ontologies (m) have no
place for responsibility as a basic notion, they may employ truth instead but,
from this actualist point of view, an abstract notion of truth must be
constructed socially until it becomes a believably useful abstraction. Powerful abstractions that help to simplify
our world models are not rejected: but they do need to be explained.
Regards,
Ronald