Hmm. Thank you. Perhaps I didn't express the idea very well. Maybe what I was trying to say has to do with whatever differences there are between "the sciences" and "the liberal arts" -- presuming that "philosophy" is a liberal art -- and that perhaps the very definition of a "liberal art" is that its definitions tend to contain inherent ambiguities -- cascading definition-chains (interpretations) that terminate in unclear or ambiguous or "alternatively-interpretable" concepts (which inevitably lead to disagreements about particulars – since “the devil is in the details”). I would tend to say that removing this inherent ambiguity is one of the great tasks of philosophy.
I see this all the time in the world where I live -- that the disciplines of strict computer science or formal logic are not well-understood by scholars working in what might be called "soft" areas (maybe we would say that the stricter disciplines have not “propagated” to the liberal arts). I see this as a "fragmentation of the disciplines" -- where this issue of developing a strict (unambiguous) definition chain from a high-level abstraction to concrete particulars is simply not possible -- because of the language in which the abstractions are initially expressed – “intuitive” rather than “strictly constructed”. I tend to call those kinds of concepts “floating variables” – “floating” because in the end, they are a matter of opinion and some “school of thought” – generally grounded in a personality with followers, rather than a strict body of principles that a diverse community of scholars or scientists can follow in a reliable way – such as, for example, the periodic table of the elements in chemistry.
I see subject areas like "hermeneutics" or "semiotics" as examples -- which look to me like attempts to create scientific or strict interpretations of abstractions, but without the benefit of a well-grounded precision -- the way a biologist might ground ideas in chemistry, which in turn might be grounded in physics. In my own history, I was interested in the interpretation of broad abstractions, like those considered in hermeneutics. But I took a critical and skeptical view of their methods, convinced that their approach would never lead to “reliable and trustworthy results” – so, without changing the subject matter (deep intuition and holistic thinking) my methods migrated to computer science.
The Wikipedia comments on Schleiermacher illustrate this issue. “Hermeneutics is the art of avoiding misunderstanding”. An art, not a science. So – at some point, I would say, this task of “translating” the broadly intuitive (and perhaps fuzzy) ideas of the liberal arts into precisely unambiguous scientific definitions has still not been accomplished.
Can it ever be accomplished? I would say that philosophers who trace their roots back to imaginative visionaries like Ramon Lull are keeping that possibility alive. “It’s not impossible, it just hasn’t happened yet.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaneutics#Schleiermacher_.281768.E2.80.931834.29
Schleiermacher (1768–1834)
Friedrich Schleiermacher explored the nature of understanding in relation not just to the problem of deciphering sacred texts but to all human texts and modes of communication.
The interpretation of a text must proceed by framing its content in terms of the overall organization of the work. Schleiermacher distinguished between grammatical interpretation and psychological interpretation. The former studies how a work is composed from general ideas; the latter studies the peculiar combinations that characterize the work as a whole. He said that every problem of interpretation is a problem of understanding and even defined hermeneutics as the art of avoiding misunderstanding. Misunderstanding was to be avoided by means of knowledge of grammatical and psychological laws.
During Schleiermacher's time, a fundamental shift occurred from understanding not merely the exact words and their objective meaning, to an understanding of the writer's distinctive character and point of view.
Dilthey (1833–1911)
Wilhelm Dilthey broadened hermeneutics even more by relating interpretation to historical objectification. Understanding moves from the outer manifestations of human action and productivity to the exploration of their inner meaning. In his last important essay, "The Understanding of Other Persons and Their Manifestations of Life" (1910), Dilthey made clear that this move from outer to inner, from _expression_ to what is expressed, is not based on empathy. Empathy involves a direct identification with the Other. Interpretation involves an indirect or mediated understanding that can only be attained by placing human expressions in their historical context. Thus, understanding is not a process of reconstructing the state of mind of the author, but one of articulating what is expressed in his work.
We might be talking about different things here – but your concluding comment relates to my broader concern with “translating philosophy” (or holistic intuition) into science. The question that concerns me might be a bit off topic for most participants in this list, but my primary question is “How do we avoid misunderstanding – in ‘human to human’ communication?”
John:
When you are forced to take every feature of every sentence into account, you must really be precise. After you do that, ask somebody else who had not read the original to translate your notation back to English. Then ask a third party to compare the two. That would be significant.
All that summarizing is far less valuable than being able to represent one page precisely -- in a way that another person could reconstruct the original meaning.
http://history-computer.com/Library/Peirce.pdf
Bruce
> I'd say she [Ayn Rand] figured this stuff out before the days of
> computer science, when the subject [abstraction] was still pretty
> blurry.
John:
> No. The foundations of computer science (logic, set theory, automata theory, recursive functions,
> lambda abstractions, decidability, computability, production rules,
> etc.) were developed in depth in the late 19th and early 20th century.
> By 1940 -- several years before the first electronic computers
> those details were thoroughly analyzed and published.
> In fact, C. S. Peirce published a paper on "Logical Machines" in
> 1887 in the _American Journal of Psychology_. He discussed the mechanical
> machines by Babbage and the mechanical machines for doing Boolean reasoning.
> Around the same time, he wrote to one of the designers of those machines and recommended electrical
> circuits instead of mechanical linkages, and he included circuit designs for AND and OR.
> See
> http://history-computer.com/Library/Peirce.pdf
>
> In the conclusion, Peirce compared the logical machines to the Jacquard looms.
> That was significant because the punched cards used to control the Jacquard loom
> also inspired Hollerith to design punched card machines to tabulate the 1890 census.
Bruce Schuman
NETWORK NATION: http://networknation.net
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-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F Sowa
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 9:49 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] FW: mKR2IKL
Bruce and Dick,
Bruce
> I'd say she [Ayn Rand] figured this stuff out before the days of of
> computer science, when the subject [abstraction] was still pretty
> blurry.
No. The foundations of computer science (logic, set theory, automata theory, recursive functions, lambda abstractions, decidability, computability, production rules, etc.) were developed in depth in the late 19th and early 20th century.
By 1940 -- several years before the first electronic computers
-- those details were thoroughly analyzed and published.
In fact, C. S. Peirce published a paper on "Logical Machines" in
1887 in the _American Journal of Psychology_. He discussed the mechanical machines by Babbage and the mechanical machines for doing Boolean reasoning. Around the same time, he wrote to one of the designers of those machines and recommended electrical circuits instead of mechanical linkages, and he included circuit designs for AND and OR. See
http://history-computer.com/Library/Peirce.pdf
In the conclusion, Peirce compared the logical machines to the Jacquard looms. That was significant because the punched cards used to control the Jacquard loom also inspired Hollerith to design punched card machines to tabulate the 1890 census.
Dick
> I have explained the meaning of "::" several times previously.
>
> proposition name :: proposition
If you want to give a name to a proposition, then give it a name like p or q. The following names just create confusion:
> Consciousness :: I am conscious.
> Existence :: Existence exists.
> Existence :: entity, characteristic, proposition isa existent;
> Identity :: existent has characteristic;
In each case, the name on the left is an English word whose meaning is related to the proposition on the right in a different way.
That is definitely not helpful.
> I summarize the many pages where she talks about...
Don't summarize "many pages". Just take *one page* and translate every English sentence as precisely as possible to your notation.
When you are forced to take every feature of every sentence into account, you must really be precise. After you do that, ask somebody else who had not read the original to translate your notation back to English. Then ask a third party to compare the two. That would be significant.
All that summarizing is far less valuable than being able to represent one page precisely -- in a way that another person could reconstruct the original meaning.
John
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