[ontolog-forum] Concepts (Psychology)

[Simon Spero <sesuncedu@xxxxxxxxx>]

The significance of Rosch's work was that it was empirical,  uncovering surprising results, and suggested a model that accounted for many of the observed phenomena.

There are other models of Concepts that account for overlapping  phenomena; all have strengths and weaknesses.

A good overview of the field can be found in Murphy, G. L. (2004). The big book of concepts. MIT press.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/big-book-concepts

The final chapter is titled "Anti-summary and Conclusions"!

Murphy's homepage is
http://psych.nyu.edu/murphy/

I would also recommend reading "The Linguistics Wars" for a better understanding of both Lakoff and Chomsky .

http://www.amazon.com/Linguistics-Wars-Randy-Allen-Harris/dp/019509834X

Simon

On Jul 21, 2014 9:07 PM, "Chris Mungall" <cjmungall@xxxxxxx> wrote:

As I recall the book makes a persuasive case that prototype theory is a
good model for how humans categorize things in their world.

Regardless of its validity as a piece of cognitive science (something
I'm not qualified to comment on), prototype-based reasoning is underused
as a tool for ontology-related information systems, at least as far as
mainstream ontology applications are concerned. Current methods rely on
domain experts or knowledge engineers abstracting a variety of
observations into a system of axioms that can be used downstream for
deductive reasoning. This can lead to rigidity, bottlenecks, etc.

An alternative is to reason directly from instance data, using
alternatives such as inductive and analogical reasoning, often with some
strong probabilistic component. I like John's summary here:
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/analog.htm and the analogical reasoning
system described sounds intriguing. But unfortunately tools and
standards in this area don't appear to be as mature.

Apologies if this has been discussed to death on this forum before.

On 21 Jul 2014, at 15:57, Bruce Schuman wrote:

> Hi People --
>
>
>
> Just wondering if anybody is familiar with George Lakoff, or has any
> strong
> opinions on his work.
>
>
>
> I came across his "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things" when it was
> first
> published, in the mid-1980's, when he was flush with the creative
> energy at
> UC Berkeley, particularly under the influence of Eleanor Rosch and her
> theory or prototypes.
>
>
>
> I'm looking at it again.  It's a powerful sophisticated highly
> detailed and
> substantial book -- and the entire 631 pages are available in a pretty
> good
> .pdf scan at
>
>
>
> http://originresearch.com/docs/George-Lakoff-Women-Fire-and-Dangerous-Things
> .pdf
>
>
>
> "Prototypes" are an empirical and statistical way of looking at words
> and
> categories.  Is there such a thing as a "chair" -- and some things
> that are
> chairs are more "chair-like" than others?  Is a "chicken" a "bird"?
> Is a
> penguin?  Is a robin more "birdlike" than a penguin?
>
>
>
> Lakoff's discussion is not simplistic, and he acknowledges a wide
> range of
> perspectives.    I am looking at the book again not so much because I
> am
> interested in this prototypical perspective as because his review of
> the
> field seems very well-informed and comprehensive.  It's a great study
> of the
> field.
>
>
>
> It seems that much of what Lakoff has done with his career --
> particularly
> as illustrated in the books he has written since this earlier work --
> could
> be understood as a reaction against what he calls the "classical" view
> -- of
> a disembodied logic, that he thinks he sees in the work of computer
> scientists.
>
>
>

>> From my point of view, Lakoff's rebellion is not without cause - but

>> his
> answer is no better.  We need an "integral" model based on the
> classical
> view, in a form that recognizes and incorporates the points raised by
> other
> perspectives.
>
>
>
> Lakoff says (below)
>
>
>
> In summary, reason is not, in any way, a transcendent feature of the
> universe or of disembodied mind. Instead, it is shaped crucially by
> the
> peculiarities of our human bodies, by the remarkable details of the
> neural
> structure of our brains, and by the specifics of our everyday
> functioning in
> the world.
>
>
>
> Does "2 +2 = 4" have its roots in neurology and "embodied mind -- or
> is that
> logic "independent of the flesh"?
>
>
>
> Some people on this list have roots that extend way back into the
> historical
> beginnings of computer science -- so maybe this argument, which for me
> is
> still very much alive, might prompt some comments.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
>
>
> ***************************
>
>
>
> Here's an excerpt from Chapter 1 of a more recent book that shows the
> direction his thought has gone.
>
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/lakoff-philosophy.html
>
>
>
> Philosophy in the Flesh
>
> The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought
>
>
>
>
>
> How Cognitive Science Reopens
>
> Central Philosophical Questions
>
>
>
> The mind is inherently embodied.
>
>
>
> Thought is mostly unconscious.
>
>
>
> Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.
>
>
>
> These are three major findings of cognitive science. More than two
> millennia
> of a priori philosophical speculation about these aspects of reason
> are
> over. Because of these discoveries, philosophy can never be the same
> again.
>
>
>
> When taken together and considered in detail, these three findings
> from the
> science of the mind are inconsistent with central parts of Western
> philosophy. They require a thorough rethinking of the most popular
> current
> approaches, namely, Anglo-American analytic philosophy and
> postmodernist
> philosophy.
>
>
>
> This book asks: What would happen if we started with these empirical
> discoveries about the nature of mind and constructed philosophy anew?
> The
> answer is that an empirically responsible philosophy would require our
> culture to abandon some of its deepest philosophical assumptions. This
> book
> is an extensive study of what many of those changes would be in
> detail.
>
>
>
> Our understanding of what the mind is matters deeply. Our most basic
> philosophical beliefs are tied inextricably to our view of reason.
> Reason
> has been taken for over two millennia as the defining characteristic
> of
> human beings. Reason includes not only our capacity for logical
> inference,
> but also our ability to conduct inquiry, to solve problems, to
> evaluate, to
> criticize, to deliberate about how we should act, and to reach an
> understanding of ourselves, other people, and the world. A radical
> change in
> our understanding of reason is therefore a radical change in our
> understanding of ourselves. It is surprising to discover, on the basis
> of
> empirical research, that human rationality is not at all what the
> Western
> philosophical tradition has held it to be. But it is shocking to
> discover
> that we are very different from what our philosophical tradition has
> told us
> we are.
>
>
>
> Let us start with the changes in our understanding of reason:
>
>
>
>
>
> * Reason is not disembodied, as the tradition has largely held, but
> arises
> from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily experience. This is
> not
> just the innocuous and obvious claim that we need a body to reason;
> rather,
> it is the striking claim that the very structure of reason itself
> comes from
> the details of our embodiment. The same neural and cognitive
> mechanisms that
> allow us to perceive and move around also create our conceptual
> systems and
> modes of reason. Thus, to understand reason we must understand the
> details
> of our visual system, our motor system, and the general mechanisms of
> neural
> binding. In summary, reason is not, in any way, a transcendent feature
> of
> the universe or of disembodied mind. Instead, it is shaped crucially
> by the
> peculiarities of our human bodies, by the remarkable details of the
> neural
> structure of our brains, and by the specifics of our everyday
> functioning in
> the world.
>
> * Reason is evolutionary, in that abstract reason builds on and makes
> use of
> forms of perceptual and motor inference present in "lower" animals.
> The
> result is a Darwinism of reason, a rational Darwinism: Reason, even in
> its
> most abstract form, makes use of, rather than transcends, our animal
> nature.
> The discovery that reason is evolutionary utterly changes our relation
> to
> other animals and changes our conception of human beings as uniquely
> rational. Reason is thus not an essence that separates us from other
> animals; rather, it places us on a continuum with them.
>
> * Reason is not "universal" in the transcendent sense; that is, it is
> not
> part of the structure of the universe. It is universal, however, in
> that it
> is a capacity shared universally by all human beings. What allows it
> to be
> shared are the commonalities that exist in the way our minds are
> embodied.
>
> * Reason is not completely conscious, but mostly unconscious.
>
> * Reason is not purely literal, but largely metaphorical and
> imaginative.
>
> * Reason is not dispassionate, but emotionally engaged.
>
>
>
> This shift in our understanding of reason is of vast proportions, and
> it
> entails a corresponding shift in our understanding of what we are as
> human
> beings. What we now know about the mind is radically at odds with the
> major
> classical philosophical views of what a person is.
>
>
>
> For example, there is no Cartesian dualistic person, with a mind
> separate
> from and independent of the body, sharing exactly the same disembodied
> transcendent reason with everyone else, and capable of knowing
> everything
> about his or her mind simply by self-reflection. Rather, the mind is
> inherently embodied, reason is shaped by the body, and since most
> thought is
> unconscious, the mind cannot be known simply by self-reflection.
> Empirical
> study is necessary.
>
>
>
> There exists no Kantian radically autonomous person, with absolute
> freedom
> and a transcendent reason that correctly dictates what is and isn't
> moral.
> Reason, arising from the body, doesn't transcend the body. What
> universal
> aspects of reason there are arise from the commonalities of our bodies
> and
> brains and the environments we inhabit. The existence of these
> universals
> does not imply that reason transcends the body. Moreover, since
> conceptual
> systems vary significantly, reason is not entirely universal.
>
>
>
> Since reason is shaped by the body, it is not radically free, because
> the
> possible human conceptual systems and the possible forms of reason are
> limited. In addition, once we have learned a conceptual system, it is
> neurally instantiated in our brains and we are not free to think just
> anything. Hence, we have no absolute freedom in Kant's sense, no full
> autonomy. There is no a priori, purely philosophical basis for a
> universal
> concept of morality and no transcendent, universal pure reason that
> could
> give rise to universal moral laws.
>
>
>
> The utilitarian person, for whom rationality is economic
> rationality--the
> maximization of utility--does not exist. Real human beings are not,
> for the
> most part, in conscious control of--or even consciously aware
> of--their
> reasoning. Most of their reason, besides, is based on various kinds of
> prototypes, framings, and metaphors. People seldom engage in a form of
> economic reason that could maximize utility.
>
>
>
> The phenomenological person, who through phenomenological
> introspection
> alone can discover everything there is to know about the mind and the
> nature
> of experience, is a fiction. Although we can have a theory of a vast,
> rapidly and automatically operating cognitive unconscious, we have no
> direct
> conscious access to its operation and therefore to most of our
> thought.
> Phenomenological reflection, though valuable in revealing the
> structure of
> experience, must be supplemented by empirical research into the
> cognitive
> unconscious.
>
>
>
> There is no poststructuralist person--no completely decentered subject
> for
> whom all meaning is arbitrary, totally relative, and purely
> historically
> contingent, unconstrained by body and brain. The mind is not merely
> embodied, but embodied in such a way that our conceptual systems draw
> largely upon the commonalities of our bodies and of the environments
> we live
> in. The result is that much of a person's conceptual system is either
> universal or widespread across languages and cultures. Our conceptual
> systems are not totally relative and not merely a matter of historical
> contingency, even though a degree of conceptual relativity does exist
> and
> even though historical contingency does matter a great deal. The
> grounding
> of our conceptual systems in shared embodiment and bodily experience
> creates
> a largely centered self, but not a monolithic self.
>
>
>
> There exists no Fregean person--as posed by analytic philosophy--for
> whom
> thought has been extruded from the body. That is, there is no real
> person
> whose embodiment plays no role in meaning, whose meaning is purely
> objective
> and defined by the external world, and whose language can fit the
> external
> world with no significant role played by mind, brain, or body. Because
> our
> conceptual systems grow out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and
> through our bodies. Because a vast range of our concepts are
> metaphorical,
> meaning is not entirely literal and the classical correspondence
> theory of
> truth is false. The correspondence theory holds that statements are
> true or
> false objectively, depending on how they map directly onto the
> world--independent of any human understanding of either the statement
> or the
> world. On the contrary, truth is mediated by embodied understanding
> and
> imagination. That does not mean that truth is purely subjective or
> that
> there is no stable truth. Rather, our common embodiment allows for
> common,
> stable truths.
>
>
>
> There is no such thing as a computational person, whose mind is like
> computer software, able to work on any suitable computer or neural
> hardware--whose mind somehow derives meaning from taking meaningless
> symbols
> as input, manipulating them by rule, and giving meaningless symbols as
> output. Real people have embodied minds whose conceptual systems arise
> from,
> are shaped by, and are given meaning through living human bodies. The
> neural
> structures of our brains produce conceptual systems and linguistic
> structures that cannot be adequately accounted for by formal systems
> that
> only manipulate symbols.
>
>
>
> Finally, there is no Chomskyan person, for whom language is pure
> syntax,
> pure form insulated from and independent of all meaning, context,
> perception, emotion, memory, attention, action, and the dynamic nature
> of
> communication. Moreover, human language is not a totally genetic
> innovation.
> Rather, central aspects of language arise evolutionarily from sensory,
> motor, and other neural systems that are present in "lower" animals.
>
>
>
> Classical philosophical conceptions of the person have stirred our
> imaginations and taught us a great deal. But once we understand the
> importance of the cognitive unconscious, the embodiment of mind, and
> metaphorical thought, we can never go back to a priori philosophizing
> about
> mind and language or to philosophical ideas of what a person is that
> are
> inconsistent with what we are learning about the mind.
>
>
>
> Given our new understanding of the mind, the question of what a human
> being
> is arises for us anew in the most urgent way.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Bruce Schuman
>
> (805) 966-9515, PO Box 23346, Santa Barbara CA 93101
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F
> Sowa
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 3:26 PM
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Paraconsistent Logic
>
>
>
> On 7/15/2014 6:02 PM, Philip Jackson wrote:
>
>> Googling "paraconsistent logic applications" returns 69,300 results
>> --
>
>> the first is a book titled "Paraconsistency: Logic and Applications".
>
>
>
> Thanks for the reference.  It confirms my suspicions.
>
>
>
> The articles in that book are written by logicians and philosophers.
>
> What they call "applications" are not the kind that make a profit for
> investors.
>
>
>
> I'm sympathetic to those ideas.  But it's important to distinguish
> applications that depend on grants from applications that people will
> pay
> money to use.
>
>
>
> John
>
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