I agree, Tom. To me, metaphysics precedes logic and semantics (and I speak as a semanticist and ontologist). It’s impossible to avoid metaphysics, and if you
do or try, you end up with a naïve metaphysics which you are probably not even aware of. Logic and semantics are useful tools, respectively, for stating/representing (relatively) unambiguously the notions from metaphysics (and formal ontology), and for discovering
regularities about how humans ascertain and understand the world by using language.
Thanks,
Leo
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Thomas Johnston
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 1:17 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Some Comments on Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Ontologies.
You said: "I am always surprised that aligning an ontology with how
we speak about the world rather than with how the world is is something we seem to seek to do, but I am an engineer, not a linguist."
Seeing "how the world is" rather than just "how we speak about the world" is a program that drove Philosophy from the time of Plato into
the early 20th century. In Continental Philosophy, Husserl's bracketing was an attempt to do just that, and his greatest student, Heidegger, repudiated it. In Analytic Philosophy, the latter Wittgenstein repudiated the picture theory of meaning which was part
of his Tractatus logical atomism, and no one has picked it up since. Richard Rorty wrote extensively about out inability to obtain a "God's eye" view of things, and Wilfred Sellars described what he called "the myth of the given". Quine's semantic holism,
arising out of his demolishment of the analytic/synthetic distinction, was another nail in the coffin of the belief that we can see things as they really are, apart from our conceptualizations. And, of course, one could readily argue that this whole theme
began with Kant, and that the "semantic ascent" to language of 20th century analytic philosophy replaced Kant's talk of "faculties" with a more tractable way of analyzing the contribution of the subject to his knowledge of what there is.
All this can be ignored when we are engaged in everyday talk about everyday things, but not when we push beyond "mid-range physical objects"
(Quine's term) into what we, as upper-level ontologists, talk about.
I believe I detected something of the same attitude you expressed in Pat Hayer's recent response to me (and I say this with all due respect
to the extensive and important work Pat has done) -- that we down-to-earth ontologists / knowledge engineers (as opposed to up in the clouds (pace Aristophenes) philosophers who can never get down to anything real and solid) build things, real things, and
get real work done.
I suggest that ontologists / knowledge engineers who share that belief are simply philosophers who aren't aware that they are doing philosophy.
They are those who continue in the mistaken belief that, in matters upper ontological, there really is a "given" -- or at least a few well-defined alternative givens.
I will also suggest, on the other hand, that while we upper-level ontologists are doing ontology, i.e. metaphysics, i.e. philosophy, there
is an important difference between the way we do it and the way it has been done in traditional Philosophy. We formalize our speculations, from which we derive the benefits of being better able to see where important ambiguities still reside, or down the deductive
road implications that we may or may not be comfortable with.
It's an irony that Aristotle, as the father of both formal logic and ontology (especially Categories for ontological structures and Metaphysics
for ontological processes) did not do what we upper-level ontologists are doing -- putting the two together. But putting the two together does not result in a discipline which, in its upper-level reaches, is any less speculative than classical speculative
metaphysics.
Yes, it is not a surprise to find that 4D/perdurantism is a better fit with physics than 3D/endurantism.
My conjecture about the origins of endurantism is that it arises from language and a rather direct mapping from language to ontology.
When we talk naturally use as few words as possible to convey what we mean and so we routinely talk with an implicit context of here and now and what is so here and now, so it is not a surprise that this should be translated directly into a largely presentist
ontology, to which is bolted on later change over time with e.g. temporal relationships to give us the familiar 3D ontology of things that are wholely present at each point in time they exist, but which pass through time.
I am always surprised that aligning an ontology with how we speak about the world rather than with how the world is is something we seem
to seek to do, but I am an engineer, not a linguist.
This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No. 6632177.
Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, SG6 2SU.
It referred to
purdurantism in the context of Special Relativity. Similarly one has to argue the case of General Relativity (GR) and
purdurantism. One thus sees the influence of multidimensional space (time) for GR on the nature of object. The very concept of Persistence is to be limited in the context of validity of
model, otherwise objects do not persist over changing temporal dimension and keep changing observed properties as processes, thus objects are not easily defined except through processes (e.g. quantum states and uncertainties in localized cases).
There is actually a problem here.
Just a quick note on a passage in this helpful thread (not intended to deviate from the topic at hand, but important all the same)...
MW: "The problem I have with this insistence that activities/processes/events are disjoint from physical objects is that it requires two objects for (amongst other things)
me, one for me as the physical object, and another for the activity of my life. I’m with John S. (and some others) who take a process approach, seeing physical objects as (relatively) slowly changing processes."
I agree with not being entirely fond of the traditional object-process distinction as such. To me it does not seem to capture the fluid (so to speak),
processual-yet-persisting aspect of the world. However, one does not necessarily have to chose either the process-ontology approach or endurantism. One can think outside of the box and combine qualities of each. The task would then be to solve whatever philosophical
(or other) problems that arise in doing so. This has been attempted, at least in philosophy. In fact describing physical objects as slowly changing process is moving toward that attempt. Anyway, one need not feel confined to the traditional distinction as
if there were no alternatives. One certainly not feel as if we could not create (or discover) alternatives!
[MW>] The problem with combining endurantism with a process (or purdurantist) approach is that endurantism insists that physical
objects wholly exist at each point in time and pass through time, which means that in particular that they do not have temporal parts. On the other hand a process/purdurantist ontology has physical objects extended in time (like processes) and hence they have
temporal parts. Overcoming that contradiction is non-trivial without actually changing sides, and the choice between them is one of the core commitments one has to make.
This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No. 6632177.
Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, SG6 2SU.
To: Ontolog Discussion Group
From: Tom Johnston (new member)
I would like to comment on the current discussion about SMEs and ontologies.
(note: in the upper-level ontology I developed in my recent book “Bitemporal Data: Theory and Practice” (Morgan-Kaufmann, 2014), objects and events divide
the world between them; they are exhaustive of what there is, and nothing is both an object and an event. Objects come into existence, cease to exist and, while they exist, change from one state to a successive state by participating in events. I consider
this the formalization of an upper-level folk ontology which is the ontology common to all relational databases.
[MW>] That is not true, relational technology is neutral in ontological commitments, except that it requires that tables cannot
themselves be instances of other tables. However, I accept many relational databases adopt this commitment. The problem I have with this insistence that activities/processes/events are disjoint from physical objects is that it requires two objects for (amongst
other things) me, one for me as the physical object, and another for the activity of my life. I’m with John S. (and some others) who take a process approach, seeing physical objects as (relatively) slowly changing processes.
During the JAD sessions (see below), the initial statement of requirements will be transformed into a different set of requirements that are not simply
the initial requirements stated in greater detail. The initial set of objects, events and transformations will be similarly transformed as the BA helps the SMEs realize (a) ambiguities inherent in their original statement, (b) generalizations of their requirements
that will do what they require but also additional useful things; (c) restrictions on their requirements because the current state of technology at the enterprise would make their satisfaction unacceptably expensive; and (d) a sorting of initial requirements
into do-now and do-later categories, based on dependencies among the requirements, and on the need to keep the project on-time and under budget (so both the BA and the SMEs, whose names are most directly attached to the project, will look good to their bosses
when the whole thing eventually moves into production status).
[MW>] The challenge I find is in validating the requirements (providing evidence to support them).
JAD: joint application development (a somewhat outdated term).
[MW>] I think SCRUM is the current incarnation of this.
It is this: SMEs generally do not know what they are talking about. To repeat: SMEs generally do not know what they are talking about.
[MW>] John made a similar point, and I agree. I was too polite in my earlier post. In particular they generally don’t know what
they don’t know.
For anyone familiar with Plato's Socratic dialogues (early and middle period dialogues), I can make my point like this: SMEs (Gorgias, Meno, Protagoras,
etc.) are the protagonists of Socrates (the BA) in those dialogues. Those SMEs are the ones who profess to know something – about knowledge, justice, courage, etc. Socrates engages each of them in a dialog which always ends with Socrates demonstrating, usually
by eliciting a contradiction from his protagonist, that the SME actually doesn't know what he claims to know.
But there is one difference between Socrates and today's BAs. Socrates is content (pleased, in fact, his protestations to the contrary) to show that his
protagonists don't know what they claim to know. Today's BAs, however, cannot afford that luxury. Today's BAs must somehow guide her SMEs from ignorance to knowledge, from vague, ambiguous, incomplete or otherwise inchoate initial statements of what they want
to a final statement which will mediate between them and the developers who will implement their requirements.
One conclusion from all this is that the (ontologically-adept) BA must take a very active role in eliciting and clarifying definitions of the objects
and events of concern to the enterprise. Her role must not be tidying up around the edges of what the SMEs initial come up with as a requirements statement. She must not use a light touch. She must challenge her SMEs as aggressively as Socrates challenged
the self-proclaimed experts he engaged with.
Is there any additional guidance I can suggest, other than these very general comments?
There is. I would like to suggest that before we begin eliciting ontological commitments from SMEs, we should clarify (a) what we are defining, and (b)
what a definition is.
(3) What are we defining when we ask SMEs for definitions?
Let's take Customer as an example. In any enterprise, in any JAD session, with any group of SMEs, when we ask “What is a customer?” (the same “What is
X?” question form as Aristotle's most basic ontological question, ti esti?), surely we must be asking for something besides a dictionary definition.
We don't need SMEs to formulate general definitions, whether they are do-it-yourself dictionary definitions, or definitions defining nodes in a taxonomy
whose linearly parent nodes, up to the root node, have already been defined. We are asking our SMEs what a customer
of our enterprise is, that is, what a customer of our enterprise in fact is, not what the SMEs think a customer of our enterprise ideally should be.
[MW>] Yes. When I was talking about an evidence based approach in my response to John, this is the kind of thing I was meaning.
In any relationship of a set and its immediate superset, the immediate superset defines a universe of discourse from which the members of the set are
chosen by means of that rule. For example, the set Customer will have (whether represented as such in a database or not) as an immediate superset the set Party, which we can think of as being the set of all those individuals or organizations with which our
organization engages in some way.
This immediately excludes from the universe of discourse for Customer such things as dogs, cars, and also any persons or groups not able to enter into
a legal agreement (which a customer relationship is). Now, to define what a customer of our enterprise is, all we need to do is to state the rule which picks out a subset from that universe of discourse.
To accept a person or organization as a customer is to add a row to the enterprise's Customer table representing that person or organization.
[MW>] I was once given as a definition of “Customer” “One who is recorded in on the Customer table”. Accurate, but not actually
useful J
…a customer of our enterprise is – a subtype of a Party with whom we have entered into a customer relationship, a relationship subject to conditions stated
in our policy manuals and implemented in our code.
Finding these definitions – which clearly can be done – is doing something a lot more concrete than talking to a group of SMEs with the objective of obtaining
consensus definitions of such key terms as “customer”.
So we have steered away from the dragon of Wittgensteinian definitions, and reached the safe fortress of Aristotelian definitions. To wit: the category
Customer (of enterprise X) is represented by a relational table (hopefully named Customer, or something like it). A relational table is a set. A set is a collection of set members drawn from a universe of discourse such that the members of the set satisfy
a specific set membership criterion. That membership criterion is expressed in policy manuals, and in the rules expressed in code that determine whether or not someone will be added to the Customer table.
Prescriptive ontologies come into play, on my view, when our objective is to construct higher-level ontologies, for example industry-level ontologies.
For these higher-level ontologies to play the role of facilitating semantic interoperability across those industries, each enterprise subscribing to the industry-level ontology must realize that their responsibility is not to simply play lip service to the
industry ontology. It is to begin the difficult work of adjusting their de facto ontologies, including the set membership rules for the sets represented as tables in their databases, so that those lower-level ontological categories – the ones corresponding
one-to-one with their database tables, are consistent extensions of those higher-level ontologies.
[MW>] I’ve developed this kind of ontology. It is not really quite as you describe. Generally industry ontologies are about supply chain integration,
so they do not cover all of an enterprises data. What becomes most important is to identify the subset of the industry model that is relevant to your slot in the supply chain, and to be sure that you can map your enterprise model into and out of those parts
of the industry model. That has more flexibility than a simple subset, your mappings may be from multiple tables, or a subset of one of your tables. The other key is to be able to incorporate into your data key industry level master data such as product categories
and their specifications.
This is the basic, boots-on-the-ground work that is required to make prescriptive ontologies a reality. But the foundation from which we must begin is
what ontological commitments are in fact, right now, in place in individual databases. The prescriptive work of integrating these de facto low-level ontologies, however, is not simply a bottom-up process of supertyping the types we begin with. It is a process
of working with a well-developed upper-level ontology as well as a set of de facto low-level ontologies, combining top-down guidance towards an ideal goal with real-world realizations of ontological categories that have been proven, over time, to actually
work.
[MW>] Yes, but when you look at the commitments/rules imposed by a database, you should also be questioning whether these are not imposed as an
implementation convenience (changing what are really many-to-many relationships to one-to-many for example).
Perhaps this is something of a Manifesto – a description of a research and a development program of work guided by strong theoretical commitments and
also a commitment to objects and processes that are time-tested in the real world. I don't like the term “Manifesto”, simply because of its creaky 19th century feel. But I am proposing that we clearly distinguish descriptive from prescriptive ontologies,
clearly recognize the importance of descriptive ontologies, and begin to formalize them in the manner described above.
[MW>] I think you are raising a lot of valid issues.
This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No. 6632177.
Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, SG6 2SU.
Thanks.
Ravi
(Dr. Ravi Sharma)
313 204 1740 Mobile
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