Re: [ontolog-forum] The "qua-entities" paradigm

[Thomas Johnston <tmj44p@xxxxxxx>]

Matthew,

The question for me is what your statement can be taken to mean, against the background of well-understood positions in ontology. I suspect that, as you intended it, it does not correspond to any one such position.

For everyday life, a robust, Samuel Johnson, kick a rock kind of commonsense realism is what we all get by with. And perhaps, for ontology engineering, Quine's criterion is all we need: referring to something with a pronoun is to make an ontological commitment to that thing, and to whatever kind of thing that thing is. (That being my paraphrase, into the context of a natural language, of the famous "To be is to be the value of a variable".)

But I suspect that important ontological distinctions are important for ontology engineering, especially for upper-level work. And I don't think I could do better than John Sowa's book Knowledge Representation by way of supporting that suspicion. So when I find comments in this forum that appear to make statements in which distinct ontological positions are not distinguished, I try to point that out.

Regards,

Tom

On Thursday, June 18, 2015 5:10 PM, Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dear Tom and Rich,

It seems from this discussion that the only thing that does not matter is what I meant, only what I might have meant. That’s a shame really.

 

Regards

 

Matthew West                           

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From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: 18 June 2015 19:55
To: 'Thomas Johnston'; '[ontolog-forum]'
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] The "qua-entities" paradigm

 

Tom,

 

Thanks for the lovely, well organized, and well presented list of choices!  It was beautifully done, it seems complete to me, and it thoroughly summarizes the situation. 

 

One small portion escapes my understanding however.  When you wrote:

what I called the "epistemological interpretation" above (approximately Rich's position, I think),

 

you distinguished my rendition to an "epistemological" interpretation, rather than an ontological one, specifically.  Could you explain to me why exactly you make that distinction?  Perhaps you could also identify what part of my statement is epistemological in your opinion, versus the ontological. 

 

Since you write so clearly and so well, it would be very helpful to more fully understand your reasoning re that distinction. 

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper,

Rich Cooper,

 

Chief Technology Officer,

MetaSemantics Corporation

MetaSemantics AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

( 9 4 9 ) 5 2 5-5 7 1 2

http://www.EnglishLogicKernel.com

 

From: Thomas Johnston [mailto:tmj44p@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 11:27 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]; Rich Cooper
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] The "qua-entities" paradigm

 

Pat:

 

re Matthew's statement that 

 

<<<Each grain of sand exists in the real world and has identity ...>>>

 

re Pat's comment, I do not agree that Matthew clearly meant the exact opposite of what Rich thought he meant. What is clear is that to say that something "in the real world ... has identity" is not clear. 

 

On an epistemological interpretation, it would seem to mean something like "can be identified", where it is some kind of conscious agent who could do the identifying. With Rich, I have no problem with this interpretation.

 

On an ontological interpretation, having identity is mysterious. Does a grain of sand "have" an identity in the same sense that it has size and weight? Or in the same sense that it has a location in space and time? If not, what does "has identity" mean? 

 

Perhaps you can clear up the mystery?

 

The best case I could make for an ontological interpretation would be that Matthew (and you?) are, whether consciously or not, expressing your agreement with Leibniz's principle of the identity of indiscernibles. That is indeed an ontological claim, not just an epistemological one. But it doesn't involve claiming that there is a property/attribute/quality called "identity" that physical things have.

 

So is Leibniz's principle what Matthew (and you) mean? If so, it certainly wasn't clear to me, at least, from Matthew's statement. 

 

If that isn't what you mean, but what you do mean is not what I called the "epistemological interpretation" above (approximately Rich's position, I think), then what is it that Matthew meant, and that is apparently clear to you?

 

Another avenue of response for you is some variant of saying that, by just using "good old common sense", what Matthew means is indeed clear, and that what I've suggested here is just philosophical hair-splitting which only obscures otherwise plain and clear meanings. But, as we are all ontologists, and if, as John Sowa's work makes completely clear (8>), classical ontology and ontology engineering are both about "ontology" in much the same sense, then I would hope that you don't propose some variant of this response.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

 

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015 9:29 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx> wrote:

 

On Jun 17, 2015, at 11:39 AM, Rich Cooper <metasemantics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Thanks Pat,
> 
> for explaining your take on the idea, but we differ again on this issue.  Maybe if we keep this up another fifteen years, we will agree on something.  (:->)
> 
> PH: NO, Rich, that is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what Matthew said. Did you actually read his words? He said that the identity of each grain of sand is IN THE REAL WORLD, WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT. He did not say that it depends upon your perspective. You and your perspective could cease to exist, and the grains of sand would still be real, in the real world, with their identities intact. The identities of things in the real world do not depend upon your or anyone else's perspectives upon them. They are, you see, REAL.
> 
> RC: I find the view that something exists without someone to experience it unsatisfyingly theoretical, Pat.

I was not trying to convince you of anything, nor expressing "my take". I was making the point that you had completely misquoted, or misunderstood, what Matthew actually SAID. Whether you agree with what he said is another question altogether, and one I am not particularly interested in; but unless you actually understand what others are saying, there is little point in debating with them.

Pat
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