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Re: [ontolog-forum] Is Philosophy Useful in Software Engineering Ontolog

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:38:12 -0400
Message-id: <55880FC4.6010904@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Leo, Bruce, and Tom,    (01)

I was tied up with some pressing deadlines.  But I'd like to make
a few comments on some of the basic issues in this thread.    (02)

Leo
> Of course it helps if ontology engineers/implementers acquire
> a deep understanding of philosophy, and if philosophers acquire
> a deep understanding/practice of ontology engineers/implementers...
>
> Understanding involves learning about both sides.    (03)

Yes, but a Phil 101 course for the engineers and a Software
Engineering 101 course for the philosophers is far from sufficient.
Getting anything more for any but a tiny fraction of the people
who need it is not going to happen.    (04)

Therefore, we have to face reality and work on Plan B.    (05)

Leo
> Once we have very solid NL technologies that can do semantic
> interpretation and mappings to ontologies in specific domains
> and contexts, then...    (06)

For unrestricted NLs, that will *never* happen.  I completely
agree with Alan Perlis:  "You can't map informal language to
formal language by any formal algorithm."    (07)

But with sufficient background knowledge and the ability to
carry on a dialog to ask "Socratic" questions, it would be
possible for a computer system to do quite a lot -- without
going very far beyond the AI & NLP research available today.    (08)

Bruce
> so that universally-meaningful concepts like “identity” or “comparison”
> or “similarity” or “difference” or “analogy” can be given exact and
> very simple definitions with some hope of becoming consensual...    (09)

That's not possible.  The reason why they're "universally meaningful"
is that they're vague, context-dependent, and sufficiently flexible
that they can be adapted to any subject of any kind.    (010)

Fundamental principle:    (011)

  * If you're developing a normative ontology for a specific project
    or family of closely related projects, you can state precise
    definitions for all applications in that field.    (012)

  * But if you're trying to understand natural language on any
    topic, you can't be "Ontoclean" -- because NLs must be adaptable
    to anything.  Any ontology useful for NLP must be "Ontodirty".    (013)

Tom
> I recommend an excellent article, "Categories", from the
> Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/categories/    (014)

I agree that the article is good of its kind.  But it's written
by a philosopher for other philosophers, and it would not give
Rich or any other software developer any useful guidelines.    (015)

In the following points, I'm not criticizing the author of that
article -- I'm criticizing the entire academic tradition:    (016)

  1. The author starts with Aristotle, but does not mention that
     A's book on categories was part of the Organon (Instrument)
     for doing science.  A's father was a physician, from whom he
     learned the importance of careful observation and recording
     of details.    (017)

  2. Aristotle wrote more about biology than he did about metaphysics,
     and he did very careful experiments. From the very beginning, he
     developed his categories as an *applied* science.  Galen was very
     impressed by Aristotle, and he couched his vast writings on
     medicine in an Aristotelian framework.    (018)

  3. Section 1.6 has two paragraphs on "Categories in other disciplines"
     and just 3 references.  The first paragraph mentions "information
     systems" and cites another philosopher.  The second cites two
     cognitive scientists, but says nothing about linguistics and
     lexicography.    (019)

  4. Those are subjects that stimulated the work on categories by
     Leibniz and others in the 17th century, which had a strong
     influence on Kant in the 18th c.  That work in the 17th & 18th
     centuries had a strong influence on Roget in the 19th.  But
     philosophers have totally ignored lexicography (except for
     Peirce, who was an associate editor of the _New Century
     Dictionary_ -- that's one reason why his work is still at the
     cutting edge of research in AI & NLP).    (020)

  5. In Section 1.4 on "Contemporary category systems", the author
     mentions a few that happened to be developed in the late 20th c.
     Ingvar Johansson's system is the only one that would be useful
     as a basis for applied ontology.  Ingvar, by the way, did
     participate in the discussions in Ontolog Forum for a few months.
     There were some good discussions, but like Pat Hayes and others,
     he dropped out (and I don't blame him).  One point that's very
     important about IJ's system is that he explicitly recognizes
     intentionality as a fundamental category.    (021)

  6. But the worst feature of that article (and of a huge amount
     of the philosophical literature) is a total disregard of
     two fundamental issues:  (1) modern science, and (2) the
     sign systems by which all living things communicate.
     I admit that many philosophers do address those issues,
     but more often than not, they just try to develop an
     ontology of "common sense" -- which is usually a fossilized
     version of some obsolete version of science.    (022)

  7. Science and communication were fundamental for Aristotle.
     In addition to biology (which was his primary science),
     he addressed and named a large number of the "-ologies"
     people have been studying for over two millennia.
     And the first paragraph of A's book _On Interpretation_
     introduces the meaning triangle (often called Ogden and
     Richard's meaning triangle).  For more about that, see
     my article, "The role of logic and ontology in language
     and reasoning", http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/rolelog.pdf    (023)

As I said above, I blame the entire academic tradition for these
faults -- and it permeates *every* field, not just philosophy.    (024)

I have known several very good academics who did excellent work
in relating their research to an interdisciplinary collaboration
with other fields.  But they made the mistake of doing that
*before* they got tenure.    (025)

When explaining why they were fired, the head of the department
would say things like "you didn't seem to be committed to the field"
or "your work was outside the mainstream" or "maybe you'd be happier
doing something else" or, worst of all, "he inspires freshmen".    (026)

And by the way, enrollments in philosophy courses and departments
has declined drastically during the past century.  You can see the
effects in bookstores.  Just count the number of shelves devoted
to "philosophy" in comparison to "new age" and other such topics.    (027)

Those other topics "inspire freshmen".  Any subject that doesn't
inspire freshmen won't get any sophomores to enroll in courses.    (028)

John    (029)

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