On Sep 22, 2009, at 1:53 PM, John F. Sowa wrote: (01)
> Pat,
>
> As you know, my formal education is in mathematics and my professional
> career has been strongly colored by my 30 years working for IBM. But
> my interests in AI have led me to read a wide range of material in
> various branches of cognitive science. Besides AI, that includes
> linguistics, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology.
> The following statement could be made about any branch of cog. sci.
> (including AI) just by doing a global edit: (02)
True, apart from the remark about subject-matter, which really is
rather unique to philosophy. The arguments are the subject-matter of
philosophy, as well as its modus operandi. (03)
>
> PH> Philosophy, as a professional activity, is a rather arcane
>> branch of academe which has its own rules and professional standards.
>> Its chief concern is the analysis of arguments and counter-arguments,
>> often over extremely obscure points of detail which are all but
>> incomprehensible to anyone who is not a professional philosopher,
>> often indeed a professional in that particular sub-discipline of
>> philosophy. (If anyone disagrees, let them read any academic
>> philosophy journal, of the kind that citations in them would help
>> a tenure case in a department of philosophy.)
>
> I'm happy that you made the following qualification:
>
> PH> In this it is very similar to other highly specialized
>> disciplines, of course. (04)
My point was that to say 'we are doing philosophy here' is rarely
true, if by 'philosophy' one is actually referring to the professional
discipline that goes by this name. If one simply means 'we are
speaking carefully' or some such, well then sure. (05)
>
> Unfortunately, the academic compartmentalization causes research
> and applications that cross academic boundaries to be undervalued
> or even dismissed by the tenure and promotion committees.
>
> PH> There is no evidence for, and considerable pragmatic evidence
>> against, the thesis that ontology engineering is improved by
>> approaching it with the tools of philosophy, and certainly not
>> with the methodologies of contemporary professional philosophy.
>
> To a large extent, I would agree with that statement. But there is
> a major difference between benefiting from the insights of a field
> and adopting their tools. (06)
Quite. But in the message I was responding to, Hajo said that when
doing ontology we were DOING philosophy. We aren't, and we shouldn't
be. And while I don't mean to pull rank, I speak here as a former
professor of philosophy. (07)
> I've learned a lot from various branches
> of cognitive science. But I have no desire to use an fMRI scanner
> or implant electrodes in a monkey's brain; I don't intend to hire
> a horde of students as guinea pigs in psychological experiments;
> and I won't do fieldwork on the languages of stone-age tribes.
>
> But I've gained insights from people who did those things, and
> I've cited them in books and articles on AI. In the field of
> logic, it's nearly impossible to disentangle the work that was
> done by professional philosophers from the work by professional
> mathematicians. In fact, many academic courses on logic are
> jointly sponsored by the math dept. and the philosophy dept.
> And I've heard you comment favorably on the influence by some
> professional philosophers such as Carnap and Quine on your
> work in AI.
>
> Unfortunately, we've also known professional philosophers who
> were penalized by their academic departments for doing too much
> interdisciplinary work. But that is a disease that is endemic
> to academia and is not limited to any particular department.
> In fact, that disease is not limited to academia -- it also
> affects business, government, and the entertainment industry. (08)
You presume I was criticizing specialization, which was not my
intention. In fact, I greatly admire the extreme intellectual focus
that good philosophers bring to bear. I do not however think that it
is useful for ontology engineering (or for cognitive science, for that
matter, or indeed for almost any subject other than philosophy itself.) (09)
Pat (010)
>
> John
>
>
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> (011)
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