On Sep 22, 2009, at 9:58 PM, John F. Sowa wrote: (01)
> Pat and Martin,
>
> 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.
>
> MH>> I think that is too bold a statement, and I would like to see the
>>> "pragmatic evidence against the thesis that ontology engineering
>>> is improved by approaching it with the tools of philosophy".
>
> PH> Oh, for a start: the fact that OBO is founded on the idea of a
>> 'continuant', a close-to-incoherent idea with its roots in 19th
>> century Polish phenomenology.
>
> I personally prefer Whitehead's ontology, which is closer to both
> Heraclitus and modern physics: Everything is in flux, and what
> people call "objects" are relatively slow moving processes.
>
> But those aren't arguments against philosophy. They're a choice
> between competing philosophies. (02)
The fact that there is still a choice to be made, after 2000 years of
argument, *is* the argument against philosophy. Philosophy does not
reach conclusions. It is an endless competition. The business of
philosophy is to continue the argument, not to decide anything.
Ontology engineering can begin only when one makes some decisions, and
that is where philosophizing stops. (03)
> Einstein's breakthroughs in relativity and quantum mechanics were
> based on philosophical arguments (04)
No, they were based upon thought-experiments (what would light look
like if you were traveling at the same speed?), but this is not
*philosophical* thinking, it is saturated with physical, empirical
intuitions. Remember, Einstein was employed as a patent examiner, not
as a philosopher. (05)
> of the kind that were denounced
> as "unscientific" by Ernst Mach. Einstein also wrote a criticism
> of Bertrand Russell's "Angst vor der Metaphysik" as a "disease
> (Krankheit) of modern philosophy."
>
> And I like to quote C. S. Peirce's criticism of Ernst Mach: (06)
>
> Find a scientific man who proposes to get along without any
> metaphysics -- not by any means every man who holds the ordinary
> reasonings of metaphysicians in scorn -- and you have found one
> whose doctrines are thoroughly vitiated by the crude and
> uncriticized
> metaphysics with which they are packed. (07)
And a great deal of real life ontology design is exactly intended to
capture these 'crude and uncriticized' doctrines, because they are the
ideas that people actually use to get the business of the world done.
I have to say, given the choice between a domain expert and CS Peirce,
I would vastly prefer the former. Peirce was a genius of a kind, but
his writings contain some of the most obscure and time-wasting
noodlings ever set to paper. (08)
> We must philosophize, said
> the great naturalist Aristotle -- if only to avoid philosophizing.
> Every man of us has a metaphysics, and has to have one; and it will
> influence his life greatly. Far better, then, that that metaphysics
> should be criticized and not be allowed to run loose. (09)
That last line is rather a non-sequiteur, surely. Here's the same
logic: every man of us has a heart, and has to have one. Far better,
then, that that heart should be surgically improved and not allowed to
run loose. Which illustrates the obvious response: who the hell are
you to criticize my metaphysics? (010)
>
> F. H. Bradley (around the same time) said
>
> The man who is ready to prove that metaphysics is wholly impossible
> ... is a brother metaphysician with a rival theory. (011)
What I hear in this familiar refrain is a chorus of philosophers
anxiously defending their own relevance. One can hear similar claims
made by theologians, historians and writers in almost any of the
humanities. Yawn. (012)
(OK, no more from me on this topic in this thread.) (013)
Pat (014)
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