> So, is intention the unifying principle that makes
> it an "organization rather than an accidental set?"
> Is that the congenial way to put it? (01)
I would say that intentionality is central to this
and many related issues. However, many people have
been trying to avoid introducing intentionality for
a number of reasons: (02)
1. It threatens to introduce subjective influences
into the foundation of the subject. (03)
2. It is tied up with many philosophical, psychological,
and logical issues that are difficult to pin down
precisely. (04)
3. A lot of the writing on the topic is very loose
and impressionistic, which makes it difficult,
if not impossible to formalize in any version of
logic. (05)
But I believe that the subject matter is so important
and so central to some of the most important issues
in ontology that it cannot be avoided. (06)
As I said before, I would prefer to adopt Peirce's
categories as a foundation for tackling this area,
but I would not recommend all of his terminology,
partly because many people have found it "rebarbative",
as someone once described it. But a lot can be done
along Peircean lines without using his terms explicitly. (07)
One reason why I prefer Peirce's foundations is that he
was a pioneer in logic, who recognized the importance
of this family of ideas and who had also been employed as
an associate editor of the _Century Dictionary_, for which
he had written, revised, or edited over 16,000 definitions
-- more than any other editor of that dictionary. (08)
For the moment, however, my first goal is get people
to recognize the importance of intentionality for many
foundational issues in ontology. Once that problem has
been recognized, we can begin to work toward a solution. (09)
John Sowa (010)
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