On many occasions, I have emphasized the point
that purpose is central to understanding any human
institution, artifact, or activity of any kind.
But I keep seeing ontologies and taxonomies that
try to define such things without including any
recognition of their purpose. (01)
In another forum, I responded to a question about
the pragmatics of communication across computer
networks, and I wrote the following response. (02)
I'm including a slightly edited version here because
I believe that similar issues are involved in any
ontology that deals with any human activity or product. (03)
John Sowa
______________________________________________________ (04)
The issue of interpreting the meaning of a text or any
other communication is a special case of interpreting
artifacts, or more generally any byproducts of human,
animal, or vegetable activity. The basic question: (05)
What is the purpose? (06)
If you look around the room you're sitting in right now
(home, office, airport, etc.), estimate the percentage
of things you see that are *not* human artifacts.
Except for other people and an occasional potted plant,
I'll bet it would be hard to find anything that is not
the product of human design. (07)
And notice that everything has a very specific purpose,
which depends on some human intentions, but a "folk"
theory of human psychology is quite adequate to the
task of analyzing the design: (08)
1. The size and shape of a chair depends on the size
and bone structure of average adult humans -- not
on the details of their psychology. (09)
2. The size and shape of a table depends on the chairs
that go with it, on the facts of gravity, the objects
that are expected to be put on that table, and the
structural properties of the wood or other material. (010)
You can make a similar list of properties of every
artifact you see and itemize the purposes that led to
its design. In order to make that list, you'll need
to know a lot about what people typically do, but you
won't need to have a very sophisticated theory about
how they think. (011)
> ... Given Representational State Transfer,
> meaning is in the message but the means of
> invoking the message is restricted to a simple
> set of verbs which it is claimed can be used
> to perform all of the transactions necessary
> on a network. (012)
If you want to know what verbs go with each object,
list the activities in which they are used and how
you would describe them. Do exactly the same
exercise for the activities on the network. (013)
> ... If the meaning is not in the head (the location
> of the resource), then it has to be ... exactly where? (014)
It's embodied in the common knowledge of the community.
That includes the heads of all the people in the
community, but it also includes all the information
stored in books, newspapers, movies, etc. (015)
For example, suppose you read _Romeo and Juliet_ many
years ago. You may have a rough idea of the plot,
but have forgotten most of the detail. The same is
true of any message: the meaning is eternal (i.e.,
timeless), and it doesn't depend on whether anyone
alive remembers it. (016)
The same is true of artifacts, human or animal.
Biologists can interpret the purpose of a beaver
dam or a honeycomb without having a theory of
the minds of bees or beavers. The purposeful
activity of those animals led to those artifacts,
and humans can infer those purposes without any
direct knowledge of how bees or beavers think. (017)
> I am wondering if Pragmatics offers anything to
> the REST vs SOAP debate. I suspect these are the
> same problem and it comes down to not confusing
> the network design with anything *meaningful*. (018)
If you want to know the meaning, look for the purpose.
As the lawyers say, "Cui bono?" Who benefits? And
what advantage do they get? (019)
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