>Re John's response to:
>
>BS> BFO has two modules, one 3-D (defined for representing
> > continuants), one 4-D (designed for representing processes),
> > together with relations between them. Users are welcome
> > to use either both modules together, or just one of them,
> > according to preference.
>
>That's an excellent principle. Any axiom that is deleted
>from UF will not go away, but it will be available in
>modules or microtheories that could be used as needed
>by various systems. In effect, the topmost levels of most
>ontologies are the most controversial. Therefore, UF
>should have a highly impoverished top level. (01)
It reveals a problem however. If only those bits
of the top level are to survive which are agreed
to by everybody, then -- since there are
3-dimensionalists and 4-dimensionalists who share
no (or very few) top-level beliefs in common
about the nature of physical reality -- nothing
will survice. I would suggest, in fact, that the
BFO solution should be generalized. BFO itself
has two modules, one for occurrents, one for
continuants -- entities which exist in two
distinct ways in time. It has no modules for
dealing with numbers or sets; we are happy to use
other peoples' modules. These are all top-level
modules. People should be able to select from these, too. (02)
>BS> ... though we will need a bit more
> > than the syllogism if we are to deal adequately with the
> > distinction between instances (Toronto) and types (city).
> > The fact that this distinction has not been dealt with
> > adequately flows in part from the fact that people were
> > assuming that something like syllogistic would be adequate
> > for their needs.
>
>I certainly agree with the first point, but I'd like to
>throw in a good word for Aristotle and the Scholastics,
>who were very clear about the distinction between types
>and instances. (03)
I am a big fan of Aristotle and the Scholastics;
but syllogistic is about reasoning with types:
All M are P; some M are P, etc. It does not -- in
the various forms it was used e.g. by Eugen
Wüster, the inspiration for ISO's horribly
confused yet astonishingly influential
'terminology' standard -- have a clear place for instances. (04)
>In any case, I used the term "syllogism" to indicate the
>very limited level of logical expressivity required for
>the core UF. I would assume that the tools used to support
>UF would enforce the distinction between types and instances. (05)
Good
BS (06)
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