Re: [ontac-forum] Theories, Models, Reasoning, Language, and Truth

["Azamat" <abdoul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John made rather sweeping generalizations:

''everything I see is a sign, everything I feel is a sign, everything I think is a sign,
and everything I say is a sign.  It's all signs all the way down.'

 

Actually, not every thing is a sign, rather 'every sign is also a thing'. So more secure is here to stick to the traditional Augustine's theory of signs based on the threefold division of things:

I. There are things that are merely things, all acting as the ultimate references and meanings in Real (Ontological) Semantics;

II. There are things that are also signs of other things, as some natural signs [causally related as smoke and the fire] and the things of the human mind, thoughts, concepts and ideas, feelings and images, functioning as the senses in Conceptual and Pragmatic Semantics;

III. There are things that are always signs, as words and other symbols signifying things via mental signs (Aquinas), studied by Linguistic Semantics and exploited by Semantic Web Ontologies.

 So there are things as such as well as natural and intentional or conventional signs, like a verbal sign getting its deep meaning from the real entity signified,  but of couse not 'in its use in the language' (Wittgenstein).

So then all words, writen and spoken, are symbols of thoughts and images, which are the shared mental experiences of the things in the world.

 

Azamat Abdoullaev

EIS Ltd

Pafos, CYPRUS 

 

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>

To: "Chris Menzel" <cmenzel@xxxxxxxx>; "ONTAC-WG General Discussion" <ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 6:33 AM

Subject: Re: [ontac-forum] Theories, Models, Reasoning, Language, and Truth

> Chris,
> 
> I certainly agree (and I believe 
Wittgenstein would also)
> that the _Tractatus_ (TLP) was an elegant, 
tightly organized
> little gem that presented a view of semantics that 
was
> completely compatible with Tarski's model theory (actually,
> 
more compatible than Tarski's own views of NL -- since T.
> expressly 
limited his model theory to "formal languages".)
> 
> I also agree 
with W. that _Philosophical Investigations_ (PI)
> was, comparatively 
speaking, a mess -- or as W. himself said,
> "I should have liked to 
produce a good book.  This has not
> come about, but the time is past 
in which I could improve it."
> 
> > I can't think of a 
shred of evidence in TLP for the idea
> > that there is "one giant 
theory".
> 
> Start with Satz 1: "The world is everything that is 
the case."
> That is equivalent, in Tarski's terms, to the claim that 
the
> world is one giant model, which has a unique decomposition
> 
into atomic objects that can be related by atomic sentences,
> whose 
Boolean combinations assert all the possible "cases"
> that make up the 
world.  That is certainly a "giant theory"
> if there ever was 
one.
> 
> I agree that the picture theory of meaning was central to 
TLP
> and that it is a decent elaboration of Aristotle's version.
> 
For qualifications, see Section 7 of my theories paper:
> 
>    http://www.jfsowa.com/logic/theories.htm
>    Theories, Models, Reasoning, Language, and 
Truth
> 
> > TLP does contain a single, very influential 
theory of *meaning*,
> > viz., the "picture" theory, according to 
which a sentence has
> > meaning insofar as its internal 
structural corresponds in a
> > certain way to the structure of 
the objects denoted by its
> > referring terms.
> 
> 
The major problem, however, is that there is not just one true
> picture 
of the world, but an infinite number of possible pictures
> from different 
perspectives, at different levels of granularity,
> for different 
purposes.  Take Jerry Hobbs' example of a road: a
> map gives a 
one-dimensional picture for drivers who are planning
> a trip, but the 
driver needs a 2-D picture for driving on it,
> and the road builder 
definitely has a 3-D picture.
> 
> > And his purpose was to 
circumscribe thereby the *limits* of
> > language, and in 
particular its powerlessness for expressing and
> > answering 
questions concerning what is in fact most important in
> > life, 
questions of life's meaning, questions about the good and
> > the 
beautiful.  Thus the towering, and ultimately tragic,
> > 
proposition with which W. closes the book: "Wovon man nicht
> > 
sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen!"
> 
> W. undoubtedly had 
multiple purposes, including a desire to complete
> the project he and 
Russell had been discussing during the two years
> before World War 
I.  The major part of TLP consists of W's version
> of what Russell 
independently (and not as elegantly) published as
> "Logical 
Atomism".
> 
> I agree that W. himself had much deeper thoughts, 
which he did not
> (in 1920) believe could or should be expressed in 
language.  But
> just before the conclusion, W. said "Everything that 
can be said,
> can be said clearly" -- which essentially limits the useful 
subset
> of language to just those sentences that express the giant 
theory.
> 
> In PI, W. presents example after example that cast 
doubt on (or
> I would prefer to say "refute") every major Satz and most 
of the
> minor ones in TLP.  W. refutes the claims that (a) there are 
atomic
> objects, (b) any ordinary object (e.g., a chair) can be 
uniquely
> analyzed into any unique set of elementary objects, (c) 
composite
> sentences can be uniquely analyzed into Boolean combinations 
of
> primitive sentences.  In PI, he also approves of unclear 
and
> imprecise statements and many more kinds of sentences that 
are
> not tied to some picture or some action (e.g., hoping, 
wishing,
> expecting, praying, singing, joking, etc.).
> 
> > For PI is a rejection, not of the idea of one giant theory, 
but
> > of the whole idea that meaning is representation.
> 
> W. did not use the word "representation" (or Vorstellung) in 
TLP,
> and he did not reject in in PI.  I used the word 
"representation"
> myself in the title of my KR book, but I now believe 
that word is
> hopelessly misleading.  I now prefer to use Peirce's 
word "sign",
> which I follow P. in applying to everything:  
everything I see is
> a sign, everything I feel is a sign, everything I 
think is a sign,
> and everything I say is a sign.  It's all signs 
all the way down.
> 
> I don't claim that W. envisioned a lattice of 
theories, and given
> the vehemence of his rejection of Waismann's attempt 
to summarize
> his views, I wouldn't hold out much hope for his approval 
of my
> version.  But I would claim that many of W's games -- 
including all
> those that involve declarative language and queries and 
many that
> involve commands -- could be mapped to theories of the 
lattice:
> 
>  1. Translate W's rules to the axioms 
(constraints) of a theory T.
> 
>  2. Every declarative 
sentence in that game would be compatible
>     with T 
-- i.e., consistent with T and if not a theorem or 
axiom
>     of T then an extension of T to a more 
specialized theory.
> 
>  3. Every question in that game would 
be a query that could be
>     answered by methods 
similar to Prolog goals or SQL queries.
> 
>  4. Every command 
in that game could be interpreted as a request
>     
to start with theory T in the lattice and move by some 
sequence
>     of theory revision operators to another 
theory T'.
> 
> Jerry Hobbs' examples would correspond to different 
and incompatible
> theories about roads that would be suitable for 
different language
> games that involve different ways of treating 
roads.
> 
> Many of W's remarks illustrate issues that are still 
open research
> questions, but I believe that the subject matter of the 
various
> domains could be characterized by theories in the lattice.  
I would
> handle intentional verbs (hoping, wishing, expecting, etc.) 
along
> the lines of my laws paper:
> 
>    
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/laws.htm
>    Laws, Facts, and Contexts
> 
> 
John
> 
> 
> 
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