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Re: [ontac-forum] Semantics and Ontology

To: "ONTAC-WG General Discussion" <ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Azamat" <abdoul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 21:10:32 +0300
Message-id: <003101c67e94$342494b0$e053960a@homepc>
JS > Whenever I find my thought running in parallel with something Aristotle 
said 2300 years ago, it gives me some confidence that I'm on the right 
track.    (01)

John,    (02)



You are dead right here. The same advice i suggested to one intelligent but 
doubting person from South Africa:    (03)

[If you deal with such elusive subjects as reality, knowledge and 
intellectual technology, you can't do anything remarkable ignoring standard 
works on ontology and logics, like Aristotle's legacy inheritance. For 
instance, his Topics (even badly gelded) constitutes the conceptual 
cornerstone of the semantic web enterprise.]    (04)



As for your idea of vagueness, i don't feel much trouble here; for, like 
you, i regard the natural languages the most effective representation and 
reasoning system. The only thing. If you want to be consistent with the 
golden intellectual rule, then the vagueness to become 'a necessary feature 
of natural languages' needs a proper place: the univocal, the analogical, or 
the equivocal.    (05)

The vagueness would be correct to be equaled with Aristotle's meaning of 
equivocation, which is not like ambiguity (indefiniteness), although both 
involve a plurality of meanings for the same word.    (06)



A language can be used equivocally (or vaguely) but without ambiguity, if 
only one is aware of the sort of vagueness (or a type of equivocation) to be 
applied in certain circumstances. That is, the same expression may be 
employed:    (07)

1. intrinsically (the primary meaning, or definition, signifying the 
inherent properties of an entity, its denotation) or extrinsically 
(signifying a relationship that the entity may have to other things, its 
connotation).
2. literally or figuratively and metaphorically;
3. in a general sense or in a specific sense;    (08)



Like 'beautiful' denotes the unity (harmony) of diverse elements; and 
connotes what is pleasing to human minds, senses and particularly to sight; 
attractive effect, the risks peculiar to beauty in the current society, the 
advantages in the marriage market, in the job market, etc. In the general 
sense, as the beauty taken in the abstract, in the specific senses, all that 
is beautiful, bodies, ideas, images, artfifacts, etc. Literally, a beautiful 
woman; figuratively, beautiful weather. This all seems coming from the 
vagueness (or equivocation or controlled ambiguity) of natural language.    (09)



A lesson from my fathering experience may be also illustrative here. My 
4-years-old son, Alexander, while looking for tomorrow when his child’s 
wishes are promised to be fulfilled, start asking me: ''what is tomorrow?''. 
I tried a simple vocabulary explanation, 'the day after today'. But this 
provoked another query: ''what is a day?'', to answer like 'a time unit, 
time period, measure, a portion of time relation', just was another 
provocation. 'All what you do between sunrise and sunset; sunlight, sunday' 
were also not enough; even in Cyprus sometimes these natural phenomena are 
missed. What finally worked out, ''a duration of a planet's rotation''; for 
this motion the kid could imitate himself by revolving and rotating around 
himself. All the days stay in line, one rotation after another, and the next 
one makes ‘tomorrow’.    (010)



Bottom line:    (011)



The full meaning of a word consists of the totality of its meanings, all the 
types of equivocation (or vagueness), which may be also viewed as a 
controlled ambiguity. To get the whole meaning, you need to mention all 
possible senses, but the underlying and implicit meaning is still the 
ontological (real) one, semantically serving as the primary definition, the 
intension, and constructed the class (identity or sameness) with its 
specific difference (or differentia).    (012)



Azamat    (013)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "ONTAC-WG General Discussion" <ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 4:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ontac-forum] Semantics and Ontology    (014)


> Azamat,
>
> I have a great deal of sympathy with the broad outlines
> of the so-called Philosophia Perennis -- the philosophy
> for the ages vaguely based on a neo-Aristotelian approach.
> But I also sympathize with the following criticism:
>
> KL> What you're advocating verges on mysticism.  Pythagorean
> > mysticism, perhaps, but you are nevertheless urging participants
> > in the ONTAC working group to grasp these idiosyncratic
> > formulations as though there was some kind of cannon or liturgy
> > or scripture from which all your formulations emerge ready-to-hand.
>
> When I say "vaguely", I don't mean bad -- since I have said
> that vagueness is a necessary feature of natural languages,
> which enables us to sketch out the broad outlines of an
> approach without committing ourselves to any particular
> collection of detailed axioms.
>
> But I still consider it more of a set of guidelines, and I
> feel uneasy about talk of a "knowledge trinity" as if it were
> some kind of religion.  I agree with the following:
>
> KL> I don't want an encoded ontology of the Great Books of the
> > Western World as if such literature contained 'the truth'
> > monolithic and uncontested.
> >
> > The "knowledge trinity" as well implies that we have all joined
> > some holy quest for the one true ontology.  Even the most
> > dogmatic scientists recognize that knowledge doesn't work like
> > that.
>
> I believe that Aristotle had some very important insights,
> and I especially like Hilary Putnam's comment:
>
>    Whenever I become clearer about some subject,
>    I find that Aristotle has become clearer about it too.
>
> Whenever I find my thought running in parallel with something
> Aristotle said 2300 years ago, it gives me some confidence that
> I'm on the right track.  I have similar feelings about Peirce,
> Whitehead, and Wittgenstein.  I treat their statements with
> respect, but I would never take any of them as dogma.
>
> John
>
>
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>     (015)



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