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Many partitions are transparent to reality
TEE is a ragbag of skew partitions, some of them transparent
One job of the ontological realist is to understand how different partitions of the same reality interrelate
-- notion of projection
Much ‘knowledge’
is not knowledge at all,
it is mere beliefs
(sometimes false beliefs)
or it may be tacit (knowledge how, rather than knowledge that)
‘Knowledge representation’ rests on lazy use of ‘knowledge’
Maximally opportunistic
means:
don’t just look at beliefs
look at the objects themselves
from every possible direction, formal and informal
scientific and non-scientific
collect documents, read textbooks …
Maximally opportunistic
means:
don’t just look at beliefs in an unquestioning fashion
don’t just swallow what the customer says
Maximally opportunistic
means:
look at beliefs critically
and always in the context of a wider view which includes looking at other beliefs and embracing independent ways to access the objects themselves
problem of ‘knowledge representation’
“Leprechauns”
concepts are in the headobjects (including universals) are in the worldnot all concepts correspond to objectsnot all concepts are relevant to ontology
Ontology
(if it is interested in concepts at all)
is interested only in those concepts which correspond to something in reality
therefore: ontology MUST IN ANY CASE BE INTERESTED IN REALITY
(perhaps the step through concepts is redundant)
Ontology
(if it is interested in models at all)
is interested only in those models which correspond to something in reality
therefore: ontology MUST IN ANY CASE BE INTERESTED IN REALITY
(perhaps the step through models is redundant)
Perspectivalism
Different views/partitions
may represent cuts through the same reality which are skew to each other
But they should be cuts through reality
which means: the partitions used by the ontologist should be compatible
a good medical ontology should NOT be compatible with the conceptualization of disease as:
something caused by evil spirits and demons and cured by leprechauns
problem of ‘merging’ ontologies
garbage ingarbage out
the job of the ontologist is not to merge poor quality conceptualizations… it is to find a way of building good depictions of reality
All veridical perspectives are equal
Each veridical perspective
(which is to say: each transparent partition)
captures some corresponding part of reality
at some level of granularity
Scientific partitions (like the periodic table)
... are transparent to the corresponding order of an associated domain of objects
Question:
which sorts of partitions have this feature of transparency?
the partitions of sciencethe partitions of common sense (folk biology, folk physics, ...)
Both scientific partitions and common-sense partitions
are based on reference-systems which have survived rigorous empirical tests
Many transparent partitions
at different levels of granularity
will operate with species-genus hierarchies
and with an ontology of substances (objects) and accidents (attributes, processes)
along the lines described by Aristotle
Good conceptualizatons
Philosophical ontologists are interested in:1. transparent conceptualizations, veridical perspectives on reality
2. which are at the same time interesting =
science, and what else?
Criteria of quality of partitions
serves communiction
-- standardization, wide accessibility
robust (have survived rigorous empirical tests)
learnable (including: via scientific training)
serves prediction
‘An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization’ (Tom Gruber, SRI)
Tom Gruber’s Definition
... designed to provide a stable forum for translation and interoperability asbetween different conceptualizations
Ontolingua = Esperanto for Information Systems
Ontology, for Gruber, starts with our conceptualizations, and sees how far we can push through from there to a description of a corresponding domain of objects
Conceptualizations are associated with:stories, sciences, organizations, etc.
Ontology, for Gruber,deals with surrogate created worlds
with ‘models’
... with the generated correlates of both good and bad conceptualizations
Two sorts of conceptualizations
bad = those which relate merely to a created, surrogate world
good = those which are transparent to some independent reality beyond
Not all conceptualizations are equal
Bad conceptualizations: ... lying, story-telling, dreaming, astrology, metaphysical error ...
Good conceptualizations: sciencecommon sense (folk biology)what else?
Description Language vs. Representation Language
languages for describing the world
vs.
languages for representing other peoples’s theories
Set Theory
Is the language of set theory a good language for describing the world (a good ontological language)?
Are there sets in reality?
Set theory as Representation Language (Representation Theorems)
Set theory as a mathematical tool
Heinrich
Set theory yields a description language for the world of mathematical objects
-- the Plato-Frege heaven
-- is this true?
What do differential equations depict?
-- rates of change, acceleration
Problems with Set Theory as Basis for an Ontological Description Language
for Ordinary (Non-Mathematical Reality)
Problems with Set Theory
1. What are the urelements?
an exclusively set-theoretic ontology is forced to begin with atoms and work upwards from there.
Mereological ontology can deal with mesoscopic entities and with their mesoscopic constituents (for example in medicine) without caring about smallest-scale parts
Problems with Set Theory
2. Reality is an ocean of mass-energy constantly changing in time.
The causally relevant wholes (organisms, species, …) within this totality are constantly gaining and losing parts.
Sets are abstract entities defined entirely via the specification of their members.
Sets do not change
Problems with Set Theory
3. The ontology of reality is quite different from the ontology of pure mathematics.
For the ontology of reality the cardinal number constructions (2אo, etc.) are artifacts of the theory.
An ontology powerful enough for medicine needs to avoid detours into realms of such mathematical artifacts
Problems with Set Theory
4. The urelements from out of which the continuum is to be set-theoretically constructed must be extensionless points.
Even if we can model real continua via set-theoretical constructions out of such extensionless points, real continua are not sums or totalities of unextended building blocks.
Brentano
A real continuum is a whole which allows parts (including points) to be distinguished within it. The whole comes first.
Against Fantology
For the fantologist
“(F(a)”, “R(a,b)” … is the description language for ontology
The fantologist sees reality as being made up of atoms plus abstract (1- and n-place) ‘properties’ or ‘attributes’
… confuses logical form with ontological form
Two senses of ‘situoid’
Two senses of ‘Poland’
Two senses of ‘triangle in the sand’
Projecting situoids as granular entities (John is kissing Mary) onto the underlying thought-independent reality
No God’s Eye Partition
Some draw the conclusion that there is no such thing as reality,
… but rather different socially constructed 'realities' (in sneer quotes)
The world of common sense
= the world as apprehended via that conceptualization we call common sense
= the normal environment (the niche) shared by children and adults in everyday perceiving and acting