Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Signs, Processes, and Language Games - Foundations for Ontology
Signs, Processes, and Language Games - Foundations for Ontology
Author: John F. Sowa Date: 2001-2004 Format: HTML
"Before attempting a new synthesis, it is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Aristotelian achievement and the lessons that can be learned from it. What, if anything, can be salvaged from it? What philosophical foundations might be better able to accommodate the breakthroughs in modern science, logic, linguistics, and computer science? What semantic foundations could support the highly technical languages of science, the colloquial speech of everyday life, and the problems of finding, sharing, and reasoning with knowledge scattered among millions of computers across the Internet? Should Kant's achievements be considered an encouraging step toward a new synthesis or a discouraging dead end?
Those questions were raised and answered by Peirce, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein - three logicians who understood the limitations of logic when applied to the problems of language and life. What set them apart from their contemporaries was their willingness to build the foundations of their philosophies on the recognition that logic, although important, is limited in what it can do. Section 2 of this paper reviews the difficulties encountered by the 20th-century analytic philosophers who either failed to recognize the limitations of logic or tried to bury their doubts under many layers of formalism. Section 3 analyzes the efforts in artificial intelligence to design logical systems that can cope with the limitations of logic. Sections 4, 5, and 6 show how Peirce, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein developed methods for accommodating the limitations, not eliminating them. Finally, Section 7 outlines the proposed new foundations: Whitehead's process philosophy as a theory of the flux, Peirce's semiotics as a theory of the logos, and Wittgenstein's language games as a theory of semantic change and adaptability."
Author: John F. Sowa Date: 2001-2004 Format: HTML
"Before attempting a new synthesis, it is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Aristotelian achievement and the lessons that can be learned from it. What, if anything, can be salvaged from it? What philosophical foundations might be better able to accommodate the breakthroughs in modern science, logic, linguistics, and computer science? What semantic foundations could support the highly technical languages of science, the colloquial speech of everyday life, and the problems of finding, sharing, and reasoning with knowledge scattered among millions of computers across the Internet? Should Kant's achievements be considered an encouraging step toward a new synthesis or a discouraging dead end?
Those questions were raised and answered by Peirce, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein - three logicians who understood the limitations of logic when applied to the problems of language and life. What set them apart from their contemporaries was their willingness to build the foundations of their philosophies on the recognition that logic, although important, is limited in what it can do. Section 2 of this paper reviews the difficulties encountered by the 20th-century analytic philosophers who either failed to recognize the limitations of logic or tried to bury their doubts under many layers of formalism. Section 3 analyzes the efforts in artificial intelligence to design logical systems that can cope with the limitations of logic. Sections 4, 5, and 6 show how Peirce, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein developed methods for accommodating the limitations, not eliminating them. Finally, Section 7 outlines the proposed new foundations: Whitehead's process philosophy as a theory of the flux, Peirce's semiotics as a theory of the logos, and Wittgenstein's language games as a theory of semantic change and adaptability."
0 Comments:
