On 2/19/2014 8:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 08:06:31PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
I think we're talking past one another. You're talking about
ontology as the ur-stuff that's really real. I'm talking about the
stuff that is assumed as fundamental in a theory.
Brent
Yes, to me an ontology is a statement about what's really real. The
ur-stuff, as you say.
I've never heard of ontology as something that any theory has.
That's how Quine uses it.
What
does information theory have as an ontology, for example? It certainly
makes no claims about existence.
Information. Theories don't usually make explicit claims for the existence of their
ontology. Physicists seldom say, "Assuming electrons exist...", they just proceed to use
a theory about electrons, how they can be created and annihilated, how they move,...
Possibly you are using ontology in the sense defined by Tom Gruber?
http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html
If so, then that is a completely different word, that just happens to
sound the same and have the same spelling. Certainly, any theory will
have a collection of undefined referrents - in formal theories these
would b called the axioms.
Axioms are propositions. Electrons aren't propositions, they are referents in
propositions.
Brent
It looks like in some circumstances,
"ontology" refers to these collections.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
