Hi Bruce,
I am glad this is a line of discourse you want to pursue (and have
pursued since at least 1994 as your link indicates). I'm happy to engage
on any questions or topics; there are many other Peirce afficiandos on
these lists that also have helpful insights. For now, I only comment on
one of your points below:
On 3/4/2021 9:31 AM, bruceschu...@cox.net wrote:
Wow. I love this. I've been writing on this subject forever --
saying more or less the same things and citing the same authors --
e.g., Herbert Simon. I'm going to print your article, Mike, and take
a close look at it. Back in the early days, I bought every book there
was on Hierarchy. You make basic points in your opening that I’d say
pave the way towards a very powerful general theory of epistemology.
The basic themes you outline in this article are at the essence of my
notion of “Closed Loop Interval Ontology” – which is hierarchical
exactly as you describe, with the addition that the framework is
defined as a closed loop interconnecting these “levels” into a single
closed mathematical structure.
My early stuff on this subject is here: http://originresearch.com
<http://originresearch.com>
The trick here seems to be – that this thesis is so powerful, it
becomes combinatorically explosive – heading towards the fabled
“theory of everything” – maybe in explicit epistemological detail.
Interesting that you say that “natural hierarchies are real” – which
opens the way to some additional complexity or levels of inclusion.
Maybe there is a “hierarchical relationship” across levels of reality,
such that the kind of practical-real-world “reality” defined by Barry
Smith can be mapped directly into an absolutely abstract model which I
would say is a “science of the artificial”, as Herbert Simon might
have described it. “Does absolute abstraction exist in nature”?
My own view is that Peirce's universal categories of Firstness,
Secondness, and Thirdness provide this level of "absolute abstraction
[that] exists in nature". I don't know if you realize that some of your
earlier references to Ogden and Richards
<http://originresearch.com/sd/sd4.cfm> were actually a paraphrase of
Peirce's insights. My own research focus has been on trying to
understand the 'mindset' of Peirce's universal categories, expressed in
perhaps a 100 different ways in his writings, that sets a frame of
reference for tackling knowledge representation (epistemological)
questions at virtually any level. Ogden and Richards picked up on one
with respect to meaning, but there are other examples galore across
Peirce's writings.
What Peirce really offers, IMO, is a way to break away from either-or
Cartesian mindsets that always pit issues as win-lose propositions, and
ignore the "fact" that one can both be a realist and an idealist. By
accepting the reality of absolute chance we are also removing false
dichotomies between determinism and evolution. As with wave-particle
duality or quantum v classic physics, Cartesian thinking is a cultural
and intellectual posture that leaves us stymied and frustrated. I much
prefer the trichotomous view of actuality bracketed by chance and
continuity, the essence of Peirce's universal categories.
BTW, there is no reason why this viewpoint can not inform the structure
and basis of a top-level (upper) ontology. (One that I humbly feels
offers an integrative framework for ANY knowledge graph or ontology.)
That is exactly the approach we have taken with our KBpedia
<https://kbpedia.org/> knowledge structure, and its top-level KBpedia
Knowledge Ontology <https://kbpedia.org/docs/kko-upper-structure/> (KKO).
Best, Mike
Fascinating article and project, Mike. A lot to talk about.
Thanks!
- Bruce
Hierarchies — real or artificial — abound to help us organize our
world. A hierarchy places items into a general order, where more
‘general’ is also more ‘abstract’. The etymology of the word hierarchy
is grounded in notions of religious and social rank. This article,
after a broad historical review, focuses on knowledge systems, an
interloper of the term hierarchy since at least the 1800s. Hierarchies
in knowledge systems include taxonomies, classification systems, or
thesauri in library and information science, and systems for
representing information and knowledge to computers, notably
ontologies, knowledge graphs, and knowledge representation languages.
Hierarchies are the logical underpinning of inference and reasoning in
these systems, as well as the scaffolding for classification and
inheritance. Hierarchies in knowledge systems express subsumption
relations that have many flexible variants, which we can represent
algorithmically, and thus computationally. This article dissects the
dimensions of that variability, leading to a proposed typology of
hierarchies useful to knowledge systems. The article argues through a
perspective informed by Charles Sanders Peirce that natural
hierarchies are real, can be logically determined, and are the
appropriate basis for knowledge systems. Description logics and
semantic language standards such as RDF or OWL reflect this
perspective, importantly through their open-world logic and
vocabularies for generalized subsumption hierarchies. Recent research
suggests possible mechanisms for the emergence of natural hierarchies
involving the nexus of chance, evolution, entropy, free energy, and
information theory.
Bruce Schuman
Santa Barbara CA USA
bruceschu...@cox.net / 805-705-9174
www.origin.org / www.integralontology.net
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-fo...@googlegroups.com <ontolog-fo...@googlegroups.com>
On Behalf Of Mike Bergman
Sent: Wednesday, March 3, 2021 7:57 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu; ontolog-fo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Hierarchy, a la Peirce
Hi All,
I am pleased my open-access paper on hierarchy in knowledge systems,
as informed by my understanding of CS Peirce, has been published by IEKO:
https://www.isko.org/cyclo/hierarchy
<https://www.isko.org/cyclo/hierarchy>. I hope you enjoy!
Thanks, Mike
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