Fabulous. I find this to be an immensely valuable overview yet with lots of important details.
I would most appreciate it if you would care to comment on the following two matters related to your presentation:
1. I wonder, that the *transition* from Aristotle, who seems to me
to be talking about patterns such as his categories, and tools such as logic, to those
attempting to use those patterns and tools to create a single hierchy of
being, (e.g. the tree of Porphyry) is not more stressed.
Personally, I have found these patterns and tools, such as mathematical logic,
logical English, and UML, immensely useful for creating narrowly defined
domain ontologies, for a given purpose. They seem to work quite well
when applied narrowly.
2. An "upper ontology" is a very different matter. There, perhaps human
thought and language is not so easily described. I wonder that you do
not mention Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblance , and the related
reflections in say Lakoff's
Women, Fire and Dangerous Things as a possible challenge to and reason why the immense work on upper ontologies has found less success than it might.
Personally, I think that the vast complexity of the world needs something much richer than hierachies to describe it. I would guess that if someone were to attempt an effective upper ontology, it would have to be based on a richer systematic analysis than the efforts so far have had under their belts, something like the compendium of works by Mario Bunge.
Thanks,
Wm
--
William Frank
413/376-8167
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