On 4/2/2017 4:54 AM, Stephen Jarosek wrote:
imitation is so central that perhaps a case can be made
for a more accurate representation of what we really mean.
I certainly agree.
But I would make a distinction between Peirce's fundamental
terminology and the open-ended variety of terms that can be
explained in terms of the fundamentals. I have no objection
to using his system to define 'imitation' or any other word
that may be useful.
In my article "Signs and Reality", I was addressing readers
who have been using an open-ended variety of terminology
from several millennia of philosophy to design ontologies
for computer systems. I was trying to make several points:
1. The philosophical terminology is large and growing.
It was developed by many different authors, who often use
the terms in diverse, sometimes inconsistent ways.
2. The short book I cited (by David Armstrong) was addressed
to *graduate students* in philosophy. But most computer
scientists who need to use ontology have little background
in philosophy. They would not read such a book, and they
would not learn enough from it to use those words precisely.
3. However, everybody who uses an applied ontology knows and
uses some notation for logic (or a computer notation that
has a well-defined logical foundation).
4. As a pioneer in modern logic, Peirce developed terminology
that is compatible with the versions of logic used for computer
systems. It provides a broader and more systematic foundation
for defining the categories of applied ontologies.
5. Therefore, my goal in that article was to extract a convenient
subset of Peirce's terminology that could be taught to students
who know some notation for logic, but have little or no training
in philosophy.
6. My claim is that Peirce's triple trichotomy (attached table),
together with any notation for logic that students already
know, is sufficient for teaching a course on applied ontology.
(Note that I replaced 5 of the terms with more familiar terms
that Peirce used in other writings.)
I would hope that students would continue to study more by Peirce
and other philosophers. But I believe that applied ontology on
a Peircean foundation would be a more solid basis than what they
are studying today. See http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signs.pdf .
John
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