Showing papers on "Ontology (information science) published in 1968"

11. Elements of Eleatic Ontology

Abstract: THE TASK OF AN INTERPRETER of Parmenides is to find the simplest, historically most plausible, and philosophically most comprehensible set of assumptions that imply (in a suitably loose sense) the doctrine of 'being' set out in Parmenides' poem. In what follows I offer an interpretation that certainly is simple and that I think should be found comprehensible. Historically, only more cautious claims are possible, for several portions of the general view from which I 'deduce the poem' are not clearly stated in the poem itself; my explanation of this is that they are operating as tac/t assumptions, and indeed that the poem is best thought of as an attempt to force these very assumptions to the surface for formulation and critic i smtha t the poem is a challenge. To be sure, there are dangers in pretending, as for dramatic purposes I shall, that ideas are definite and explicit which for Parmenides himself must have been tacit or vague--that Parmenides knew what he was doing as clearly as I represent him; I try to avoid them, but the risk must be taken. I even believe that not to take it, in the name of preserving his thought pure from anachronous contamination, actually prevents us from seeing the extent to which he, pioneer, was ahead of his timc the argument works both ways. So let me hedge my historical claim in this way: the view I shall discuss could have been an active-indeed a controlling---element of Eleaticism; to suppose that Parmenides held it not only explains the poem, but also helps explain the subsequent reactions to Eleaticism of Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Plato (though there is not space to elaborate this here). In addition, it brings his thought astonishingly close to some contemporary philosophical preoccupations. In the first of the following sections, I lay down some sketchy but necessary groundwork concerning the early Greek concept of 'being.' Then in Section 2 an interpretation is given of what I take to be the central Parmenidean doctrine, that 'it cannot be said that anything is not.' This section is the lengthiest and most involved, but it also contains all the moves that appear to be important. Of the remaining sections, Section 3 exp]Mn.q the principle: 'of what is, all that can be said is: it is, ' Section 4 deals briefly with the remaining cosmology of \"The Way of Truth,\" and Section 5 considers the question whether Parmenides himself believed the fantastic conclusions of his argument. There is a short postscript on a point of methodology.

The value of a liberal education: An essay on the power of knowing

Abstract: It is not easy to summarize what has been suggested in this essay. But in greatly simplified terms, something like this may serve.

On Bergmann's Ontology

Abstract: Professor Bergmann is an original thinker who has for many years wrestled with some of the most important and difficult problems of philosophy. Although at first mainly interested in epistemology, he has gradually come to the conclusion that the fundamental questions of philosophy are ontological and that even epistemology is in the last analysis \"the ontology of the knowing process.\" He holds that by neglecting the explicit formulation of his ontology, a philosopher courts intellectual disaster because the inadequacies of the ontological foundation are likely to affect all philosophical superstructures built on it. In his last book [1], Bergmann explains some of the main features of his ontology in systematic form and criticizes competing systems, especially those of Brentano and Meinong, by comparing them with his own. In the critical parts of his work he tries to show that the competing ontologies are not adequate to the tasks for which they are intended and why this is so. The constructive and the critical parts supplement each other very well, since Brentano's and Meinong's questions and emphases are similar to Bergmann's. Broadly speaking, he regards his own ontology as a phase in a development of ontological insight which consists, at least negatively, in the gradual elimination of three major errors: nominalism, reism, and representationalism. The book is closely reasoned, well constructed and amply repays careful study. It is also long and difficult. But I cannot see how it could have been made shorter or easier without sacrificing much that is valuable or interesting in it. My discussion will thus of necessity be selective. I shall present in Section I what I take to be the essential features of Bergmann's ontology, in Section II I shall examine some of the inadequacies which Bergmann finds in the ontologies of Brentano and Meinong; lastly, in Section III, I shall raise some questions about the nature and function of ontology in general, and Bergmann's system in particular.