Showing papers on "Ontology (information science) published in 1979"

Syntax, semantics, and ontology: A probabilistic causal calculus

Abstract: The problem of providing an adequate explication of the relations that obtain between conditional sentences of various different kinds (including, for example, 'logical', 'nomological', and 'subjunctive' conditionals) is among the most important and difficult issues confronting those who hope to reconstruct the logical principles of ordinary language and of scientific discourse. Prima facie, conditionals of the logical kind appear to be a priori, at least in the sense that, relative to a specific language framework, their truth is demonstrable on formal grounds alone; while those of the nomological kind, by contrast, are a posteriori, at least in the analogous sense that their truth is not demonstrable on formal grounds alone if, indeed, their truth is demonstrable at all. The distinction underlying this difference, moreover, is commonly supposed to be captured by the claim that (valid) logical conditionals are 'true in all possible worlds', while (true) nomological conditionals are 'true in some possible worlds, false in others'. It therefore appears as though the characteristics distinguishing conditionals of these quite different kinds are subject to specification on the basis of both syntactical and semantical criteria possessing considerable intuitive appeal. Nevertheless, these criteria themselves clearly require further refinement, for the syntactical criterion neglects to differentiate the class of conditionals whose truth is demonstrable on grammatical grounds alone, i.e., the narrowly analytical sentences, from the class of conditionals whose truth is only demonstrable on grammatical-plus-vocabulary grounds alone, i.e., the broadly analytical sentences; while the semantical criterion affords no basis for distinguishing historically true conditionals not true of all physically possible worlds, i.e., (merely) material conditionals, from those historically true conditionals that are true of all physically possible worlds as well, i.e., (genuinely) nomological conditionals. Indeed, these difficulties appear to be theoretically intertwined, for the linguistic status of a conditional true of all physically possible worlds alone may be converted to that of a conditional true of all logically possible worlds as well by definitional stipulation. 1 As a result, it would be unreasonable to anticipate that the resolution of one or

Child development and medical ontology.

Abstract: This paper describes the challenge of paediatrics to traditional medical nosography over the last few decades. It is argued that by emphasising the importance of growth and development as an integral part of their knowledge base paediatrics has succeeded in breaking free from adult medicine and its atemporal model of disease.

The End and Time

Abstract: In Husserl’s thought the concept of “telos”includes two essential strata, the first of which, alone, is not sufficient to necessitate a particular ontology of time.