?Logic and Formal Ontology: Is the Final Formal Ontology Possible

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی پژوهشی

نویسنده

Associate Professor Islamic Azad University - Science and Research Branch

10.22091/jptr.2011.1477

چکیده

Musa Akrami
Abstract
Many philosophers and logicians have contemplated the relationship between ontology and logic. The author of this paper, working within a Bolzanoan-Husserlian tradition of studying both ontology and logic, considers ontology as the science of the most general features of beings and the most general relations among them. He considers logic as the science concerning the most general statements of all (natural or artificial) languages and the most general relations among them from an inferential point of view. It is possible to see logic in a broader sense as the science of all kinds of relations among all kinds of entities, acts, and processes stating some (objective, subjective, artificial, or conventional) reality. These entities, acts, and processes are not individual; rather, they are idealized, such that their universals may be instantiated at all times and in all places. In formal ontology we search for the properties of those structures of the reality that are formally similar. So we may find some formal truths applying to all things and/or properties and/or processes in different areas of objective/subjective/fictional reality.
Surveying briefly the most important relations of logic and ontology in both analytic and phenomenological traditions, the author focuses on this central point: If reality is one as the unity of more or less interconnected and interactive beings of all physical, nonphysical and artificial types, the system of inference too may be one as the unity of more or less interconnected statements of all natural and artificial types. The universal system of inference may be divided into several relatively separate subsystems (having a more or less degree of connection) just as the unified reality has divided into several relatively separate fields (having a more or less degree of connection and interaction). According to such a model for corresponding realities and sciences within the unified reality and the unified science, the author assumes the possibility of beginning to construct both the comprehensive system of reference and the comprehensive formal ontology, both covering all possible members of their own field and being parallel and correspondent to each other; a long-run work, of course, very difficult to do.

کلیدواژه‌ها

عنوان مقاله [English]

?Logic and Formal Ontology: Is the Final Formal Ontology Possible

نویسنده [English]

  • Musa Akrami
Associate Professor Islamic Azad University - Science and Research Branch
چکیده [English]

Musa Akrami
Abstract
Many philosophers and logicians have contemplated the relationship between ontology and logic. The author of this paper, working within a Bolzanoan-Husserlian tradition of studying both ontology and logic, considers ontology as the science of the most general features of beings and the most general relations among them. He considers logic as the science concerning the most general statements of all (natural or artificial) languages and the most general relations among them from an inferential point of view. It is possible to see logic in a broader sense as the science of all kinds of relations among all kinds of entities, acts, and processes stating some (objective, subjective, artificial, or conventional) reality. These entities, acts, and processes are not individual; rather, they are idealized, such that their universals may be instantiated at all times and in all places. In formal ontology we search for the properties of those structures of the reality that are formally similar. So we may find some formal truths applying to all things and/or properties and/or processes in different areas of objective/subjective/fictional reality. 
Surveying briefly the most important relations of logic and ontology in both analytic and phenomenological traditions, the author focuses on this central point: If reality is one as the unity of more or less interconnected and interactive beings of all physical, nonphysical and artificial types, the system of inference too may be one as the unity of more or less interconnected statements of all natural and artificial types. The universal system of inference may be divided into several relatively separate subsystems (having a more or less degree of connection) just as the unified reality has divided into several relatively separate fields (having a more or less degree of connection and interaction). According to such a model for corresponding realities and sciences within the unified reality and the unified science, the author assumes the possibility of beginning to construct both the comprehensive system of reference and the comprehensive formal ontology, both covering all possible members of their own field and being parallel and correspondent to each other; a long-run work, of course, very difficult to do.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • logic
  • ontology
  • formal ontology
  • Hussrlian formal ontology
  • comprehensive system of inference

مراجع

  1. Bibliography

    1. Carnap, R. (1956a), Meaning and Necessity: a study in semantics and modal logic, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2nd edition.
    2. Carnap, R. (1956b), ‘Empiricism, semantics, and ontology’, in Carnap 1956a, pp. 203-221.
    3. Carnap, R. 1956a. Meaning and Necessity: a study in semantics and modal logic, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2nd edition.
      1. Cocchiarella, N. B. (1974), “Formal ontology and the foundations of mathematics”,  in: G. Nakhnikian (ed.) ,  Bertrand Russell's philosophy, Duckworth, London, 1974, pp. 24-46.
    4. Faye, Jan, Uwe Scheffler and Max Urchs (2000), “Philosophical entities, An introduction”, in Faye, Jan, Uwe Scheffler and Max Urchs (eds), Things, facts and events, Amsterdam, Rodopi
    5. Gruber, Thomas R.  “A Translation Approach to Portable Ontology Specifications”, Knowledge Acquisition, 5(2):199-220, online editin {http://tomgruber.org/writing/ontolingua-kaj-1993.pdf}, accessed May 16 2010
    6. Hofweber, T. 2004. ‘Logic and Ontology’, in Zalta, Edward N. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Online Edition, {http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-ontology/ }, Accessed on May 12, 2010
    7. Kirwin, Christopher. 1995. 'Reasoning'. In Ted Honderich (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    8.  Nasr, S. Hossein, and Mehdi Amin Razavi (1996), The Islamic intellectual tradition in Persia, Routledge

    10. Poli, Roberto (1993), “Husserl's conception of formal ontology”,  in  History and Philosophy of Logic, volume 14, Issue 1, 1993, pp. 1-14

    11. Poli, Roberto (2003), “Descriptive, Formal and Formalized Ontologies”,in Denis Fisette (ed.),  Husserl's Logical Investigations Reconsidered, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003, pp. 183-210

    1. Poli, Roberto and Peter Simons (eds.) (1996) Formal ontology, Dordrecht: Kluwer

    13. Quine, W.V. 1948. ‘On what there is’, Review of Metaphysics; reprinted in Quine 1980.

    14. Quine, W.V. 1980. From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2nd edition.

    15. Smith, Barry (1978), An Essay in Formal Ontology,  Grazer Philosophische Studien, 6 (1978), 39–62

    1. Smith, Barry and David Woodruff Smith (1995), “Introduction” in Barry Smith and David Woodruff Smith (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995. pp. 1-44.

    17. Teichmann, Jenny, and Katherine C. Evans (1999), Philosophy: A Beginner's Guide, Blackwell Publishing

    18. Van Inwagen, P. 1998. ‘Meta-ontology’, Erkenntnis, 48: 233-250[CZ1] 

     [CZ1]This needs to be made consistent with other bibliographies.

     

ارسال نظر در مورد این مقاله
CAPTCHA Image

فایل ها

هم رسانی

ارجاع به این مقاله

آمار