Re: propositions
macgregor@ISI.EDU
From: macgregor@ISI.EDU
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Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 09:57:10 -0800
To: interlingua@ISI.EDU
Subject: Re: propositions
>> The finest minds in Western civilisation havn't come to a consensus
>> on this in hundreds of years. We should be very sceptical of a
>> committee of even the *very best* computer scientists claiming it
>> has a 'standard'.
>
>Agreed, it would be sheer hubris to propose *the* standard account of
>propositions. What might more modestly be hoped for, however, is for
>several conceptions of proposition to be isolated and, drawing upon
>existing literature and powerful new formal techniques, theories
>corresponding to each of these conceptions to be made available as
>separate ontologies.
Mike, Richard Fikes, Tom Gruber, and myself discussed this point recently.
We had in mind that a "standard" ontology could contain several
distinct theories, each defining a different notion of proposition
(or perhaps we should have a single theory defining PROPOSITION1,
PROPOSITION2, etc.). We never had in mind that a single notion
of proposition would suffice for all applications. Thats why we
suggest putting propositions into an ontology rather than
into KIF itself.
- Bob
Robert M. MacGregor macgregor@isi.edu
USC/ISI, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292 (310) 822-1511