- From: Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us>
- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:18:24 +0000
- To: Alan Ruttenberg <alanruttenberg@gmail.com>
- Cc: public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org
>On Jun 12, 2007, at 3:53 PM, samwald@gmx.at wrote: > >> >>Hi Waclaw, >> >>>Matthias, if you look carefully at BFO, you'll see that roles are >>>entities. This means that evidences, as roles, are entities. >> >>Of course. I just wanted to differentiate that an experiment is not >>an instance of any class called 'evidence' (in other words, an >>experiment 'is not' evidence). Instead, it should be associated >>with an 'evidence-role'. > >The only problem with this is that roles inhere in continuants >rather than in occurrents. One way around this is not to say that >evidence is an experiment, but rather the results of an experiment. If I may interject, the fact that you need to find a way 'around' this illustrates what I have long found to be the case, that the continuant/occurrent distinction, and the resulting artificial restrictions that it places upon what one is allowed to say, is more harm than it is worth. One can take any ontology (such as BFO) that is based up on it and simply erase the distinction (and all its consequent distinctions) and nothing is thereby lost, only a simplification achieved and the need for artificial work-arounds diminished. It is in any case based on very debatable (and indeed debated) philosophical assumptions, arising chiefly from ordinary-language philosophy (and Brentano's theology) than from anything scientific. It carves nature at language's joints rather than nature's joints. Pat Hayes -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax FL 32502 (850)291 0667 cell phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
Received on Monday, 18 June 2007 19:25:23 UTC