Re: Against Strong Ontological Commitment

On Friday, October 10, 2003, at 05:57  PM, Dan Connolly wrote:

> On Fri, 2003-10-10 at 16:18, Bijan Parsia wrote:
>> On Friday, October 10, 2003, at 02:05  PM, Dan Connolly wrote:
>>
>>> Why argue against a position that noone has taken?
>>
>> Are you genuinely asking or indirectly suggesting I shouldn't?
>>
>> Because it's not clear that  no one has taken it.
>
> I don't see how this will make it clear.

I didn't say it would. But if someone held the view, the argument might 
convince them otherwise. It might help firm up consensus against the 
view (which hasn't been established, yet, except informally), and it 
might reveal other things. Or, what the heck, one persons modus pones 
is another's modus tollens.

>> Also, it was involved a non-obvious consequence of the position, one, 
>> I
>> believe, may affect some of the weaker views propounded or suggested.
>> So I laid out the argument so we could understand better what might be
>> wrong with SOC.
>>
>> And if no one has taken it, what do you care that I chose to refute 
>> it?
>
> I don't. never mind.

I really should start skipping to the end of messages before starting 
to reply.

I just note the cost of queries like that.

Also, you didn't reply to my response to request you made in the latter 
part of you message, especially wrt I have met your standard for 
terminological explication. I'm trying to figure out what counts as 
meeting your request, as, before your note, I though I was doing a very 
good job of keeping terms clear, and sources of views mentioned. I've 
quoted the text that is the source of the OSC view *serveral* times, 
and gave my derivation of the "imports closure" version of it twice. I 
would like, henceforth, to just use OSC in this forum. I think this 
complies with the spirit of your request, but you haven't confirmed 
that.

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.

Received on Friday, 10 October 2003 19:00:35 UTC