RE: SUO: Re: Montologies
Chris,
Agreed. I was talking about the mathematical logic of Frege and Russell - as
you say. I got the impression that this is what John was talking about in
his original message - hence my reply (apologies to John, if I am mistaken).
The (minor) point I was trying to make is that the notation was originally
developed and used as a foundation for the tenseless truths of mathematics -
1 + 2 = 3 etc. - so tense was not a major concern. This is not trying to
sideline the later work done by others (e.g. Prior) in developing tensed
'mathematical' logics.
Definitely agree about "Logic, the discipline, has been concerned with tense
since Aristotle (cf. his discussion of such future contingents as "There
will be a sea battle tomorrow")." Logic pre-Frege is v. interesting. Though
note in passing that Aristotle's study of the formal aspect of inference,
syllogisms, (to my v. limited knowledge) also avoids explaining tense. WOuld
like to know if this impression is wrong.
Regards,
(The other) Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of
Chris Menzel
Sent: 25 June 2003 20:15
To: IEEE Standard Upper Ontology List
Subject: Re: SUO: Re: Montologies
On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 01:30:21PM -0400, Jon Awbrey wrote:
> Chris Partridge wrote:
> >
> > John,
> >
> > I am aware that logic does not directly treat tense.
> > There was no need for that when it was designed for
> > mathematics.
>
> For those who did not get the memo, our best current models of change,
> process, physical objects, and physical transformation are
> mathematical and statistical models.
Perhaps true, but irrelevant to the issue at hand, it seems to me.
Chris and John are discussing only the treatment of *tense* in logic,
not models of change, process, etc. That issue has to do with such
things as whether to use temporal operators or to quantify over times
(or intervals or the like) directly, appropriate axioms for tense logic,
etc. Where Chris seems to me to go wrong is in his apparent association
of logic with the logic of Frege and Russell -- who did largely ignore
issues of tense (though not indexicality). Logic, the discipline, has
been concerned with tense since Aristotle (cf. his discussion of such
future contingents as "There will be a sea battle tomorrow").
Chris Menzel