Thread Links Date Links
Thread Prev Thread Next Thread Index Date Prev Date Next Date Index

SUO: Re: Logic, Topic Maps, & RDF


Jon,

In some contexts they are, and in some
contexts they aren't:

 > But they ain't interchangeable bits.

In French, the word "femme" means woman
or wife.  In Russian, the word for woman
is "zhenshchina", which by etymology would
mean a person with the status of a wife.

The relational structures associated with the
concept types Husband and Wife are more complex
than the relational structures associated with
the types Man and Woman.   Sometimes it is
important to note that point, and sometimes
it isn't.  And in some cultures, the point
is so obvious that they don't bother to use
different words -- even more significantly,
they use the role to define the "essence".

That turns the idea of "essence" upside down.
But it doesn't bother the Russians, and it
doesn't bother me.  I don't believe in
context-independent essences.

For Dolce, Nicola claims that essences
are essential to ontology.  I think that
they're important for classifying concepts
and other signs, but the notion is too
complex to be assumed as fundamental.

John