Gardner Writes » Ontology, Ethics, Meaning

Gardner Writes » Ontology, Ethics, Meaning

Gardner Campbell has written a concise and very interesting riposte to Clay Shirky's "Ontology Overrated" article. Very nice, and I agree with what he is saying.

Gardner's piece has encouraged me to see the effort of forming a formal ontology for a means of communication as a practice in Ethics. By undertaking the attempt to formulate such an ontology, rather than leave the interpretation of the universe of discourse to "popular" view, you are attempting to present the meaning of that discourse in a "correct" view.

Of course this then begs the question of who decides what is correct, but I think that I am getting at "correct" not in a sence of morality, but rather in the sense of being unambiguous in conveying exactly what you want to convey. Your meaning is taken correctly as you intended it when you undertook to communicate.

Thanks, Gardner.


Tags: ontology