1. 1 Formal Ontology and Information Systems Barry Smith http://ifomis.de

2. 2 Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS) Faculty of Medicine University of Leipzig http://ifomis.de

3. 3 The Idea Computational medical research will transform the discipline of medicine … but only if communication problems can be solved

4. 4 Database standardization is desperately needed in medicine to enable the huge amounts of data resulting from trials by different groups to be fused together

5. 5 How resolve incompatibilities? “ONTOLOGY” = the solution of first resort (compare: kicking a television set) But what does ‘ontology’ mean? Current most popular answer: a collection of terms and definitions satisfying constraints of description logic

6. 6 Enterprise Ontology A Sale is an agreement between two Legal- Entities for the exchange of a Product for a Sale-Price. A Strategy is a Plan to Achieve a high-level Purpose. A Market is all Sales and Potential Sales within a scope of interest.

7. 7 Wall Street Journal 11 July 2002 … that the original high hopes of B2B automation were not realized turns on the fact that there are many highly nuanced features of business transactions, known only tacitly to those involved, the failure to take account of which has had disastrous consequences for those involved

8. 8 Gene Ontology Molecular Function Ontology: tasks performed by individual gene products; examples: transcription factor, DNA helicase Biological Process Ontology: broad biological goals accomplished by ordered assemblies of molecular functions; examples: mitosis, purine metabolism Cellular Component Ontology: subcellular structures, locations, and macromolecular complexes; examples: nucleus, telomere

9. 9 Example from Molecular Function Ontology hormone ; GO:0005179 %digestive hormone ; GO:0046659 %peptide hormone ; GO:0005180 %adrenocorticotropin ; GO:0017043 %glycopeptide hormone ; GO:0005181 %follicle-stimulating hormone ; GO:0016913

10. 10 as tree hormone digestive hormone peptide hormone adrenocorticotropin glycopeptide hormone follicle-stimulating hormone

11. 11 Problem: There exist multiple databases genomic cellular structural phenotypic … and even for each specific type of information, e.g. DNA sequence data, there exist several databases of different scope and organisation

12. 12 What is a gene? GDB: a gene is a DNA fragment that can be transcribed and translated into a protein Genbank: a gene is a DNA region of biological interest with a name and that carries a genetic trait or phenotype (from Schulze-Kremer)

13. 13 What is blood? Unified Medical Language System (UMLS): blood is a tissue Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED): blood is a fluid

14. 14 Statements of Accounts Company Financial statements may be prepared under either the (US) GAAP or the (European) IASC standards These allocate cost items to different categories depending on the laws of the countries involved.

15. 15 Ontology’s job is to develop an algorithm for the automatic conversion of income statements and balance sheets between the two systems. Not even this relatively simple problem has been satisfactorily resolved … why not?

16. 16 Applications ontology: grew out of work in knowledge representation

17. 17 Applications ontology: Ontologies are applications running in real time ontologies are inside the computer thus subject to severe constraints on expressive power (effectively the expressive power of description logic, a logic for manipulating hierarchies of concepts/general terms)

18. 18 Applications ontology cannot solve the data-fusion problem because of its roots in knowledge mining

19. 19 different conceptual systems

20. 20 need not interconnect at all

21. 21 because of the limits of knowledge mining

22. 22 we cannot make incompatible concept-systems interconnect just by looking at concepts, or knowledge – we need some tertium quid

23. 23 Applications ontology has its philosophical roots in Quine’s doctrine of ontological commitment and in the ‘internal metaphysics’ of Carnap/Putnam Roughly, for an applications ontology the world and the semantic model are one and the same What exists = what the system says exists

24. 24 again: semantic models need not interconnect at all

25. 25 What is needed in some sort of wider common framework which is sufficiently rich and nuanced to allow concept systems deriving from different sources to be hand-callibrated

26. 26 What is needed is not an applications ontology but a reference ontology

27. 27 Reference Ontology … grew out of logic and analytic metaphysics An ontology is a theory of the relevant domain of entities Ontology is outside the computer seeks maximal expressiveness and adequacy to reality willing to sacrifice computational tractability for the sake of representational adequacy

28. 28 Belnap “it is a good thing logicians were around before computer scientists; “if computer scientists had got there first, then we wouldn’t have numbers because arithmetic is undecidable”

29. 29 It is a good thing Aristotelian metaphysics was around before description logic, because otherwise we would have only hierarchies of concepts/universals/classes and no individual instances …

30. 30 Reference Ontology a theory of the tertium quid – called reality – needed to hand-callibrate database/terminology systems

31. 31 Methodology Get ontology right first (realism; descriptive adequacy; rather powerful logic); solve tractability problems later

32. 32 The Reference Ontology Community IFOMIS (Leipzig) Laboratories for Applied Ontology (Trento, Rome, Turin) Foundational Ontology Project (Leeds) Ontology Works (Baltimore) Ontek Corporation (Buffalo/Leeds) LandC (Belgium/Philadelphia)

33. 33 Domains of Current Work in Reference Ontology IFOMIS Leipzig: Medicine Laboratories for Applied Ontology Trento/Rome: Ontology of Cognition/Language Turin: Law Foundational Ontology Project (Leeds): Space, Physics Ontology Works (Baltimore): Genetics, Molecular Biology Ontek Corporation (Buffalo/Leeds): Biological Systematics LandC (Belgium/Philadelphia): Medical NLP

34. 34 Some Historical Background on Reference Ontology

35. 35 Recall: GDB: a gene is a DNA fragment that can be transcribed and translated into a protein Genbank: a gene is a DNA region of biological interest with a name and that carries a genetic trait or phenotype (from Schulze-Kremer)

36. 36 Ontology Note that terms like ‘fragment’, ‘region’, ‘name’, ‘carry’, ‘trait’, ‘type’ … along with terms like ‘part’, ‘whole’, ‘function’, ‘substance’, ‘inhere’ … are ontological terms in the sense of traditional (philosophical) ontology

37. 37 Aristotle First ontologist

38. 38 First ontology ( from Porphyry’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories)

39. 39 Linnaean Ontology

40. 40 Formal Ontology term coined by Edmund Husserl = the theory of those ontological structures such as part-whole, universal-particular which apply to all domains whatsoever

41. 41 Edmund Husserl

42. 42 Husserl outlines a new method of constituent ontology to study a domain ontologically is to establish the parts of the domain and the interrelations between them especially the dependence relations

43. 43 Logical Investigations¸1900/01 Aristotelian theory of universals and particulars theory of part and whole theory of ontological dependence the theory of boundaries and fusion

44. 44 Formal Ontology contrasted with material or regional ontologies (compare relation between pure and applied mathematics) Husserl’s idea: If we can build a good formal ontology, this should save time and effort in building reference ontologies for each successive domain

45. 45 Basic Formal Ontology BFO The Vampire Slayer

46. 46 Basic Formal Ontology Aristotelian theory of universals and instances theory of part and whole theory of ontological dependence theory of boundary, continuity and contact theory of states, powers, qualities, roles (SPQR- entities) theory of processes theory of environments/niches/contexts and spatial and spatio-temporal regions

47. 47 BFO not just a system of categories but a formal theory with definitions, axioms, theorems designed to provide the resources for reference ontologies for specific domains the latter should be of sufficient richness that terminological incompatibilities can be resolves intelligently rather than by brute force

48. 48 Three types of reference ontology 1) formal ontology = framework for rigorous definition of the highly general concepts – such as object, event, whole, part – employed in every domain 2) domain ontology, a top-level system with a few highly general concepts, applies formal ontology to a particular domain, such as genetics or medicine 3) terminology-based ontology, a very large system embracing many concepts and inter- concept relations

49. 49 MedO = medical domain ontology including sub-ontologies: cell ontology drug ontology protein ontology gene ontology

50. 50 other sub-ontologies anatomical ontology epidemiological ontology disease ontology therapy ontology pathology ontology the whole designed to give structure to the medical domain (currently medical education comparable to stamp-collecting)

51. 51 MedO and its various sub-ontologies will inherit the definitions and axioms of BFO but will add new definitions and axioms of their own

52. 52 Granularity cell ontology drug ontology protein ontology gene ontology imply that we need also a theory of granularity

53. 53 Ontology like cartography must work with maps at different scales How fit these maps (conceptual grids) together into a single system? IFOMIS is developing a theory of granular partitions designed to provide a framework within which different maps/views of the same reality can be combined together

54. 54 Testing the BFO/MedO approach within a software environment for NLP of unstructured patient records collaborating with Language and Computing nv (www.landc.be)

55. 55 L&C LinKBase®: world’s largest terminology-based ontology incorporating UMLS, SNOMED, etc. + LinKFactory®: suite for developing and managing large terminology-based ontologies

56. 56 LinKBase LinKBase close to being a flat list BFO and MedO designed to add depth, and so also reasoning capacity by tagging LinKBase terms with corresponding BFO/MedO categories

57. 57

58. 58 Part Two Reference Ontology and Agent-Based/Situated Computing

59. 59 Agents: encapsulated computer systems that are situated in some environment and are capable of flexible, autonomous action in that environment in order to meet their design objectives. Interactions: Such agents invariably need to interact with one another in order to manage their inter-dependencies. These interactions involve agents cooperating, negotiating and coordinating with one another.cooperating Organisations: The agents' interactions take place within some organisational context (eg a marketplace or some other form of electronic institution). Particular prominence is given to automated cooperation, coordination and negotiation using techniques such as game theory, argumentation, computational economics, and belief- desire-intention models.negotiationargumentation From Southampton IAM

60. 60 Shimon Edelman’s Riddle of Representation two humans, a monkey, and a robot are looking at a piece of cheese; what is common to the representational processes in their visual systems?

61. 61 Answer: The cheese, of course

62. 62 Rodney Brooks opposition between the Engineering view and the SMPA View

63. 63 SMPA model Sense Model Plan Act the agent first senses its environment through sensors then uses this data to build a model of the world then produces a plan to achieve goals then acts on this plan

64. 64 Proposal SMPA belongs to the same methodological universe as Applications Ontology If we want to build an intelligent agent within this framework, there need to be representations of the domain within which the agent acts which are inside the computer

65. 65 Engineering Approach The system embodies a number of distinct layers of activity (compare: faculties of the mind) These layers operate independently and connect directly to the environment outside the system Each layer operates as a complete system that copes in real time with a changing environment Layers evolve through interaction with the environment (artificial insects/vehicles …)

66. 66 Brooks’ Engineering Approach lends very little weight to the role of representations or models At the same time it insists that AI should use the world in all its complexity in producing systems that react directly to the world An ontology appropriate for this approach would have to include within its purview both the world and the system, thus be essentially richer than the system alone

67. 67 An intelligent system must be situated it is situatedness which gives the processes within each layer meaning meaning exists precisely in the relation to the world, the world serves also as to unify the different layers together and to make them compatible

68. 68 I know where the book is = I know how to find it I know what the square root of 2489 is = I know how to calculate it I know how to recognize the presence of a tiger = by smell, noise … (in real-world context)

69. 69 A. Clark, Being There humans can accomplish much without building detailed, internal models; we rely on Epistemic action = writing one large number above another to multiply them with pen on paper

70. 70 A. Clark, Being There we can rely also on External scaffolding = maps, models, tools, landmarks, buildings, language, culture we act so as to simplify cognitive tasks by "leaning on" the structures in our environment.

71. 71 Cf. Brooks: Organisms, especially humans, find their dispositions in their muscle-tone and in the balance of hormones coursing through their blood streams, not just in their brains. They fix their beliefs not only in their heads but in their worlds, as they attune themselves differently to different parts of the world as a result of their experience. And they pull the same trick with their memories, not only by rearranging their parsing of the world (their understanding of what they see), but by marking it. They place traces out there which changes what they will be confronted with the next time it comes around. Thus they don't have to carry their memories with them. Brooks, “Intelligence without Representation”

72. 72 Not all calculations are done inside the head Not all thinking is done inside the head

73. 73 Gibsonian Ecological Psychology To understand human cognition we should study the moving, acting human person as it exists in its real-world environment and taking account how it has evolved into this real-world environment We are like tuning forks – tuned to the environment which surrounds us, and this is a social environment which includes records and representations

74. 74 Gibsonian Ecological View of Information Systems To understand information systems we should study the hardware as it exists embedded in its real-world environment and taking account of the environment for which it was designed and built Information systems are like tuning forks – they resonate in tune to their surrounding environments e.g. through their biological and chemical sensors

75. 75 The World Wide Web Vast amount of heterogeneous data sources Needs: dramatically better support for richly structured ontologies in databases + ability to query and integrate across different ontologies (e.g. Semantic Web)

76. 76 Quineanism: They took ontology as the study of the ontological commitments or presuppositions embodied in the beliefs of experts

77. 77 Can we do better with the Gibsonian approach? Test Domain: Medical Terminology

78. 78 So what is the ontology of blood?

79. 79 We cannot solve this problem just by looking at concepts in Fodorian fashion

80. 80 concept systems may be simply incommensurable

81. 81 the problem can only be solved by taking the world itself into account

82. 82 and by recognizing that the same object can be apprehended at different levels of granularity: at the perceptual level blood is a liquid at the cellular level blood is a tissue

83. 83 This implies a view of ontology not as a theory of concepts but as a theory of reality But how is this possible? How can we get beyond our concepts? answer: ontology must be maximally opportunistic it must relate not to beliefs, concepts, syntactic strings but to the world itself

84. 84 “Maximally opportunistic” means: look at concepts and beliefs critically and always in the context of a wider view which includes independent ways to access the objects themselves at different levels of granularity and taking account of tacit knowledge of those features of reality of which the domain experts are not consciously aware

85. 85 “Maximally opportunistic” means: look not at what the expert says but at what the expert does Experts have expertise = knowing how Ontologists can have windows on reality, by focusing on categories, and can extract some form of knowing that Gibsonianism: experts don’t know what the ontologist knows

86. 86 Ontology must be maximally opportunistic This means: don’t just look at beliefs look at the objects themselves from every possible direction, formal and informal scientific and non-scientific …

87. 87 Maximally opportunistic means: look at the same objects at different levels of granularity:

88. 88 Second step: select out the good conceptualizations these have a reasonable chance of being integrated together into a single ontological system based on tested principles robust conform to natural science

89. 89 Partitions should be cuts through reality a good medical ontology should NOT be compatible with a conceptualization of disease as caused by evil spirits

90. 90 A Theory of Contexts, Settings, Environments for Social Acts X counts as Y in context C What kinds of entities are social contexts?

91. 91 Reinach a priori ontological structures in the social realm are transcategorial : involving experiences, intentions, language, action, deontic powers, background collective habits, mental competences, records, PLUS: social environments

92. 92 The bonds established by Reinach’s proto- structures of promise, claim and obligation … can normally arise only within miniature civil societies, within which special sorts of environmental conditions are satisfied

93. 93 The Idea: Contexts can be Nested One Inside Another Many settings occur in assemblies: A unit in the middle range of a nesting structure is simultaneously both circumjacent and interjacent, both whole and part, both entity and environment. (Roger Barker) Compare the hierarchical organization of the human body into organs, cells, …

94. 94 Human body Rigidly hierachical, modular organization – with many things which can go wrong Held together by physico-chemical bonds

95. 95 Large-scale social organizations are held together by micro-social bonds as described by Reinach The whole organized as a rigidly hierarchical, modular nesting structure, with many things which can go wrong

96. 96 Ecological Psychology Gibson: Perception :: Roger Barker: Society Barker’s Ecological Ontology of Social Reality

97. 97 Barker on Unity of Social Reality On Reinach’s transcategoriality: “The conceptual incommensurability of phenomena which is such an obstacle to the unification of the sciences does not appear to trouble nature’s units. Within the larger units, things and events from conceptually more and more alien sciences are incorporated and regulated.”

98. 98 Barker on Unity of Social Reality “As far as our behaviour is concerned, … even the most radical diversity of kinds and categories need not prevent integration”

99. 99 we must be tuned, automatically, to social reality J. J. Gibson’s ecological psychology: we are tuned automatically to perceptual reality

100. 100 How to solve this problem (and why are buildings important?) Compare the way in which the physical properties of ROADS help people to obey the traffic laws when driving Deal with obligations, norms not via deontic logic but via the comparison with roads?

101. 101 First step: A Theory of Environments Biological environments Niches Places

102. 102 Environments a Neglected Major Category in the History of Ontology Substances S tates, Q ualities, P owers, R oles … Processes Environments -- environments missing from Aristotle, from DOLCE, from entity- relationship models

103. 103 Ecological Niche Concepts niche as particular place or subdivision of an environment that an organism or population occupies (TOKEN) vs. niche as function of an organism or population within an ecological community (TYPE)

104. 104 Human beings live in complex environments Recall Reinach’s notion of transcategorial relations Merlin Donald,The Origins of the Modern Mind: notion of external memory

105. 105 The Ecological Psychology of J. J. Gibson and Roger Barker

106. 106 Affordances “The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or evil.” James J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

107. 107 Organisms are tuning forks They have evolved to resonate automatically and directly to those quality regions in their niche which are relevant for survival -- perception is a form of automatic resonation -- cognitive beings resonate to speech acts and to linguistic records -- cognitive beings resonate deontically

108. 108 affordances: positive and negative features of the environment: permissions and prohibitions

109. 109 Roger Barker: Niche as Behavioral Setting Niches are recurrent settings which serve as the environments for our everyday activities: my swimming pool, your table in the cafeteria, the 5pm train to Long Island.

110. 110 Behavior Settings Each behavior setting is associated with certain standing patterns of behavior.

111. 111 Settings, for Barker, are natural units in no way imposed by an investigator. To laymen they are as objective as rivers and forests — they are parts of the objective environment that are experienced as directly as rain and sandy beaches are experienced. (Barker 1968, p. 11)

112. 112 Settings Each setting has a boundary which separates an organized internal (foreground) pattern from a differing external (background) pattern. ORGANIZATIONS ARE BUILDINGS ORGANIZATIONS ARE NESTED SYSTEMS OF SETTINGS SETTINGS ARE LIKE THE INTERIORS OF BUILDINGS

113. 113 The Ontology of Niches Niches are in some ways like the interiors of substances Two concepts of spaceship: John is in the spaceship The embryo is in the uterus The yoghurt is in the refrigerator Niches and quasi-niches Substances and quasi-substances

114. 114 Two concepts of spaceship John is in London John saw London from the air London  London IBM  IBM John admired her car John was sitting in her car A is part of B vs. A is in the interior of B as a tenant is in its niche

115. 115 The Ontology of Niches Niches as endurants Niches as four-dimensional spatiotemporally extended volumes

116. 116 Marks of (bodily) substance i.Rounded-offness ii.Occupies space iii.Complete boundary iv.May have substantial parts (nesting) v.May be included in larger substances vi.Has a life (manifests contrary accidents at different times)

117. 117 Corresponding Marks of Niches (i)A niche enjoys a certain natural completeness or rounded-offness, being neither too small nor too large —in contrast to the arbitrary undetached parts of environmental settings and to arbitrary heaps or aggregates of environmental settings.

118. 118 (ii) A niche takes up space, it occupies a physical-temporal locale, and is such as to have spatial parts. Within this physical-temporal locale is a privileged locus—a hole— into which the tenant or occupant of the setting fits exactly.

119. 119 (iii) A niche has an outer boundary: there are objects which fall clearly within it, and other objects which fall clearly outside it. (The boundary itself need not be crisp.)

120. 120 (iv) A niche may have actual parts which are also environmental settings (hierarchical nesting)

121. 121 (v) A niche may be a proper part of larger, circumcluding niche.

122. 122 (vi) A niche has a life is now warm, now cold now at peace, now at war …. now expanding, now contracting

123. 123 Marks of (bodily) substance i.Rounded-offness ii.Occupies space iii.Complete boundary iv.May have substantial parts (nesting) v.May be included in larger substances vi.Has a life; is now warm, now cold

124. 124 Niche Construction Lewontin: niches normally arise in symbiosis with the activities of organisms or groups of organisms; they are not already there, like vacant rooms in a gigantic evolutionary hotel, awaiting organisms who would evolve into them. “ecosystem engineering”

125. 125 Applications of the niche concept in biology, ecology in medicine (embryology …) in anthropology in economics in the ontology of artifacts in law in politics

126. 126 Where are Niches? Concrete Entity [Exists in Space and Time] Entity in 3-D Ontology [Endure. No Temporal Parts] Spatial Region of Dimension 0,1,2,3 Dependent Entity Quality (Your Redness, My Tallness) [Form Quality Regions/Scales] Quasi-Quality Prices, Values, Obligations Role, Function, Power Have realizations (called: Processes) Quasi-Role/Function/Power The Functions of the President Independent Entity Substance [maximally connected causal unity] Aggregate of Substances * (includes masses of stuff? liquids?) Fiat Part of Substance * Nose, Ear, Mountain Boundary of Substance * Fiat or Bona Fide or Mixed Quasi-Substance Church, College, Corporation Entity in 4-D Ontology [Perdure. Unfold in Time] Processual Entity Process [Has Unity] Clinical trial; exercise of role Aggregate of Processes* Fiat Part of Process* Instantaneous Temporal Boundary of Process (= Ingarden’s 'Event’)* Quasi-Process John’s Youth. John’s Life Spatio-Temporal Region Dim = T, T+0, T+1, T+2, T+3

127. 127 Where are Places? Concrete Entity [Exists in Space and Time] Entity in 3-D Ontology [Endure. No Temporal Parts] Spatial Region of Dimension 0,1,2,3 Dependent Entity Independent Entity Entity in 4-D Ontology [Perdure. Unfold in Time] Processual Entity Spatio-Temporal Region Dim = T, T+0, T+1, T+2, T+3

128. 128 Gibson’s theory of surface layout Niches = systems of barriers, openings, pathways to which organisms are specifically attuned, Include: temperature gradients, patterns of movement of air or water molecules, electro- chemical signals guiding the movements of micro-organisms But also: traffic signs, instructions posted on notice boards or displayed on the computer screen

129. 129 Nesting Many settings occur in assemblies: A unit in the middle range of a nesting structure is simultaneously both circumjacent and interjacent, both whole and part, both entity and environment.

130. 130 Unity of Behaviour and Ecological Setting A physical-behavioural unit is a unit: its parts are unified together, but not through any similarity or community of substance.

131. 131 The Systematic Mutual Fittingness of Behaviour and Ecological Setting The behaviour and the physical objects … are intertwined in such a way as to form a pattern that is by no means random: there is a relation of harmonious fit between the standard patterns of behaviour occurring within the unit and the pattern of its physical components. Compare the way in which the processes in the body are constrained by the hierarchical organization of body, organs, cells …

132. 132 The Systematic Mutual Fittingness of Behaviour and Ecological Setting (The seats in the lecture hall face the speaker. The speaker addresses his remarks out towards the audience. The boundary of the football field is, leaving aside certain predetermined exceptions, the boundary of the game. The beginning and end of the school music period mark the limits of the pattern of music behaviour.)

133. 133 Non-transposability This mutual fittingness of behaviour and physical environment extends to the fine, interior structure of behaviour in a way which will imply a radical nontransposability of standing patterns of behaviour from one environment to another. The physical or historical or ceremonial conditions obtaining in particular settings are in addition as essential for some kinds of behaviour as are persons with the requisite authority, motives and skills.

134. 134 Power and Authority There are various forces which help to bring about and to sustain this mutual fittingness and thus to constitute the unity of the physical-behavioural unit through time. Forces which flow in the direction from setting to behaviour include physical constraints exercised by hedges, walls or corridors or by persons with sticks; they include social forces manifested in the authority of the teacher, in threats, promises, warnings;

135. 135 The Unifying Effects of the Physical Environment they include the physiological effects of climate, the need for food and water; and they include the effects of perceived physiognomic features of the environment (open spaces seduce children, a businesslike atmosphere encourages businesslike behaviour).

136. 136 Mutual Fittingness can be reinforced by learning, and also by a process of selection of the persons involved, whether this be one of self-selection (of children who remain in Sunday school class in light of their ability to conform to the corresponding standing patterns of behaviour), or of externally imposed mental or physical entrance tests.

137. 137 Behaviour shapes Setting Influences which flow from behaviour to setting, include all those ways in which a succession of separate and uncoordinated actions can have unintended consequences in the form of new types of actions and new, modified types of settings in the future (as the passage of many feet causes pathways to form in the hillside).

138. 138 Settings shape Persons Each person has many strengths, many intelligences, many social maturities, many speeds, many degrees of liberality and conservativeness, and many moralities, depending in large part on the particular contexts of the person  s behavior. For example, the same person who displays marked obtusiveness when confronted with a mechanical problem may show impressive skill and adroitness in dealing with social situations.

139. 139 Aurel Kolnai a human society … comprehends the same individual over and over again in line with his various social affiliations …

140. 140 Daily life = passage through a succession of physical-behavioural units which are as much a part of the furniture of reality as are garden-variety continuants and occurrents (such as you and me). Physical-behavioural units have parts. And they have consequences: contracts signed, orders issued, judgments passed, medals awarded.

141. 141 The bonds established by Reinach’s protostructures of promise, claim and obligation … can normally arise only within miniature civil societies, within which special sorts of environmental conditions are satisfied Austin: a promise is a sort of ritual Holds of commands in large-scale organizations too.

142. 142 Theory of roles/functions/powers of greater and lesser generality How are roles/functions/powers within a hierarchical organization themselves nested together hierarchically? Orders not issued in a vacuum: systems of external memory: records and representations procedures for authentication

143. 143 A niche may have actual parts which are also environmental settings (hierarchical nesting)  Theory of the organization of organizations: the roles you take on as inhabitant of the niche called IBM the roles you take on as inhabitant of the niche called US- Division 4B/661 of IBM (YOU ARE THE BOSS) the roles you take on as inhabitant of the niche called your local office (YOU ISSUE COMMANDS)

144. 144 SPAN: Entities extended in time spatio- temporal volumes

145. 145 4-dimensional environments Lobsters have evolved into environments marked by cyclical patterns of temperature change Tudor England The Afghan winter The window of opportunity for an invasion of Iraq

146. 146 1 spatio- temporal volumes standardized patterns of behavior

147. 147 but also at the reality beyond

148. 148 Logical Investigations¸1900/01 Aristotelian theory of universals and particulars theory of part and whole theory of ontological dependence the theory of boundaries and fusion

149. 149 Husserl outlines a new method of constituent ontology to study a domain ontologically is to establish the parts of the domain and the interrelations between them especially the dependence relations

150. 150 Ontological Dependence a wife is dependent on a husband a king is dependent on his subjects a color is dependent on an extension a charge is dependent on a conductor a speech act is dependent on a speaker

151. 151 Husserl’s theory of part, whole and dependence applied by him to the ontological structure of language  invention of categorial grammar, later formalized by Ajdukiewicz, Lambek …

152. 152 Husserl’s theory of part, whole and dependence applied by his student Adolf Reinach to the ontological structure of law  invention of speech act theory in Reinach’s A Priori Foundations of the Civil Law in 1913

153. 153

154. 154 Speech Acts Examples: requesting, questioning, answering, ordering, imparting information, promising, commanding, baptising ‘acts of the mind’ which do not have in words and the like their accidental additional expression Social acts = acts which “are performed in the very act of speaking”

155. 155 Reinach’s theory of social acts part of a complete ‘a priori ontology of social interaction’ a theory of actions, agents, ogligations,

156. 156 Communication between agents Luc’s MSc thesis and Reinach… Agents are in the world, they have to achieve their goals in relation to a particular environment, and adapt to this environment Agents are with other agents: they have to cooperate with each other = not merely to communicate but also form agreement (form miniature civil societies)

157. 157 Communication can be with human beings or agents inside computers therefore the ontology of communication cannot itself be inside the computer it has to be much, much bigger

158. 158 Reinach: Commanding does not involve an experience which is expressed but which could have remained unexpressed, …there is nothing about commanding which could rightly be taken as the pure announcing of an internal experience.

159. 159 Reinach: Commanding is rather an experience all its own, a doing of the subject to which in addition to its spontaneity, its intentionality and its other- directedness, the need to be grasped is also essential.

160. 160 Some events depend on underlying states An assertion depends upon an underying state of conviction/belief A command depends upon an underlying relational state of authority

161. 161 Some events give rise to states Perception gives rise to conviction/belief as its successor state: John sees that Mary is swimming Promising gives rise to claim and obligation as its successor states

162. 162 The Structure of the Promise promiser promisee the promise relations of one-sided dependence

163. 163 The Structure of the Promise promiser promisee act of speaking act of registering content three-sided mutual dependence

164. 164 The Structure of the Promise oblig- ation claim promiser promisee act of speaking act of registering content two-sided mutual dependence

165. 165 The Structure of the Promise promiser promisee act of speaking act of registering content F oblig- ation claim action: do F tendency towards realization

166. 166 promiser promisee act of speaking act of registering content F oblig- ation claim action: do F The Background (Environment) sincere intention

167. 167 Modifications of Social Acts Sham promises Lies as sham assertions (cf. a forged signature); rhetorical questions Social acts performed in someone else’s name (representation, delegation) Social acts with multiple addresses Conditional social acts

168. 168 Collective social acts Singing in a choir Conversation Dancing Arguing Religious rituals

169. 169 promiser promisee act of speaking act of registering content F oblig- ation claim action: do F The Background (Environment) sincere intention How modific- ations occur

170. 170 promiser promisee act of speaking act of registering content F oblig- ation claim action: do F The Background (Environment) sincere intention How modific- ations occur

171. 171 promiser promisee act of speaking act of registering content F oblig- ation claim action: do F The Background (Environment) sincere intention How modific- ations occur

172. 172 promiser promisee act of speaking act of registering content F oblig- ation claim action: do F The Background (Environment) sincere intention How modific- ations occur

173. 173 Contrast E-commerce application ontologies bill deliver est-cust identify-product-price order offer-product purchase pay

174. 174 Humans, Machines, and the Structure of Knowledge Harry M. Collins SEHR, 4: 2 (1995)

175. 175 Knowledge-down-a-wire Imagine a 5-stone weakling having his brain loaded with the knowledge of a champion tennis player. He goes to serve in his first match -- Wham! – his arm falls off. He just doesn't have the bone structure or muscular development to serve that hard.

176. 176 Types of knowledge/ability/skill 1.those that can be transferred simply by passing signals from one brain/computer to another. 2.those that can’t:

177. 177 Sometimes it is the body (the hardware) which knows

178. 178 and sometimes it is the world outside which knows

179. 179 Types of knowledge/ability/skill 1.those that can be transferred simply by passing signals from one brain/computer to another. 2.those that can’t: -- here the "hardware" is important; abilities/skills contained (a) in the body (b) in the world

180. 180 From The Methodological Solipsist Approach to Information Processing To The Ecological Approach to Information Processing

181. 181 Fodorian Psychology To understand human cognition we should study the mind/brain in abstraction from its real-world environment (as if it were a hermetically sealed Cartesian ego)