Re: [topicmaps-comment] Everchanging subjects [Re: Notionshaveexistence ...]

[Murray Altheim <murray.altheim@sun.com>]

"Thomas B. Passin" wrote:
> 
> [Enrico Silterra]
> 
> > How is it that the Europeans (Bernard et al) seem to
> > be the Pragmatists, and the Americans (SRN, et al) the
> > Platonists?
> > Maybe if we have not such natural ways to deal with
> > time in Topic Maps, it's because some creator(s) of the paradigm
> > had those absolute ideas on changelessness and eternity of subjects ?
> 
> I'm an American and I'm not a Platonist...neither is Sam, it appears...

My philosophical background includes many years of study in Asian 
thought, as well as systems, chaos and complexity theory. From what
I've read of William James, I don't disagree with his Pragmatism.
Considering that the father of Pragmatism (or more properly, 
Pragmaticism) is the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, 
I don't think this is something that has much to do with which side
of the Atlantic (or Pacific) one was born or now lives. (The 
subversive side of me must admit I'm not an American but a Canadian
by birth, domiciled in the U.S. since 1973. I believe Canada is on
this side of the Atlantic, though the Québecois might wish otherwise.)

This said, the idea that subjects are somehow *not* intimately and
inextricably interlinked seems a bit hard to fathom. I don't think
of this as a difficulty for topic maps, taxonomic or ontological
systems in general, though it's certainly something to keep in mind.

BTW, it doesn't seem surprising that there is a strong affinity 
between what's happening with topic maps and conceptual graphs, and 
Mary Keeler's PORT group (Peirce Online Resource Testbed), which is 
why I'm quite happy to be involved there:

  http://peirce.monmouth.edu/~bill/
  http://www.darmstadt.gmd.de/~dirsch/port/index.html
  http://www.asis.org/annual-97/keeler.htm

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim                         <mailto:murray.altheim&#x40;sun.com>
XML Technology Center, Java and XML Software
Sun Microsystems, Inc., MS MPK17-102, 1601 Willow Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025

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