Higher order statements

[Lars Vogt]

Hi,

We are currently evaluating, which basic types of statements are required for modelling the contents of scholarly articles and how to represent them in a knowledge graph (https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.01227). In Alan Rector's paper (http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~rector/papers/FOIS-2010-rector-keynote-distrib.pdf), I read about higher order statements and now I am interested in your opinion. I'm not really sure whether the possibility to make higher order statements is actually something that would be used, e.g., for modelling a specific type of scientific statement that cannot be modelled as an assertional, contingent/prototypical, or universal statement. Looking at Alan Rector’s examples of endangered species or a spreading virus, I am not so convinced. The example with endangered whales is a bit misleading because many species concepts are somewhat ontological hermaphrodites: on the one hand, they are used like class terms that enable grouping organisms/individuals into species. On the other hand, each species is understood as a "higher order" individual, namely an evolving population and reproductive lineage, and its member organisms should rather be considered to be parts of the species than instances of it. Therefore, when using a species term, one sometimes wants to make statements about all the organisms of that species, but sometimes one wants to talk about the lineage. Something similar applies to viruses.So, the examples given by Alan do not really convince me that we need to be able to make such higher order statements but rather have to clarify the ontological nature of species and viruses. Can you think of more convincing examples?

Lars

Virenfrei.www.avast.com

[Werner Ceusters]

You need it if you need to say something about universals rather than about instances. For instance that universal x has more instances than universal y. Or, as in my bruxism-paper, if you want to say that the instances of some universal are continuously distributed (e.g. temperatures, bruxism, autism spectrum disorder). Being continuously distributed is not a quality of a particular. You can avoid it for many scholarly articles that performed research on cohorts by treating parts of interest thereof as particulars. But if they make true general statements like  the ones above, there is no other way.

[Chris Mungall]

I think the same argument you make for species could be made for any class that might otherwise convince. If you can only talk about members of sets, and you need to talk about sets, you can talk about the extent of the set, and have a single higher order predicate or quantification statement that relates sets to their extents.

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[Lars Vogt]

Thanks for the replies!

Werner, I see your point, but I agree with Chris that these statements - at least how I understand them - are not really having the universals as referents, but sets of instances. I guess, this is due to the "nature" of universals or our cognitive limitations of being able to think about them only in terms of their instances?

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[Werner Ceusters]

Lars,

I don't know what 'statements' precisely you are talking about in your first sentence. You should give concrete examples. But if a scientist claims that 'covid is spreading over the world', he is referencing a universal. An instance of covid does not spread, neither does an instance of corona virus. Sets don't spread either, they are mathematical entities. 

I don't know you and Chris well enough to be able to answer your last question.

W

[Lindsay Cowell]

Maybe the instance of a population (rather than set)?

 

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From: 'Lars Vogt' via BFO Discuss <bfo-d...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2023 at 8:26 AM
To: bfo-d...@googlegroups.com <bfo-d...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [bfo-discuss] Higher order statements

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