Ontology as a formal oneThe language of ontology as the ontology itself: the

zero-level language

Vasil Penchev

• Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge:Dept of Logical Systems and Modelsvasildinev@gmail.com

Formal Methods and Science in PhilosophyInter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia

May 4-6, 2017

Abstract:

“Formal ontology” is introduced first to programing languages in different ways. The most relevant one as to philosophy is as a generalization of “nth-order logic” and “nth-level language” for n=0. Then, the “zero-level language” is a theoretical reflection on the naïve attitude to the world: the “things and words” coincide by themselves. That approach corresponds directly to the philosophical phenomenology of Husserl or fundamental ontology of Heidegger. Ontology as the 0-level language may be researched as a formal ontology

Prehistory and background

Both “words” and “things”

• The “words” and the “things” are not distinguished from each other in the naive attitude to the world

This was restored by Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s fundamental ontology

• Their “phenomenon” can be naturally interpreted linguistically, semiotically, and logicallyFurthermore, it makes meaningless the standard criterion of truth as adequacy for it is always and automatically met after

the thing and word are the same

The “phenomena”

• “Phenomena” are those words, which are the "things themselves“

Furthermore, they are or as the “true signs”• The signifier and the signified are not connected quite loosely

and conventionally in those “true signs”They are linked to each other necessarily

• Thus all the three, sign, signifier, and signified coincide with each other,

Therefore they mean the same from three different viewpoints

The language of “phenomena”

• Furthermore, 'phenomenon' can be also understood as the unit of the language of "zero-level" and its corresponding logicIndeed, Husserl, a mathematician by education, introduced

a new “rigorous” viewpoint to logic initially, and then to psychology, and philosophy

• It consisted in the identification of “form and content” definitively in those areasThis approach may be generalized by involving the idea of

“formal ontology”

The order of logic and the level of language

• Logic involves the concept of the "order" of a certain given logic according to whether its symbols may refer only to:

External things ("first-order logic") • Symbols of external things ("second-order logic") as wellThe symbols of symbols of external things ("third-order

logic") as well• … etc.

Analogically, the level of language is involved

The zero-order of logic and the zero-level of language

• One natural generalization of that logical conception is the introduction of "zero-order logic" as well as the corresponding "zero-level language“The symbols do not refer to external things, but they coincide

by themselves with those external things• Thus the naive attitude to the world, after which the things

and the words coincide by themselves, in a rigorous and logical notion, that of "zero-level language“So, Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger's fundamental

ontology can be interpreted as the metaphysics of n-order language

About the formal definition of ontology

• Then, the concept of ontology admits one exact logical definition as any zero-level language or as all zero-level languages The properties of the zero-order logic and zero-level language can be naturally transferred and thus interpreted as formal and

logical properties of ontology• They allow of the axiomatic definition of "formal ontology" as

the category of a certain mathematical object Furthermore, any “formalizing ontology” can be grounded on

that kind of formal ontology

Formal and formalized ontology

• That fundamental approach is widely applied in the research of software formal and artificial languages created by humans for computers for all of them are logically rigorous and grounded on logic After that conception of formal ontology, the consideration of any

programing language to itself rather than to an external supposed "hardware" or to an external reality supposedly modelled generates

a formal or formalizing ontology • On the other hand, meaning a certain hardware or reality for being

modelled as granted, a formal software language only repeating them would be their corresponding formal ontology

Problem

The problem:

• May ontology be defined exhaustedly and unambiguously by its language?

Thesis

The thesis:

• (1) Yes, it may if its language is defined in turn as the zero-level language(2) The fundamental features of ontology according to the

philosophical meaning of ‘ontology’ can be deduced from the formal properties of ‘zero-level language’

• (3) A few interesting new corollaries are implied by the formal and axiomatic postulating ontology as the zero-level language

A few arguments in favor of the thesis

The thesis:

•(1) Yes, it may if its language is defined in turn as the zero-level language(2) The fundamental features of ontology according to the philosophical meaning

of ‘ontology’ can be deduced from the formal properties of ‘zero-level language’

• (3) A few interesting new corollaries are implied by the formal and axiomatic postulating ontology as the zero-level language

About (1):• The etymology of “ontology” in ancient Greek addresses the Word

which exists, therefore postulating the identity of ‘word’ and ‘thing’. The same idea penetrates Christianity and its theology: what exists is God’s WordThus the zero-level language is right God’s language. God’s language

was secularized into the “language of nature”, and mathematics was alleged as it in the modern age

• However, mathematics unlike God’s language was understood as a “human language”, i.e. not as a zero-level language

The distinction between mathematical model and reality is a fundamental postulate of philosophy of science

More about (1):

• Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s fundamental ontology resurrected the concept of the zero-level language in philosophical terms

However, their projects are sometimes interpreted as properly philosophical projects versus (especially

Heidegger's) those of philosophy of science or analytic philosophy

• In fact, both can be interpreted not less as formal or even formalizing projects in a kind of contemporary neo-Pythagoreanism

More about (1):

• Consequently, the idea of ontology as the zero-level language is an ancient conception in history of philosophy and theology with many arguments in its favor and discussed during centuriesThat understanding of ontology implies its coincidence with its

language• If meta-level is postulated as different from the level itself for any

language created by humans and thus conventional, this in turn implies the hypothesis of the zero-level language, which is single unlike the plurality of human languages and in which the meta-level of the words coincides with the level the things

More about (1):

• In particular, the mathematical models of reality should coincide with reality if mathematics as the “language of nature” would be interpreted as that zero-level language

This is an idea, the origin of which can be traced to Pythagoras and his successors even before or

simultaneously with the beginning of philosophy in ancient Greece

• One can continue Heidegger’s restoration in the origin of philosophy further: from the Pre-Socratic philosophers such as Heraclitus and Parmenides to Pythagoreanism

The thesis:

• (1) Yes, it may if its language is defined in turn as the zero-level language

(2) The fundamental features of ontology according to the philosophical meaning of

‘ontology’ can be deduced from the formal properties of ‘zero-level language’

• (3) A few interesting new corollaries are implied by the formal and axiomatic postulating ontology as the zero-level language

About (2):

• Ontology is both language and being as the etymology of the word demonstrates. It consists of those words, which are not conventional, but linked to the existing entities necessarily

It is a single one in philosophical definition unlike the definition of formal ontology, after which a given, even usually artificial language and thus conventional is only

postulated as an ontology among many others available or possible

• All these fundamental features of ontology are implied immediately by its understanding as the zero-level language

More about (2):• Furthermore, ontology implies a special conception of truth, which is

not that of correspondence: the correspondence of words and things, for the words coincide with the things by themselves

Ontology is necessarily true in the sense of correspondence in definition and thus that conception of truth as adequacy is useless

and meaningless being always valid• Heidegger tried to replace “adæquatio” by ἀλήθεια (unhiddenness) as

that kind of truth relevant to ontology Its sense is the ontology itself as truth or as the special kind of

philosophical truth • It means one to move to ontology from any kind of non-ontology

More about (2):• Any non-ontology is mediated by some language

conventional to the signified and therefore the former “hides” the latter If however one manages to see ontology, Husserl's “things

themselves”, or “phenomena”, which “show themselves in themselves by themselves” in Heidegger, the “veil

vanishes” and truth appears by itself right as “unhiddennes”, ἀλήθεια

• Thus, ontology is the state of being in truth as well as what is seen in that seen for the state and the seen coincide in definition of ontology

More about (2):

• The zero-level language implies an analogical concept of truth: if many realities have been involved, only a single one is privileged as true, right ontology Accordingly: if many languages have been involved, only a single one is privileged as true, right the zero-level language

therefore necessarily coinciding with ontology• Right in the spirit of mathematical formalization, one can

speak of the joint group pf both languages and realities, in which its “zero element” is naturally privileged

More about (2):

• Ontology is totalityIn particular, it contains its externality within itself, and any

meta-position to it should be internal within itself• For example, the universe can be postulated so in a physical

sense of totality and therefore any other universe should contains within itAll those conditions are only extraordinary and seemingly

paradoxical, but not contradictory

More about (2):

• The zero-level language implies a similar, mirror kind of totalityIndeed, any language as a special kind of ‘thing’ will be an

element within the zero-level language• For example, totality can be thought as, or even defined as

what is single in definition:Then all totalities (if any) must coincide and thus must be

identified as only a single one, particularly, language and reality as “totalities” (an argument from Heidegger’s idea of

“fundamental ontology”)

The thesis:

• (1) Yes, it may if its language is defined in turn as the zero-level language(2) The fundamental features of ontology according to the philosophical meaning

of ‘ontology’ can be deduced from the formal properties of ‘zero-level language’

• (3) A few interesting new corollaries are implied by the formal and axiomatic postulating ontology as the zero-level language

About (3):• The interpretation of ontology as the zero-level language

implies it to be interpreted formally, logically, and mathematically, e.g. as the maximal formalizing ontologyThis involves in turn a kind of neo-Pythagoreanism for ontology in the most fundamental sense turns out to be

mathematical • The Number of Pythagoras underlies that Word of Heraclitus

coinciding with the ThingIndeed, Pythagoras’s Number had preceded and generated

Heraclitus’s Word in the history of philosophy

More about (3):

• For example, one can introduce the mathematical notion of group for the hierarchy of both languages and realities generalizing the intention of Russell’s theory of typesThen, ontology coinciding with the zero-level language would be the zero (or “unit”) element of that group and

thus privileged• That unit being right single can be furthermore considered as

the totality containing necessarily all other realities and languages within it just as the ontology of all

More about (3):

• The discussed above totality of the zero-level language needing the entire group to be represented into its zero element implies both complementarity (e.g. in the sense of Niels Bohr) and mathematical axiom of choice equivalent to the principle of well-ordering

That complementarity of language and reality implies for the linguistic units such as words to be interpreted as ontological “quanta”, in which the counterpart of word is fundamentally

inseparable from the counterpart of thing• The language of ontology as the zero-level language consists right of

those ontological quanta

More about (3):

• That zero-level language of ontological quanta being identical to ontology is the fundamental reality as wellConsequently, one can interpret the physical quanta of action

determined by the fundamental Planck constant just as the ontological quanta at issue according to the contemporary level of

knowledge• Then, quantum mechanics would supply by the necessary zero-

level language of ontology, which is furthermore properly mathematical: the formalism of the separable complex Hilbert space

More about (3):• That formalism of quantum mechanics implies an internal proof of

completeness as what the theorems about the absence of hidden variables in quantum mechanics (Neumann 1932; Kochen, Specker 1968) can be interpreted

That proof confirms indirectly the formalism of quantum mechanics as the zero-level language of ontology as it is

supposed to be complete correspondingly to the totality of ontology

• Indeed, the research of an alleged physical “theory of all” corresponds directly to the ancient and contemporary philosophical idea of total or fundamental ontology meeting each other on the “bridge of quantum mechanics”

More about (3):• This implies furthermore a few corollaries about the

consistency and completeness proof of mathematics for it should underlie ontology according any form of neo-PythagoreanismThe separable complex Hilbert space as a generalization of

Peano arithmetic is what is able to ground mathematics• That Hilbert space is able to unifies both arithmetic and

geometry and thus mathematics as a wholeFurthermore, that unified mathematics turns out to be the

physical world itself by quantum mechanics …

Conclusion:

• The interpretation of ontology as the zero-level language is useful and fruitful

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