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I think this is a reference to Plato's Theory of Forms, in which every object we see partakes of some idealized (static, eternal, and real) form (ie, is an inst

I think this is a reference to Plato's Theory of Forms, in which every object we see partakes of some idealized (static, eternal, and real) form (ie, is an instantiation of a class). Except... in Plato's theory, everything is a somewhat corrupted or imperfect image of its form. The theory has a lot of problems (the third man problem, for example). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms

lukev 16y ago
Well, yes. There's various interpretations of what kind of existence Plato thought the Forms actually had - whether he believed in a literal "realm of the Forms" or not. And while you'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually subscribes to the theory of Forms these days, there are a lot of things in, for example, the philosophy of Mathematics that smell a lot like it. I think the idea of Forms is still quite valuable Aristotle takes kind of the opposite tack - he is also very focused on building ontologies and taxonomies, but he views them as constructions of the intellect imposed upon their subjects, rather than being the most fundamental reality of the subject prior to its actual being. It's pretty much the same distinction ragenwald talks about in the OP. As for the general isomorphism between metaphysics and philosophy, you can find it almost everywhere, depending how hard you want to look (and how far you want to stretch your metaphors...). But metaphysics is largely concerned with the types of things and entities in the world, and how they can possibly interact. If you think of the "software space" as its own universe, it's pretty easy to draw parallels. Forms and Categories are low hanging fruits, obviously, but a few other parallels spring to mind: - Kant's seperation between Phenomena and Noumena relates to the difference between interface and implementation, as well as to the concept of abstractions in general. - How a software component's "epistemology" (how it "knows" about other components in the system) works can be compared to different philosophers - do they operate on a consistently readable shared state (an empirical world?) or do they request information from a central broker service (God brokers sense impressions, ala Berkeley?) - Berkeley's idea of direct impressions only in the mind has some relationship to the concept of laziness. - etc. I'll try to think up some more and post them later. It's less that you can write a paper on the startling isomorphism between theories, and more that it's really easy to use software metaphors to describe philosophy and vice versa (though software tends to be much more concrete, obviously).
- russellperry 16y ago
  "Aristotle takes kind of the opposite tack - he is also very focused on building ontologies and taxonomies, but he views them as constructions of the intellect imposed upon their subjects, rather than being the most fundamental reality of the subject prior to its actual being." Well, not exactly, and in fact this would turn Aristotle into his metaphysical opposite: a nominalist in the mold of Occam. For Aristotle the formal cause of a substance is in fact absolute, every bit as real and 'prior' as with Plato, the big difference between the two being the question of epistemology, or how we become acquainted with the form to begin with. Yes, Aristotle argues that we know the form of a thing from experience, but the form of that thing, and the abstractions we produce from many experiences from similar things, are as real as with Plato and, as in Plato, point to higher, more organized spiritual structures that comprise ultimate reality. Call me when somebody comes up with a Whitehead-ean programming paradigm.
- russellperry 16y ago
  "Kant's seperation between Phenomena and Noumena relates to the difference between interface and implementation, as well as to the concept of abstractions in general." I'm not sure Kant would allow that phenomena are all that abstract. They're not eidetic/formal (although later Husserl would argue that they intend towards eidetic objects), they're merely the subjective experience of a particular thing. The (purely hypothetical) relationship between the noumena and phenomena are (naively and hypothetically) one-to-one, if there is any real relationship at all. The n/p distinction is made by Kant not to emphasize the abstract nature of our mental experiences, but rather to emphasize a radical epistemic uncertainty regarding the objects that we would naively assume "exists" apart from the experience.
- rbxbx 16y ago
  a bit late, but thanks for the response.

lukev 16y ago

Well, yes. There's various interpretations of what kind of existence Plato thought the Forms actually had - whether he believed in a literal "realm of the Forms" or not. And while you'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually subscribes to the theory of Forms these days, there are a lot of things in, for example, the philosophy of Mathematics that smell a lot like it. I think the idea of Forms is still quite valuable Aristotle takes kind of the opposite tack - he is also very focused on building ontologies and taxonomies, but he views them as constructions of the intellect imposed upon their subjects, rather than being the most fundamental reality of the subject prior to its actual being. It's pretty much the same distinction ragenwald talks about in the OP. As for the general isomorphism between metaphysics and philosophy, you can find it almost everywhere, depending how hard you want to look (and how far you want to stretch your metaphors...). But metaphysics is largely concerned with the types of things and entities in the world, and how they can possibly interact. If you think of the "software space" as its own universe, it's pretty easy to draw parallels. Forms and Categories are low hanging fruits, obviously, but a few other parallels spring to mind: - Kant's seperation between Phenomena and Noumena relates to the difference between interface and implementation, as well as to the concept of abstractions in general. - How a software component's "epistemology" (how it "knows" about other components in the system) works can be compared to different philosophers - do they operate on a consistently readable shared state (an empirical world?) or do they request information from a central broker service (God brokers sense impressions, ala Berkeley?) - Berkeley's idea of direct impressions only in the mind has some relationship to the concept of laziness. - etc. I'll try to think up some more and post them later. It's less that you can write a paper on the startling isomorphism between theories, and more that it's really easy to use software metaphors to describe philosophy and vice versa (though software tends to be much more concrete, obviously).

russellperry 16y ago
"Aristotle takes kind of the opposite tack - he is also very focused on building ontologies and taxonomies, but he views them as constructions of the intellect imposed upon their subjects, rather than being the most fundamental reality of the subject prior to its actual being." Well, not exactly, and in fact this would turn Aristotle into his metaphysical opposite: a nominalist in the mold of Occam. For Aristotle the formal cause of a substance is in fact absolute, every bit as real and 'prior' as with Plato, the big difference between the two being the question of epistemology, or how we become acquainted with the form to begin with. Yes, Aristotle argues that we know the form of a thing from experience, but the form of that thing, and the abstractions we produce from many experiences from similar things, are as real as with Plato and, as in Plato, point to higher, more organized spiritual structures that comprise ultimate reality. Call me when somebody comes up with a Whitehead-ean programming paradigm.
russellperry 16y ago
"Kant's seperation between Phenomena and Noumena relates to the difference between interface and implementation, as well as to the concept of abstractions in general." I'm not sure Kant would allow that phenomena are all that abstract. They're not eidetic/formal (although later Husserl would argue that they intend towards eidetic objects), they're merely the subjective experience of a particular thing. The (purely hypothetical) relationship between the noumena and phenomena are (naively and hypothetically) one-to-one, if there is any real relationship at all. The n/p distinction is made by Kant not to emphasize the abstract nature of our mental experiences, but rather to emphasize a radical epistemic uncertainty regarding the objects that we would naively assume "exists" apart from the experience.
rbxbx 16y ago
a bit late, but thanks for the response.