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It is interesting to observe that in juxtaposing the work of Kent with the work of Hirschheim, et. al.
we see a tension in philosophy that goes all the way back to the pre Socratic philosophers (Gottlieb).
This tension is between the view that reality is in a constant state of change versus the view that real-
ity must be stabilized in order to be understood. The pre Socratic philosopher Heraclites is best know
for his assertion that you cannot step in the same river twice and viewed reality as being in a constant
state of flux. Parmenides rejected the views of Heraclites on the basis that knowledge is not possible if
you accept change as fundamental. We must impose order on reality in order to understanding it and
Parmenides viewed the philosophy of Heraclites as destructive to project of knowledge (Roochnik).
While this comparison may be over reaching a bit it is an apt comparison to point out that this tension
between views of reality has a long history and cannot be resolved in this paper. The views provided
here are consistent with Kent and Parmenides and must be considered within that framework.
An InTuITIVe InTrodu CTIon To The Pro BLeM of un IVer SALS
The Problem of Universals is one of the central problems in metaphysics and attempts to address ques-
tions about how we organize our experiences about the world into meaningful categories for the purposes
of intellectual economy. This is a bit of a mouthful and requires some elaboration, especially for those
who have never encountered this concept. The elaboration occurs in the next section. Once the problem
is clarified, it is useful to survey some of the commentary on this problem from some of the great minds
in Western Philosophy. That will be provided in the following section. After that we address the ques-
tion of what this has to do with information modeling and show that this is also the central problem in
information modeling and that it can be extended to provide some insights into information modeling.
The final section address the implications for the future of information modeling.
When we look around us we see objects everywhere: tables, chairs, lamps, trees, fences, birds and so
on. Imagine, for a second that you are looking out you window at a tree. You might point at the tree and
say, “That is a tree.” What you mean more precisely is “That object is a tree.” Or even more precisely,
“That object is an object of type tree,” or “That object is an instance of the class of trees.” What we are
talking about here is the difference between things and kinds. The object we are looking at is a thing.
When we call it a tree we are assigning it to a kind. There are may kinds to which this thing may be
assigned. We could call it a home for squirrels, a source of shade, or a source of fire wood instead. Some-
how the category tree seems more real than the others, but this is likely to be because it is a basic level
category or a category with which we have first hand physical experience (Rosch, 1978B). Nonetheless,
a thing can be assigned to any number of kinds. Although we have introduced these notions intuitively
here, the difference between things and kinds is difficult to explain without using technical language.
So let's introduce some mildly technical language for the purpose of clarifying this discussion.
The thing you are looking at through your window in the previous discussion is an instance, or in
metaphysical terminology a particular. The label “tree” is not the name of the object. It is the name of
a class to which the object belongs, or once again in metaphysical terminology a universal. Particulars
exist in the world and universals are the categories into which we organize them. We do this for the
purpose of intellectual economy. We cannot possibly remember all the attributes of every object that we
encounter nor could we extent our knowledge from objects we have encountered to objects we haven't
encountered without universals. But universals pose a vexing problem and that is - where do universals
come from? How do we get from the particulars in the world to the classes into which we organize those
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