ABSTRACT The concept of concrete and abstract entities relates to an ontological specification problem, described by Plato’s Sophist concept of the Gods and Giants and their interpretation of metaphysical reality. Developing an ontology without considering the full metaphysical implications leaves conceptual gaps in the creation of events, change in states and management of thoughts, plans and deceptions. This paper seeks to resolve conceptual gaps in the field of cyberspace representation, enabling both ontological interoperability and the development of more complex artificial (...) intelligence technologies. The beginnings of a new meta-ontology for cyberspace are proposed, based on Stoic metaphysics. A meta-ontology provides high-level construction of meaning, upon which more specific ontologies can be built. Coherence between ontologies is important because cyberspace is a contextually dependent knowledge space within the broader infosphere, with many interdependent concepts. This paper enhances the potential for ontological interoperability and transparency between users, human or machine. (shrink)

Since Mates’ seminal Stoic Logic there has been uncertainty and debate about how to treat the term anapodeiktos when used of Stoic syllogisms. This paper argues that the customary translation of anapodeiktos by ‘indemonstrable’ is accurate, and it explains why this is so. At the heart of the explanation is an argument that, contrary to what is commonly assumed, indemonstrability is rooted in the generic account of the Stoic epistemic notion of demonstration. Some minor insights into Stoic logic ensue.

Arguments and conditionals are powerful means language provides us to reason about possibilities and to reach conclusions from premises. These two kinds of constructions exhibit several affinities—e.g., they both come in different varieties depending on the mood; they share some of the same connectives (i.e., ‘then’); they allow for similar patterns of modal subordination. In the light of these affinities, it is not surprising that prominent theories of conditionals—old and new suppositionalisms as well as dynamic theories of conditionals—as well as (...) certain reductive theories of arguments tend to semantically assimilate conditionals and arguments. In this paper, I shall marshall some linguistic evidence as well as some theoretical considerations for thinking that, despite these similarities, arguments and conditionals should be given a different semantics and I shall lay out a framework that can capture at least some of their affinities while accounting for their outstanding differences. (shrink)