This dissertation examines the concept of event, as found in the ontologies developed by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995). The texts I focus on are Heidegger's Sein und Zeit (1927), "Vom Wesen des Grundes" (1928), "Vom Wesen der Wahrheit" (lecture 1930, print 1943), Beiträge zur Philosopie (vom Ereignis) (written 1936-38, but not published until 1989), and Deleuze's Différence et répétition (1968). My focus is on the way each philosopher advances an account of the event in relation to a set of key fundamental themes. For Heidegger, these are truth, difference, ground, and time-space. For Deleuze I also discuss ground and time, but focus especially on difference. Deleuze's account of difference entails a distinction between a “virtual” register of dialectical Ideas and an “actual” register of systems of simulacra, and clarifying his concept of event in relation to these plays a dominant role in my analysis. Deleuze's account of dialectical Ideas is profoundly influenced by that of the early twentieth century mathematician and philosopher, Albert Lautman (1908-1944). Lautman, in turn, developed his account through an engagement with Heidegger's early work. In Chapter V, I reconstruct the Heideggerian line of influence on Deleuze via Lautman. Beginning in the mid-1930s Heidegger understands being to be evental in nature, while difference constitutes an essential dimension of the event, though the latter point is often neglected in the scholarship. Truth, ground, and time-space articulate the structure and dynamics of being as event. For Deleuze, being is difference, but difference differentiates by way of events. Ground, time, systems of simulacra, and dialectical Ideas articulate the structure of being's evental differentiation and the genesis of worlds of beings possessing quasi-stable identities modulated by their complex relations. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Philosophy / PhD; / Dissertation;

In this thesis, Semantics, Meta-Semantics, and Ontology, I provide a critique of the method of truth in metaphysics. Davidson has suggested that we can determine the metaphysical nature and structure of reality through semantic investigations. By contrast, I argue that it is not semantics, but meta-semantics, which reveals the metaphysically necessary and sufficient truth conditions of our claims. As a consequence I reject the Quinean (semantic) criterion of ontological commitment. In Part I, chapter 1, I argue that the metaphysically primary truth bearers are not propositions, but rather concrete representations, either beliefs or sentences. I show, in chapter 2, that we can give sense to a truth predicate applying to sentences, given a truth operator and quantification into sentence position. I argue that this strategy does not commit us to the existence of propositions serving as truth bearers. In Part II I argue that although we must assign semantic values to sentences and/or predicates, the meaningfulness of these expressions is not thereby explained. In chapter 3 I articulate Davidson’s problem of predication and his solution, but argue that he was wrong to attribute this solution to Tarski. In chapter 4 I examine the semantics of modal languages; I conclude that although they require semantic values for predicates and/or sentences we should be instrumentalists about these theories. In Part III I consider the relationship between truth and existence. In chapter 5, I defend Pluralism about truth: in some (though not all) domains of discourse, I claim, semantic reference plays a merely instrumental role in explaining truth. In chapter 6, I show that Hume’s Principle, which is committed by the Quinean criterion to the existence of numbers, can be true even though numbers do not exist. In doing so, I appeal to meta-semantic and diachronic considerations. In the conclusion I compare my views on ontology and commitment to Jody Azzouni’s; and in the appendix I suggest how one might pursue diachronic linguistics.

Modern information technologies are unstoppably advancing and their development is inseparably linked with the development of the Internet. The amount of data and information published and available on the Internet is growing in units of Exabyte every year. Using so-called semantic tags added to documents, the Semantic Web movement aims to help machines, and eventually man, to benefit from the information contained in those (not only) on the Internet stored data. Elements marked with a semantic tag is given a machine- recognizable information. The importance of it lies in the positions and relationships of the tag to other tags within some set of (dictionary) of such tags. Ontologies are sets or dictionaries of such marks that capture specific knowledge of certain areas of life, technology or problems. The theoretical part of this work aims to explore the history and the development of knowledge representation, the development of ontologies and ontological engineering and semantic web technologies. In the practical part we analyze the SNOMED CT ontology, what is a large actually used ontology. We also design a tool that should help to enhance and simplify the development of ontologies. In the last, a plan is to implement a part of the designed tool.

Modern information technologies are unstoppably advancing and their development is inseparably linked with the development of the Internet. The amount of data and information published and available on the Internet is growing in units of Exabyte every year. Using so-called semantic tags added to documents, the Semantic Web movement aims to help machines, and eventually man, to benefit from the information contained in those (not only) on the Internet stored data. Elements marked with a semantic tag is given a machine- recognizable information. The importance of it lies in the positions and relationships of the tag to other tags within some set of (dictionary) of such tags. Ontologies are sets or dictionaries of such marks that capture specific knowledge of certain areas of life, technology or problems. The theoretical part of this work aims to explore the history and the development of knowledge representation, the development of ontologies and ontological engineering and semantic web technologies. In the practical part we analyze the SNOMED CT ontology, what is a large actually used ontology. We also design a tool that should help to enhance and simplify the development of ontologies. In the last, a plan is to implement a part of the designed tool.

What are the ordinary objects we sense? More precisely, how do we characterize the nature of their existence? In this exploration, we consider possible theories about the structure of concrete particulars, engaging with topics including attributes, universals, intrinsic unity, Identity of Indiscernibles, change, and more. Once we understand each theory, we evaluate it. In the end, can we find a suitable theory that coheres with our intuitive understanding of the ‘things’ we take for granted?

We have developed a framework to support development of ontology based Web applications. This framework is composed of a tree-view browser, an attribute selector, the ontology persistence module, an ontology query module, and a utility class that allows the users, to plug-in their own customized functions. The framework supports SPARQL-DL query language. The purpose of this framework is to shield the complexity of ontology from the users and thereby ease the development of ontology based Web applications. Having high quality ontology and using this framework, the end-users can develop Web applications in many domains. For example, a professor can create highly customized study guides; a domain expert can generate the Web forms for data collections; a geologist can create a Google Maps mashup. We have also reported three ontology-based Web applications in education, meteorology and geographic information system.

This thesis reports an ontology-based approach to automatic generation of highly tailored GUI components that can make customized data requests for the end users. Using this GUI generator, without knowing any programming skill a domain expert can browse the data schema through the ontology file of his/her own field, choose attribute fields according to business's needs, and make a highly customized GUI for end users' data requests input. The interface for the domain expert is a tree view structure that shows not only the domain taxonomy categories but also the relationships between classes. By clicking the checkbox associated with each class, the expert indicates his/her choice of the needed information. These choices are stored in a metadata document in XML. From the viewpoint of programmers, the metadata contains no ambiguity; every class in an ontology is unique. The utilizations of the metadata can be various; I have carried out the process of GUI generation. Since every class and every attribute in the class has been formally specified in the ontology, generating GUI is automatic. This approach has been applied to a use case scenario in meteorological and oceanographic (METOC) area. The resulting features of this prototype have been reported in this thesis.

The goal of this research is to provide a supporting Web services architecture, consisting of a service model and catalog, to allow discovery and automatic orchestration of geospatial Web services. First, a methodology for supporting geospatial Web services with existing orchestration tools is presented. Geospatial services are automatically translated into SOAP/WSDL services by a portable service wrapper. Their data layers are exposed as atomic functions while WSDL extensions provide syntactic metadata. Compliant services are modeled using the descriptive logic capabilities of the Ontology Language for the Web (OWL). The resulting geospatial service model has a number of functions. It provides a basic taxonomy of geospatial Web services that is useful for templating service compositions. It also contains the necessary annotations to allow discovery of services. Importantly, the model defines a number of logical relationships between its internal concepts which allow inconsistency detection for the model as a whole and for individual service instances as they are added to the catalog. These logical relationships have the additional benefit of supporting automatic classification of geospatial services individuals when they are added to the service catalog. The geospatial service catalog is backed by the descriptive logic model. It supports queries which are more complex that those available using standard relational data models, such as the capability to query using concept hierarchies. An example orchestration system demonstrates the use of the geospatial service catalog for query evaluation in an automatic orchestration system (both fully and semi-automatic orchestration). Computational complexity analysis and experimental performance analysis identify potential performance problems in the geospatial service catalog. Solutions to these performance issues are presented in the form of partitioning service instance realization, low cost pre-filtering of service instances, and pre-processing realization. The resulting model and catalog provide an architecture to support automatic orchestration capable of complementing the multiple service composition algorithms that currently exist. Importantly, the geospatial service model and catalog go beyond simply supporting orchestration systems. By providing a general solution to the modeling and discovery of geospatial Web services they are useful in any geospastial Web service enterprise.

Thesis advisor: John Sallis / This project sets out to answer the following question: according to Aristotle, what does movement contribute to or change about being? The first part works through the argument for the existence of movement in the Physics. This argument includes distinctive innovations in the structure of being, notably the simultaneous unity and manyness of being: while material and form are one thing, they are two in being. This makes it possible for Aristotle to argue that movement is not intrinsically related to what is not: what comes to be does not emerge from non-being, it comes from something that is in a different sense. The second part turns to the Metaphysics to show that and how the lineage of potency and activity the inquiry into movement. A central problem is that activity or actuality, energeia, does not at first seem to be intrinsically related to a completeness or end, telos. With the unity of different senses of being at stake, Aristotle establishes that it is by showing that activity or actuality is movement most of all, and that movement has and is a complete end. Thus, it is movement that leads Aristotle to conclude that substance and form are energeia, and that unity of being is possible. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis advisor: John Sallis / Unlike the vast majority of the Platonic dialogues, which feature Socrates as the primary interlocutor, the conversation depicted in Plato's Sophist is led by a Stranger from Elea. While some scholars claim that Socrates' silence throughout the majority of the dialogue and Plato's replacement of Socrates with another philosophic protagonist imply an abandonment of Plato's "earlier," Socratic concerns, careful attention to the Sophist suggests otherwise. In fact, the Sophist appears to be one of the few places in the Platonic corpus where Plato chooses to have two mature philosophers (Socrates and the Eleatic Stranger) confront each other. Plato's dramatic chronology suggests that the conversation depicted in the Sophist takes place the day after Socrates has heard the indictment against him. Thus, the Sophist is part of the series of Platonic dialogues that portray the last days of Socrates--the days leading up to his trial and execution at the hands of the Athenian multitude. At the beginning of the Sophist, Socrates playfully describes the Eleatic Stranger as a cross-examining philosopher-deity who has come to evaluate and judge his philosophical logoi. Additionally, Socrates encourages the Eleatic Stranger to explain the relationship between the philosopher and the sophistic appearance that the philosopher takes on before the ignorant multitude. Socrates remarks imply that while the Athenian demos may not have genuinely understood him, a more accurate inquest can be made by a fellow philosopher. In fact, in the Sophist, the Eleatic Stranger indirectly interrogates the philosophical claims made by Socrates in a variety of other Platonic dialogues. However, the Eleatic Stranger does not simply valorize Socrates' approach to philosophy. While the Eleatic Stranger and Socrates often share similar interests, concerns and conclusions, the Eleatic Stranger is also highly critical of and offers alternatives to some of Socrates' characteristic logoi. In this way, Plato appears to stage a philosophical trial of Socrates in the Sophist--one that encourages his readers to think deeply about the true character of the philosophical life. This dissertation examines the similarities and the differences between Plato's Socrates and the Eleatic Stranger in order to shed light on Plato's own conception of the nature and limits of the philosophical life. It takes the form of a commentary on Plato's Sophist and highlights the conflicts between Socrates and the Eleatic Stranger. Special attention is paid to the Eleatic Stranger and Socrates' disagreements about philosophical methodology and philosophical ontology, both of which are highlighted by the Stranger's critical remarks about Socratic logoi. It is argued that Plato does not side either with the Eleatic Stranger or with Socrates. Instead of simply dismissing one of his philosophical protagonists, Plato encourages his readers to confront both and, thus, begin the investigation of the true nature of philosophy for themselves. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.