[SCL] Re: Formal Semantics =/= Semantics

[John F. Sowa]

Jon,

You are absolutely 100% correct in your assessment:

JA> What you are doing here is treating the "language of sets" (LOS)
> as a canonical language and prospectively providing translations
> from various other languages to LOS.  Futhermore, you are trying
> to do this by purely syntactic means, that is, without the boost
> of "collateral acquaintaince" with objects, the way your average
> human translator might.

But as you should note, we are not translating human languages.
We are translating formalized languages, each of which has
been formalized in terms of a set-based model theory.  To
translate those languages from one to another it is absolutely
essential that we use the dreaded LOS, and any other kind of
translation that considered or dealt with any "collateral
acquaintance" with objects would be totally inappropriate.

I am glad that you approve:

> Now, if you want to call these syntactic translations by the name
> of "formal semantics" or "model theory", well, you are in a large
> if not so good company, and so you can probably keep doing that.

And I also agree with the following point:

> But I think that it would be a service to all concerned to clear up
> this long-standing confusion once and for all, and to state up front
> that formal semantics, done in this vein, has nothing semantic to it,
> not in the sense of objective reference, the way most folks understand
> the term.

I did talk about that matter in my CS book and my KR book, but many
people missed the point.  But I intend to put those issues up front,
center stage in my forthcoming LLKW book.  I have no intention of
doing that in connection with the CL/SCL standard.

John