MONDAY, 21 JUNE 2004
Here is an interesting topic for discussion: The Relationship between Understanding and Knowledge. This issue has been and will certainly continue to be approached from several perspectives.

In the website The Examined Life there is a more general debate What is Knowledge by Paul Rezendes, Mitch Hodge and Graham Dennis.

On this same issue I have also found three other interesting documents. Firstly there are the papers below:

[1]

Knowledge Discourses and Interaction Technology

by Carsten S?rensen & Masao Kakihara

Research within knowledge management tends to either overemphasize or underestimate the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Furthermore, much of the ICT support debate has been shaped by the data-information- knowledge trichotomy and too focused on repository-based approaches.
We wish to engage in a principled debate concerning the character and role of knowledge technologies in contemporary organizational settings. The aim of this paper is to apply four perspectives on the management of knowledge to highlight four perspectives on technological options. The paper presents, based on four knowledge discourses --four interrelated perspectives on the management of knowledge-- four perspectives on ICT support for the management of knowledge each reviewing relevant literature and revealing a facet of how we can conceptualize the role of technology for knowledge management.
The four technology discourses focus on the: Production and distribution of information; interpretation and navigation of information; codification and embedding of collaboration; and establishment and maintenance of connections.

[2]

Innovation through Knowledge Codification

by Carsten S?rensen and Ulrika Snis

Academics and business professionals are currently showing a significant interest in understanding the management of knowledge and the roles to be played herein by information and communication technology
(ICT). In this paper we take a closer look at one of the primary issues raised when supporting the management of knowledge how to understand the role of knowledge classification and codification as means for further organisational learning and innovation. Two manufacturing cases are analysed using particular perspectives from current theories on classification, the management of knowledge and organisational innovation.
It is concluded that a more complex understanding of the interplay between cognitive and community models for knowledge management as informed by research on social processes of classification can inform our understanding of both the role of classification of knowledge for organisational innovation and on the viability of providing ICT support based on codified knowledge.

There is also a post from the Desert Landscapes blog in the link above.

MONDAY, 21 JUNE 2004

PARACONSISTENCY AND THE SEMANTICS OF NATURAL LANGUAGES

There's a fair bit of natural language work in paraconsistent logics, much along the lines Kai suggests (presupposition by e.g. Schoter and belief by e.g. Konolige). Some suggested refs follow.

Cheers,

David

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Andreas Schoter (1995) The Computational Application of Bilattice Logic to Natural Reasoning, PhD Dissertation, University of Edinburgh

Andreas Schoter, Evidential Bilattice Logic and Lexical Inference (1994), Center for Cognitive Science Tech Report EUCCS RP-64, University of Edinbugh

Andreas Schoter and Carl Vogel, editors, Edinburgh Working Papers in Cognitive Science: Nonclassical Feature Systems (1995)

Vogel, C., & Cooper, R. (1995). Robust Chart Parsing with Mildly Inconsistent Feature Structures. In A. Schoter and C. Vogel (Eds.) RANLT 137 Edinburgh Working Papers in Cognitive Science: Nonclassical Feature Systems, Volume 10 (pp. 197-216).

(Don't remember if the following actually uses paraconsistent logics in the technical sense, but I suspect so.)
Konolige, K., Belief and incompleteness. in: J. R. Hobbs and R. C. Moore (eds.) Formal Theories of the Commonsense World, Ablex Publishing Company, 1985.

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I believe here's also lots of AI work in default and nonmonotonic logic that references or builds on work in paraconsistent logic, and much of this has been applied to natural language. You should ask someone who really knows this stuff, like Rich Thomason, Michael Morreau or Nic Asher.

Posted by: David Beaver at January 28, 2004 12:01 AM

On the Distinction between Relational and Functional Type Theory

By Paul E. Oppenheimer & Edward N. Zalta
 
It is commonly believed that it makes no difference whether one starts with relational types or functional types in formulating type theory, since one can either start with relations as primitive and represent functions as relations or start with functions as primitive and represent relations as functions. It is also commonly believed that the formula-based logic of relational type theory is equivalent to the term-based logic of functional type theory. However, in this paper, the authors argue that there are systems with logics that can be properly characterized in relational type theory, but not in functional type theory.

 

Source: Online Papers in Philosophy