Modelling What There Is: Ontologising in a Multidimensional World

2018/01/01 by Willard McCarty, McCarty, Willard · 1 citation
Computer Science · #Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge #Modelling #Multi-Agent Systems and Negotiation #Semantic Web and Ontologies #anthropology #multidimensionality #ontology #semantic stretch

paper · pdf · doi:10.12759/hsr.suppl.31.2018.33-45

openalex publication_date 2018/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

The incursion of digital computing machinery into the public sphere and the return of “ontology” from philosophical exile occurred almost simultaneously, circa 1948. In this essay I ask, what do the modelling machine and philosophers’ irreconcilable accounts of “what there is” have to do with each other? Are the ontological pluralism of the former and the multi-centric multi-naturalism of the latter kin? If so, then recent anthropology has much to say to digital humanities.

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• Models and Modelling between Digital and Humanities. Remarks from a Multidisciplinary Perspective

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