Modelling What There Is: Ontologising in a Multidimensional World

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

Models, Modelling, Metaphors and Metaphorical Thinking - From an Educational Philosophical View

In this contribution, I present my view of models and metaphors within educational research, very broadly speaking. I start out by articulating my educational philosophical perspective as a form of applied philosophy. Inspired by Ricœur, I then define models as “instruments for configuration and reconfiguration”. I argue that metaphors and metaphorical thinking are more basic than models and modelling. The former can guide reasoning in a holistic, heuristic manner. The latter can be used analytically to develop the initial metaphorical similarity into articulated analogies. Models and metaphors may be deployed explicitly and consciously but may also (mis)lead cognition through implicit structuring of thinking. I proceed to give examples of the roles which models and metaphors have within different areas of (research in) education, teaching, and learning. One example is the explicit development of design patterns; another is implicit adherence to either an acquisition metaphor or a participation metaphor of learning. Towards the end, I provide tentative answers to three questions posed by my discussion pair, Willard McCarty, concerning 1) computer modelling, 2) open-endedness of models and metaphors, and 3) situated knowledge and relativism

Makine çevirisinde yeni bir bilgisayımsal yaklaşım

Doktora TeziBilişsel süreçlerde bağlantısallık ve biçimsellik şeklinde ortaya çıkan ayrım, özünde bilişsel işlevlerin aşamalı gelişiminin ürünüdür ve bir ayrımdan çok katmanlı bir yapıya işaret eder. Doğal dil işlemede biçimsel yaklaşımların tek başına yetersiz kalması da geliştirilen biçimsel sistemlerin, bağlantısal temeller üzerine oturtulmamasından kaynaklanmaktadır. Bu tez çalışmasının ardındaki temel motivasyon da bağlantısal dayanaklı ontolojilerin makine çevirisinde kullanılabilecek biçimsel yapıdaki aradillerin oluşturulmasında temel olabileceği düşüncesi olmuştur. Bu noktadan yola çıkarak, dillerarası kavramsal eşlemeler bağlantısal bir şekilde gerçeklenmeye çalışılmış, ardından bu eşlemeler üzerinde temellenen aradil yapıları biçimsel bir çerçeve içinde modellenmiştir. Son olarak, kavram kafesleri şeklinde biçimselleştirilen ontolojiler, aradil yapıları olarak kullanılmış ve böylece edimsel bilginin süreç odaklı makine çevirisine eklemlenmesi sağlanarak bu ontolojilerin işlevsellikleri sınanmıştır. Ortaya konan çeviri sisteminin, Türkçe bir çocuk hikayesine uygulanması ile elde edilen test sonuçları, çeviri sonuçlarında filtre olarak kullanılan kavram kafeslerinin, makine çevirisini geliştirme açısından umut verici bir potansiyele sahip olduğunu ortaya koymuştur.AbstractThe distinction emerged as associativeness and formality in cognitive processes is fundamentally the product of the gradual development of cognitive functions and this indicates a multi-stratified structure. Since formal systems which have been developed for natural language processing are not based on associative grounds, formal approaches that are merely used in natural language processing lead to limited systems. The main motivation behind this thesis is the thought that ontologies based on associativeness could serve as the core of forming formal-structured interlingua that could be used in machine translation. Therefore, it is tried to realize cross-language conceptual mapping on the basis of associativeness; then, interlingual structures based on these mappings are modeled within a formal framework. At the end, ontologies formed as concept lattices are used as interlingual structures and functionalities of the ontologies are tested via incorporating pragmatic information into process-oriented machine translation. Test results retrieved from the application of the developed translation system to a child story reveal that concept lattices used as filters in translation results have a promising potential with regard to the development of machine translation

Models and Modelling between Digital and Humanities: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

This Supplement of Historical Social Research stems from the contributions on the topic of modelling presented at the workshop “Thinking in Practice”, held at Wahn Manor House in Cologne on January 19-20, 2017. With Digital Humanities as starting point, practical examples of model building from different disciplines are considered, with the aim of contributing to the dialogue on modelling from several perspectives. Combined with theoretical considerations, this collection illustrates how the process of modelling is one of coming to know, in which the purpose of each modelling activity and the form in which models are expressed has to be taken into consideration in tandem. The modelling processes presented in this volume belong to specific traditions of scholarly and practical thinking as well as to specific contexts of production and use of models. The claim that supported the project workshop was indeed that establishing connections between different traditions of and approaches toward modelling is vital, whether these connections are complementary or intersectional. The workshop proceedings address an underpinning goal of the research project itself, namely that of examining the nature of the epistemological questions in the different traditions and how they relate to the nature of the modelled objects and the models being created. This collection is an attempt to move beyond simple representational views on modelling in order to understand modelling processes as scholarly and cultural phenomena as such