FROLIO – Formalizable Relationship-Oriented Language-Insensitive Ontology

© Roger M Tagg 2009 revised 2010

Welcome to FROLIO – a new attempt to merge philosophy and the "semantic web" . This website is under continuing development.

Related mini-essay: Post-Modernist Buzzwords

Introduction

Post-Modernism (I abbreviate it to PoMo) is a relatively recent philosophical school, championed mainly in France - in some cases by emigrés from other nations. Its key message seems to be that whatever we read is written by people with a certain linguistic and cultural - or even gender - bias, and reflects many features of the stages of history that the writers lived in. Therefore we need to strip off these biases. We should certainly mistrust "grand narratives" - major theories that claim to explain everything.

It is not to be confused with Existentialism - at least in the form associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and others, and which has loosely been misinterpreted in the 1960s catch phrase "do your own thing" - leading to the hippie movement and the riots of 1968.

If there is a catch phrase for Post-Modernism, it is probably Il n'y a pas de hors-texte - a quotation ascribed to Jacques Derrida, loosely translated as "We humans can only discuss what's expressible in language".

FROLIO, by claiming to be "language-insensitive" doesn't totally oppose this - after all, the diagrams illustrating relationships are a "language" themselves, and the relationship types still have to be defined in some language. FROLIO is just looking for a way of stepping back from being too tied to one particular language.

Alterity
The other, whoever or whatever else we relate to. Could include animals, spirits, gods as well as other humans.
Aporia
A contradiction, possibly caused by multiple agendas of the writer.
Chora
A supposed pre-linguistic state - beyond words.
Cognitive slippage
Progressive use of the same words but exhibiting subtle changes, possibly implying ulterior motives.
Deconstruction
Using a toolkit of methods (including the previous item) to expose bias, contradictions, ulterior motives etc.
Différance
What's not said, the implied context. An invented word, not he same as in "Vive la difference!"
Epistèmes
The accepted systems of understanding or argument at different stages of history.
Gift (the Gift)
The fact that we are here and alive, and that there are other live humans and beings around us.
Jouissance
Emotional joy that is beyond words.
Linguistic Turn
The realization that language is a human invention.
Logocentrism
The supposition that words have fixed meanings, and that reason is that main way to find meaning in life. Opposed by PoMo.
Messianicity
The idea that when the millennium arrives, everything will be hunky dory and we won't have to worry any more. Opposed by PoMo - the journey always goes on.
Metanarrative
Same as grand narrative - a big theory supposing to explain everything. A PoMo bête noire.
Pharmakon
The idea that things, when written down, may acquire too much credibility and people may stop thinking critically. An ancient Greek word (like pharmacy) which could mean either medicine or poison.
Semiotic sea (or stream)
The flow of textual words and phrases and their supposed meanings. Semiotic means "about signs".
Spectrality
The idea that we are still haunted by the old gods, ghosts and ideas.
Supplement
The seemingly subsidiary idea, or add-on, which may reveal more than the main idea.
Symbolic realm
The world of discourse in which we find ourselves and which itself influences us.
Trace
The link between things in a text - sometimes with things that aren't explicitly there.
Undecidability
Describes things that don't conform to a simple "either ... or". PoMo says they often occur.

Leading PoMo names - and some others (with links)

Jacques Derrida; Jean Beaudrillard; Jean-Francois Lyotard. For more see the Wikipedia entry for Postmodern Philosophy.

Other related names, though not core members of the movement, are Julia Kristeva, Gilles Deleuze; Jacques Lacan, Luce Irigaray, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, Paul Feyerabend, Louis Althusser.

A famous event in relation to postmodernism was the Sokal affair, when in 1996 Alan Sokal, an American mathematician, submitted a spoof nonsense paper to the postmodernist journal Social Text - and had it published.

A personal viewpoint

Postmodernism seems like a good opponent of bullshit. But taken too far, it can produce bullshit of its own. Its writings are full of difficult words used in seemingly strange ways. It can also be misinterpreted to justify the view that there can be no consensus on value or ethics, or even that reason and enlightenment are rubbish.

Reference

I liked Postmodernism by Kevin O'Donnell, Lion Access Guides, 2003, ISBN 0 7459 5092 2. It makes the topic understandable and puts it in context. He writes for the school students he once taught - maximum 2 pages per theme with pictures.

Links

Index to more of these diatribes

FROLIO home page

Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.

This version updated on 1st February 2010

If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .