Some comments on the first draft

Thank you very much for the feedback. I am saying this not because you are the instructor; your comments actually helped me think about what I wrote. First of all, I certainly know that in metaphysics, ontology is used in a different sense. Disambiguation as well as some form of definition in the computer science community might be useful to give the reader some idea of what this entry is about. The latter is somewhat implicit, however, in the second section; but I can certainly try to state it more explicitly. More importantly, you are right in that truth is not somehow a property associated with the definition or meaning of a term itself. But Smith is concerned about ontology actually being true of the world. I should consider his remark more carefully. A trite example is that a bachelor is an unmarried man. So if Bob fulfills these conditions, the sentence 'Bob is a bachelor' is true. But by the same token, if a definition, be it planet or bachelor, does not capture what we are trying to speak of in the world, it is useless for us. And we would be hard-pressed to say where the notion of truth come from; the talk, done by means of those terms associated with the definitions, would not be about the world any longer. We do need that notion, truth, in formal reasoning. Maybe this is the line I should think about a little more. Needless to say, I will also address the other issues you raised.

Given that I got your feedback only a few hours ago, would it be possible to give me a few more days to incorporate further thoughts in the entry? Writing takes time (because I have to think), and I have impending deadlines for math 419 and marking (I am a TA).

Here is one thing to think about:

We could have the definition "a bachelor is an unmarried man". Call this Bachelor_formal (as it is the formal definition). Assume it is a fine definition (assuming man and unmarried are defined). We could then discuss as to how much natural usage follows this definition (and there are many ways to measure this, usually with two numbers). And when we want to be careful we would specify whether we mean Bachelor_formal or Bachelor_common_usage. In science, it turns out that it is better to be precise, so that we more and more use planet_formal rather than planet_common_usage. Then, when we specify that Pluto is a planet_formal then we can measure the properties of Pluto and come to a conclusion (and perhaps even be unsure because we can't measure all of the properties of Pluto). When we want to determine whether Pluto is a planet_common_usage, then first it changes over time, and secondly it is more a question of sociology than of the properties of Pluto.

(See the Canvas post for new deadlines)

Thank you very much for the additional feedback and letting me know of the post. I will try to think over this question, relating philosophical talks to the scientific context. For now, I have to attend to the math assignment, which is falling apart :)