Semantics of Distinguishing Criteria: from Subjective to Intersubjective

Abstract

In this article we are aiming to build cognitive semantics over a first person perspective. Our goal is to specify meanings connected to cognitive agents, rooted in their experience and separable from language, covering a wide spectrum of cognitions ranging from living organisms (animals, pre-verbal children and adult humans) to artificial agents and that the cognitive semantics covers a broad, continuous, spectrum of meanings. As regards the used method, the first person perspective enables a kind of grounding of meanings in cognitions. An ability of cognitive agents to distinguish is a starting point of our approach, distinguishing criteria and schemata are the basic semantic constructs. The resulting construction is based on a projection of the environment into a cluster of current percepts and function on percepts. Situation schemata, more sophisticated similarity functions, event schemata and distinguishing criteria are built over that basis. Inference rules and action rules are components of our semantics. An interesting property of the proposed semantics is that it makes possible coexistence of subjective and intersubjective meanings. Subjective (first person perspective) meanings are primary, and we have shown the way from them to collectively accepted (third person perspective) meanings via observable behaviour and feedback about success/failure of actions. An abductive reasoning is an important tool on that way. A construct of an instrument, which represents a measure for using intersubjective meanings, is introduced. The instrument serves as a tool for an inclusion of sophisticated meanings, e.g. of scientific constructs, into our framework.