Principled Pragmatism: A Guide to the Adaptation of Ideas from Philosophical Disciplines to Conceptual Modeling

The synergism among the traditional disciplines of ontology, epistemology, logic, and linguistics and their potential for enhancing conceptual-modeling applications is not fully understood. Better understanding how to adapt ideas from these disciplines should lead to improved serviceability of conceptual modeling. We argue in this position paper, however, that application objectives, rather than philosophical tenets, should guide the adaptation of ideas from these disciplines. Thus, an appropriate balance of discipline-based theory and pragmatism should temper adaptations. We evaluate the principled pragmatism we advocate by presenting several case-study examples. Each illustrates that an appropriate adaptation of ideas from the disciplines of ontology, epistemology, logic, and linguistics can significantly guide conceptual-modeling research and help build successful conceptual-modeling applications.