Based on the difference logic/world or rationality/reality, subjectivity/objectivity, syntactic/semantics, etc. a 4-fold distinction can be developed by applying the Diamond Strategies onto the difference. This might serve a start to develop the modules of the “Framework of the World-Models”. Before discussing topics like plagiarism, disciplinarity and modularity it should be made clear which are the basic epistemological presuppositions involved. The framework of the 4 world-models might offer a general guideline for epistemological, logical and ontological orientation.
Plagiarism in world-model I is easy to understand. The first is the origin and the origin is the first. Everything else is secondarily. There is the inventor, the patent and the Patentamt (patent office) guaranteeing the legal ownership of the invention to its inventor.
There is no ambiguity in the notion of ownership, the identity relation between inventor/patent/patent-office is logically and ontologically strict. Plagiarism, i.e., intellectual property (IP) theft, is strictly identifiable.
Identification happens here on the levels of attributes. If the attributes of two objects (products) are the same, coincide, then the objects are identical. This narrow ontological approach might be extended to functional criteria: if two machines (chemical, plants) behave in all parts the same then they are identical.
Hence, if the German train Transrapid appears in Shanghai as a Chinese invention, the German companies are forced to check the Chinese invention of patent-theft. The Chinese train may look the same, function the same, even based on the same physical and engineering principles, etc., therefore, there is a high possibility of intellectual property theft. But following this kind of comparison, there is still a limit in comparison. There will probably be no access to all the parts and procedures of the whole train to allow a final decision. Hence, a one-to-one comparison as presumed in world-model I, is not always accessible in concreto.
We might think that this argument is producing a pseudo-problem, simply, because the legal matters are ruled and controlled in written form by the patent office of the involved countries. But, again, not much has changed. The problems of translations of the crucial terms (4.3), like “patent of invention”, between different cultures, remains.
Obviously, there are even in world-model I some structural limitations for the business of comparison and decision. But why should the Chinese culture think and act in the sense of this identity related world-model I?
Because of the one-to-one constitution of world-model I, there are no constellations allowed, which could disturbe logical tautologies and decidability. Hence, no self-referential constructions, which are domesticated in the other world-models, are legitimatly occuring in world-model I. Obviously, paradoxes are strictly excluded from the very begnning of the game.
Epistemology: Objects (things, thoughts) are identical.
: The case can be objectively decided.