On Feb 11, 2007, at 6:26 PM, Kathryn Blackmond Laskey wrote:
> [John wrote:]
>> Following is a better specification of an ontology.
>>
>> Vocabulary: {loopyLetter}
>>
>> Theory:
>>
>> Every loopyLetter is a letter in a circular envelope.
>>
>> No loopyLetter is delivered on a Tuesday.
>>
>> This would be a special-case ontology that uses terms that may
>> be defined in other ontologies: letter, in, circular, envelope,
>> deliver, Tuesday.
> ...
> Wouldn't you want to require your ontology to explicitly name the
> ontologies from which it was drawing terms? Otherwise, we could have
> any number of meanings assigned to the terms not defined in the
> ontology, if there were multiple external ontologies that defined
> them in conflicting ways. (01)
I take it that was implicit in John's last sentence there (though his
use of "may be defined" does hint that he's leaving it open in the
way your response suggests). But let's assume that in a complete
example John would have included some relevant URLs -- more exactly,
some "import" statements in which URLs are arguments -- that point to
ontologies that axiomatize "letter", "in", etc. Contrary to what it
seems you are suggesting here (forgive me if I'm wrong), I don't
believe it would be correct to think of those import statements as
part of John's ontology. An import statement is metadata; it is
simply a mechanism to support re-use on open networks, an efficient
alternative to writing down externally located axioms explicitly. It
is those externally located axioms themselves, not the statements by
which they are imported, that are part of John's ontology. (02)
Chris Menzel (03)
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