Pat Hayes wrote:
> I would also observe, before leaving this topic, that your followers
> often do not take this casual I-chose-the-left attitude to this
> distinction. They often, indeed, insist that this distinction MUST be
> made, that any ontological framework which does not make it is
> inherently wrong, and cite you as an authority. (This has happened
> three times when I have been present in the last year, most recently
> at an NSF meeting.) And I have heard you make the case vehemently, in
> public forums of one kind or another. The paper you cited, to be
> published in the future, makes this case in very strong terms, and
> indeed seems to be devoted to little else. (01)
This is my major concern about the OBO approach: it is not "let's adopt
the continuant/occurrent distinction and build ontologies as if it were
correct (and perhaps it is)" but rather "there are continuants and
occurrents, so we must build ontologies in a way that acknowledges it".
While for those who are aware of that this is just one of possible
philosophical view it is a matter of conscious decision to accept the
view or not, for most of the biologists who enter the OBO world this is
a dogma, taken for granted, and now to infer, from that they adopt this
view, that this is the view biologists choose is not the best way of
proving the correctness of this view. (02)
Given the incompatibilities between most top-level ontologies it is
neither surprizing nor seemingly wrong that to successfully build a
framework of compatible bioontologies one has, as OBO did, to chose one
view and stick to it. The issue is in not forcing people to believe
that this and only this view is the ontologically correct one. (03)
vQ (04)
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