Hi Pat... (01)
Here we go again... (02)
On Apr 30, 2008, at 18:08 , Pat Hayes wrote: (03)
> At 8:21 PM +0200 4/30/08, Cati Martínez wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm new in the Ontology world, and maybe it has been already
>> discussed, I'm asking me the question if everything implemented in
>> the
>> OWL language can be considered an Ontology. I guess that it's not so,
>> but it is difficult for me to say when we can say that it is or not.
>
> The term 'ontology' has no definition precise
> enough to answer that question. Myself, I'd be
> inclined to say yes, anything in OWL is an
> ontology. Certainly one would not expect any OWL
> tool or engine to start distinguishing between
> 'real ontology OWL' and 'mere OWL'. (04)
Correct. (05)
I admit the problems with coming up with anything close to a
definition of the term "ontology" and of course no machine is going to
be able to tell the difference. But your position above equates (the
referents of) "ontology" with "theory expressed in a formal
language". Or at least it makes them coextensional if we want to put
that fine a point on it. (06)
This is at least a very permissive version of Quine's position in "On
what there is". I don't think Quine would have bestowed the honor of
existence on a lot of the referents of terms introduced in most of
what are called "ontologies", written in OWL or not -- he reserved
that for objects revealed by best practice in science. Thus his
epistemic motivation ought to appeal to you. But certainly the
following would not count for Quine and hopefully not for you: (07)
<a rdfs:subclassOf b> (08)
That's a legal OWL theory (I won't call it an "ontology" -- you can do
that). The (non-reserved) terms are arbitrarily chosen, without even
the intent that they convey any information about a world outside the
computer. (09)
We want to admit that people screw up and say things like (exists (x)
(= x Phlogiston)) where they do think the terms refer to the world,
but that's at least a better story than admitting any logical theory
whatever. (010)
And of course real philosophers can argue the bit about realism and
whether or not we ever will have any idea whether we have access to a
"real" world. (011)
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