ontolog-forum
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontolog-forum] [Obo-relations] Heterarchy & Hierarchy, oh my my

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Werner Ceusters" <ceusters@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 16:18:10 -0400
Message-id: <017a01c8ac91$a45ea2c0$38d7cd80@WernerVAIO>
Oops and sorry. I got W's original mail through the OBO rel weblist. I 
didn't want to spam on the ontolog forum.
Please accept my apologies.    (01)

W    (02)

      from [Ryan Kohl] [Permanent Link][Original]    (03)

      To:  "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
      From:  Ryan Kohl <kohl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
      Date:  Fri, 02 May 2008 15:59:13 -0400
      Message-id:  <481B7291.4000806@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>    (04)

Why wouldn't 'married man' be a universal?  By most standard ontological
definitions, a universal is something that can be instantiated by more
than one thing (e.g. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties/).
Even under Barry Smith and Pierre Grenon's definition (from
http://ontology.buffalo.edu/bfo/SQU.pdf), a universal "is an entity with
a spatiotemporal existence which is yet distinct from its extension (the
set of its instances) at any given time." (page 1, 2nd paragraph).  What
am I missing here?    (01)    (05)

> BFO and OBO aim for representation that is faithful to reality, not for 
> computational efficiency or "easyness" of reasoning.
> BFO for sure, and good OBO ontologies (there are not many yet) represent 
> universals. The monohierarchy applies to universals. "married man" does 
> not denote a universal, so would never be present in a good OBO ontology.
> If there are places in OBO ontologies where the priority of distinction is 
> an issue, then that probably is a place where some mistake against the 
> "only universals" rule is made. Better to correct such mistakes, than to 
> relax the principles.
>
> If you want to have "married man" in some application ontology (in 
> contrast to reference ontologies as BFO and what OBO ontologies ought to 
> be), then it could go there as a defined class, defined on the basis of 
> the universals "man" and "marriage".
>
> w
>    (06)



_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    (07)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>