A distinction I find useful (though not very formal) is that ontology
(singular) is the study of what is, while ontologies (plural) are the
representations of reality that exist - whether you know about it or not
- within individual computer systems and databases, i.e. the local
representation of the reality about which the computer is manipulating
symbols, with varying degrees of success. (01)
I don't know how well grounded or attested that working definition is
though. (02)
A formal modern ontology is a good tool for discovering some of that
undocumented or implied ontology that is lurking around various systems
and databases. (03)
Mike (04)
Ali Hashemi wrote:
> The following from Guarino (2008) is apt here, i think:
>
> In the philosophical sense, we may refer to an ontology as a
> particular system of categories accounting for a certain
> vision of the world. As such, this system does not depend on a
> particular /language:/ Aristotle's ontology is always the
> same, independently of the language used to describe it. On
> the other hand, in its most prevalent use in AI, an ontology
> refers to an /engineering artifact,/ constituted by a specific
> /vocabulary/ used to describe a certain reality, plus a set of
> explicit assumptions regarding the /intended meaning/ of the
> vocabulary words. This set of assumptions has usually the form
> of a first-order logical theory, where vocabulary words appear
> as unary or binary predicate names, respectively called
> concepts and relations. In the simplest case, an ontology
> describe a hierarchy of concepts related by subsumptions
> relationships; in more sophisticated cases, suitable axioms
> are added in order to express other relationships between
> concepts and to constrain their intended interpretation.
>
> (Guarino 2008, pp14-15)
>
> Though i'm not sure why vocabulary words are restricted to unary or
> binary predicate names, it seems there'd be a lot of useful things to
> say with terms that range directly over /n/ variables.
>
> An observation on a lot of literature i've come across, a lot seems to
> focus on the taxonomic component of ontologies, when they can be, as
> Guarino notes/, /more sophisticated. I wonder if this might be a
> reason there have been no /killer apps/ for the field yet.
>
> // Ali
>
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx
> <mailto:phayes@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
>
> On Jan 29, 2009, at 5:55 AM, Azamat wrote:
>
> > On Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:15 AM, Sean aked:
> > "is there a formal definition of an ontology?"
> >
> > Good question. It seems there are as many definitions as many
> > schools,
> > researchers and developers.
> > But the right one is that involving the original nature and
> meaning of
> > ontology as:
> > "Formal Ontology is the formal study of Reality".
>
> That is the definition of ontology, the philosophical field. When the
> word is used in this (original) sense, the construction "an ontology"
> is ungrammatical. The sense of "ontology" agreed to in this forum
> dates back less than two decades, and has its origin in AI, not
> philosophy. While the two senses are related, its important not to get
> them confused with one another.
>
> PatH
>
> > The issue of issues is how
> > Reality is related with the whole world (the totality of
> entities and
> > relations), particular worlds, or possible worlds; and how it could
> > be truly
> > and consistently represented and effectively reasoned [by humans and
> > machines].
> >
> > Azamat Abdoullaev
> > http://www.eis.com.cy
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Sean Barker" <sean.barker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:sean.barker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
> > To: <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
> > Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:15 AM
> > Subject: [ontolog-forum] Is there something I missed?
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Folks
> >>
> >> Having followed this forum for some time, I have a feeling that I
> >> may have
> >> missed something so obvious that no-one has thought to mention it -
> >> that
> >> is,
> >> is there a formal definition of an ontology? An ontology cannot be
> >> just be
> >> a
> >> bowl of axiom soup, so how does one tell that a particular
> >> collection of
> >> axioms is an ontology - the question is posed on the analogy that
> >> mathematicians differentiate between a group, a ring and a field by
> >> the
> >> axioms they include. My naive guess for this would be based on set
> >> theory,
> >> and look something like:
> >>
> >> 1) A set S can be defined as S = {x s.t. x satisfies some
> >> combination of
> >> predicates};
> >> 2) Given a set of predicicates P = {p1, p2,...,pn} and a set of
> >> logical
> >> operaters L = {l1, l2,...,ln} (perhaps just AND, OR and NOT), then
> >> denote
> >> Spl as a set defined from some combination of predicates in P and
> >> operators
> >> in L, and Spl* is the set of all possible sets Spl (perhaps
> >> regularised to
> >> remove contraditions);
> >> 3) An ontology is constructed by taking a collection of sets from
> >> Spl* and
> >> identifying a partial ordering of those sets using the usual subset
> >> relationship.
> >>
> >> This would split the study of ontology into three area:
> >> 1) the formal problem of ontology as being concerned with the types
> >> of
> >> mappings (homomorphisms, homeomorphisms, etc) between different
> >> ontologies
> >> based on the choices from some Spl*
> >> 2)the practical problem as finding an ontology that supports the
> >> decision
> >> procedures in a particular process (I include classifying something
> >> as a
> >> decision procedure).
> >> 3) the computational problem of defining of terminating and
> efficient
> >> procedures for comparing ontologies and mapping between them.
> >> (Thanks to Pat Hayes for this suggestion - even his more acerbic
> >> comments
> >> can be quite enlightening.)
> >>
> >> I would then expect there to have been a number of competing
> >> definitions,
> >> and any number of arguements discussing the relative merits of
> these
> >> definitions. And possibly some argument demostrating that this
> whole
> >> approach is flawed.
> >>
> >> My question is, where are these definitions and the ensuing
> >> arguments? and
> >> is there a good summary of these?
> >>
> >> Sean Barker
> >> Bristol, UK
> >>
> >>
> >>
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