Mike, (01)
That is a commonly used distinction: (02)
MB> 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. (03)
See below for the opening paragraph of one of my tutorials on
ontology. The final section of that tutorial is a glossary. (04)
John
__________________________________________________________________ (05)
Source: http://www.jfsowa.com/ontology/ontoshar.htm (06)
1. What is Ontology? (07)
The subject of _ontology_ is the study of the categories of things that
exist or may exist in some domain. The product of such a study, called
_an ontology_, is a catalog of the types of things that are assumed to
exist in a domain of interest D from the perspective of a person who
uses a language L for the purpose of talking about D. The types in the
ontology represent the predicates, word senses, or concept and relation
types of the language L when used to discuss topics in the domain D. An
uninterpreted logic is ontologically neutral: It imposes no constraints
on the subject matter or the way the subject is characterized. By
itself, logic says nothing about anything, but the combination of logic
with an ontology provides a language that can express relationships
about the entities in the domain of interest. (08)
This is from the first article in the Guided Tour of Ontology: (09)
http://www.jfsowa.com/ontology/guided.htm (010)
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