"Formal Ontology is the formal study of Reality".
<That is the definition of ontology, the philosophical field.>
As part of philosophy, it is "the study of reality", while formal ontology
means [rigorous, exact, mathematical, logical or scientific] study of
reality, its features, structure and meanings.
<When the word is used in this (original) sense, the construction "an
ontology" is ungrammatical>.
In a sense, you are correct. But an ontology is a regional ontology.
<The sense of "ontology" agreed to in this forum dates back less than two
decades, and has its origin in AI, not
philosophy. >
IMO, Here is the roots of all sorts of confusion which is necessary to
avoid.
<While the two senses are related, its important not to get them confused
with one another.>
There is a hierarchy of senses: basic meaning of ontology and applied,
derivative senses, like ontologies.
Who still doubts, there is an easily accessible article of Smith: "Ontology
as Reality Representation" ontology.buffalo.edu/bfo/BeyondConcepts.pdf . For
deeper study, the book on "Reality, Universal Ontology and Knowledge
Systems" (01)
Azamat Abdoullaev (02)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pat Hayes" <phayes@xxxxxxx>
To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:33 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Is there something I missed? (03)
>
> 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>
>> To: <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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