On Tue, January 11, 2011 18:49, Ed Barkmeyer said:
> Bill Burkett wrote: (01)
>> I disagree that an ontology is (1) an artifact and (2) is something that
>> can be engineered. (Thus I support Peter's question of whether "ontology
>> engineer" is a useful term.) It is the *representation/manifestation*
>> of an ontology that is the artifact that is created - it's the OWL
>> representation (or CL representation or whatever) that is the artifact. (02)
I hold that each is an artifact. They are both conceptual works. The
more general ontology may have multiple language-specific forms, and the
language-specific forms may have textually-specific forms. (03)
Distinguishing and describing such aspects of conceptual works is
something that Cyc struggled with in the late 1990s. Consider the
Protestant Bible. This is a work that is not language specific, since
translations in many languages are all considered Bibles. Even the
English Bible is has many textually distinct versions. An instantiation
of the King Jame's Version is also an instantiation of the Bible. (04)
> This is a subject that has been discussed in this forum before. I hold
> with those who believe the ontology is the artifact -- the captured
> knowledge. Captured knowledge has a form of expression. Knowledge that
> is without external form is not an 'ontology'. Knowledge whose external
> form is not 'suitable for automated reasoning' is not an 'ontology'.
> That is the difference between an 'ontology' and an XML schema, or a
> Java program (perhaps), or a PDF text, or a relational database.
>
> The OWL formulation is an ontology; the CL formulation is an ontology;
> they are different ontologies, even when both are said to represent
> exactly the same knowledge. If they do represent exactly the same
> knowledge, they are "equivalent". (05)
Here, we come across multiple defintions of "ontology". If we defined
Ontology_LanguageSpecific, and Ontology_LanguageNonSpecific as disjoint
subclasses of Ontology_Generic, then the various stakeholders might
accept both. (06)
-- doug f (07)
> ...
>
> -Ed
>
>> Bill... (08)
=============================================================
doug foxvog doug@xxxxxxxxxx http://ProgressiveAustin.org (09)
"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great
initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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