Hi Bill, (01)
Within computer science (AI), the term 'ontology' is used for the
specification rather than what is specified.
Tom Gruber says " In the context of knowledge sharing, I use the term
ontology to mean a specification of a conceptualization. That is, an
ontology is a description (like a formal specification of a program) of the
concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of
agents. This definition is consistent with the usage of ontology as
set-of-concept-definitions, but more general. And it is certainly a
different sense of the word than its use in philosophy. " (02)
Within philosophy, ontology is what is specified - e.g. an ontology is "the
set of things whose existence is acknowledged by a particular theory or
system of thought." (E. J. Lowe, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy) (03)
I find amusing that the Gruber CS-AI sense seems to go out of its way not to
talk about the things that the philosophy sense does. (04)
I also find that there is sometimes some equivocation on the two senses when
discussing interoperability.
An ontology in the philosophical sense can be used to identify the mapping
between data structures - the data refers to the same object.
Sometimes people seem to be assuming that ontologies in the CS-AI sense work
in the same way - whereas there is no guarantee that two
'conceptualisations' of the world will pick out the same things.
Barry has a nice article on the use of concepts in ISO that highlights some
of the issues http://ontology.buffalo.edu/medo/Wuesteria.pdf . (05)
Chris (06)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Price
> Sent: 12 January 2011 11:08
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] I ontologise, you ontologise, we all mess
up...
>
> On 1/12/2011 5:13 AM, Burkett, William [USA] wrote:
> > Chris, Ed:
> >
> > So given your interpretation, if I have (1) an ontology written in OWL
> about, say, making a cup of coffee, and (2) another ontology written in
CLIF
> (or KM language of your choice) that is about the exact same making-a-cup-
> of-coffee process, then they are two separate and distinct ontologies
rather
> than different representations of the same ontology? That goes against my
> understanding conceptual modelling viz physical data modelling, and my
> understanding of the RDF abstract model viz the various representations of
> it. For a given set of concepts and relationships in my mind, there are
many
> different physical ways to represent, manifest, or write them down. Why
are
> ontologies different? If my coffee-making ontologies /are/ different
> ontologies, then what do you call the set of concepts that they share and
> represent?
> Hi Bill,
>
> In my experience, the set of concepts related to making a cup of coffee
are
> best described as 'the requirements' for the ontology. These are often
> sketched out in a document including some UML or PowerPoint figures by an
> SME or are drawn from an existing database or application.
> The requirements set the scope of the ontology as well, which is also
often
> documented so it can be agreed (how else do you know when you're done?).
>
> Seems like you have in mind something far more formal wrt the set of
> concepts/relations and so may actually have three ontologies ... where the
> OWL and CLIF are (hopefully) equivalent ontologies to your first one and
to
> each other.
>
> Cheers,
> David
>
> --
> Principal Consultant
> TopQuadrant, Inc.
> US Phone +1 336-283-0606
> UK Mobile +44 7788 561308
>
>
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