On 5/3/11 11:25 AM, AzamatAbdoullaev wrote:
JS wrote:
"My recommendation for anyone who is trying to define anything is
to check a good dictionary for an independent opinion."
Very true.
This is what i mentioned in the Reality Book Introduction,
http://www.igi-global.com/bookstore/chapter.aspx?titleid=28308:
"Taken as pure and abstract knowledge, Ontology is formulated as
different as:
the science (account) of entity (or being) in general;
the knowledge of the most general structures of reality;
the theory of the kinds and structures of things in every
domain of reality;
the study of entity types and relations;
the most general theory concerning reality, being, or
existence;
a collection of absolute assumptions;
the study of change;
the science of all possible worlds and everything
conceivable;
the study of semantic values of natural and formal languages
and ontological commitments about the world
In the context of computer science, information and communication
technologies, an ontology is reckoned to be:
a set of generic or philosophical concepts, axioms, and
relationships for domain ontologies (IEEE SUO, 2000, 2003);
a taxonomy of world terms/categories comprising definitions,
hierarchical relations, and formal axioms (Mizoguchi, 1998);
a set of definitions of classes and their relations, as well
as individuals and their properties (OWL 2004; 2006);
a catalog of the types of things (representing the
predicates, word senses, concept and relation types of some formal
language) organized by the class-subclass taxonomical relation
(Sowa, 1997; 2000);
metadata schemas with machine processable semantics
(Horrocks, 2003);
content theories about the kinds of objects, their
properties and relationships possible in a certain knowledge
field (Chandrasekaran, Josephson, and Benjamins, 1999);
the total of a taxonomy and a set of inference rules or a
document (or file) formally defining the relations among terms
(Berners-Lee, Hendler and Lassila, 2001)"
Try and choose the best one.
And therein lies the problem: why do we have to choose the best one
devoid of context?
"Horses for courses" as they say back in the UK.
There is no universal best one :-)
Kingsley
Azamat
----- Original Message ----- From: "John F. Sowa"
<sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "AzamatAbdoullaev" <abdoul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2011 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Terminologies and Ontologies
On 5/3/2011 5:58 AM, AzamatAbdoullaev
wrote:
I. "Ontology is a general theory about
the world, its domain, entities
and relationships."
II. "An ontology is a general theory
about some aspect of the world, its
subdomains, entities and relationships."
III. "A formal ontology is a formal
theory of some aspect of world, its
subdomains, entities and relationships."
My recommendation for anyone who is trying to define anything is
to check a good dictionary for an independent opinion.
Following is the definition from the closest dictionary at hand,
_Merriam-Webster Ninth Collegiate_:
1. a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and
relations
of being.
2. a particular theory about the nature of being or the kinds
of existents.
I don't know who wrote those two definitions, but they're as
good as
any and much better than most. The editors of the best
dictionaries usually have associate editors for various fields.
The person who
wrote (or reviewed rand revised) that definition was probably a
philosopher who was knowledgeable about the field.
In English, the word 'ontology' without a preceding article
refers
to the branch of philosophy. With an article or other
determiner,
such as "an ontology", "Aristotle's ontology", or "Kant's
ontology",
it refers to a specific theory.
My suggestion is to adopt the distinction from M-W. In the
discussions
in this forum, we're usually talking about specific theories.
That
means all of them are variations of M-W definition #2.
I also recommend an adjective, such as 'general' if it has a
broad
scope. If it has a more narrow scope, I would add a qualifier,
such as 'medical', or a name, such as 'XYZ Corporation'.
Another adjective would be 'formal' if the definitions are
stated
in some version of logic or mathematics. By combining the
adjectives,
you could talk about a formal general ontology or an informal
medical
ontology.
If you leave out the adjective 'formal' or 'informal', it avoids
making a commitment about whether the terms are stated in some
version of logic. The default assumption is that they're not,
but it leaves open the option of a future revision and extension
that defines some or all of the terms in some version of logic.
John
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Regards,
Kingsley Idehen
President & CEO
OpenLink Software
Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
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