Re: [ontolog-forum] Human knowledge domains ontology

[William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>]

John, what you say below is an amplification of what I said, but I would say it even more strongly

By the very nature of the pursuit of knowledge, 

"There are no classifications of knowledge domains that are sufficiently

precise that the definitions could be specified in logic and be used
in formal reasoning." 

Not only music and art, but as you suggest, 'precise' things like mathematics. During his lifetime, Boole's work on logic was ignored because logic was not part of mathematics. 

But, I have to disagree that the organization of domains of human endeavor is the work of lexicographers.   A lexicographic definition of 'geography' where it would stand alongside 'father[, 'big', and 'anthropomorphic', is not as useful for Sergy as a classification scheme for organizing geography as a field of knowledge alongside geology, ecology, physical anthropology, planetology, geopolitics, etc, which is what would be found in library science and encyclopediads.

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 3:54 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 2/10/2013 3:19 PM, Сергей Мещерин wrote:
> I'm developing ontology for RFBR classifier and want to connect it to
> some well-known upper ontology that lists human knowledge domains.

Many so-called ontologies should more properly be called terminologies.

  There are no classifications of knowledge domains that are sufficiently
precise that the definitions could be specified in logic and be used
in formal reasoning. The primary reason is that knowledge about any
field is open ended.  Every innovation in any domain changes that
domain -- just look at textbooks published in 1900, 1950, and 2000.

Even words like 'mathematics' and 'physics' cannot be defined formally.
Trying to specify a formal definition of 'music' would be hopeless.
Check the quotations by Louis Armstrong.

Summary:  A terminology of human knowledge domains might produced
by an expert lexicographer.  But something called an ontology of
human knowledge domains is almost certainly the work of somebody
who knows nothing about ontology.

John

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-- 
William Frank

413/376-8167


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