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Re: [ontolog-forum] Architectural considerations in Ontology Development

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:12:55 -0500
Message-id: <51243127.9070409@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On 2/19/2013 8:30 PM, Amanda Vizedom wrote:
> It is useless to argue about a general, all-purpose definition of
> 'ontology.' That is a natural language expression, and like so many
> others, it has a variety of different meanings.    (01)

I agree.  People adapt their natural languages to any and every use
for which they find a need.  The most reasonable approach is to use
a good dictionary written by professional lexicographers as the
reference.  If you need to make finer distinctions, add whatever
adjectives or adverbs you need.    (02)

My recommendation is to use four adjectives:  formal vs informal,
and implicit vs explicit.  If you believe that the only one kind
of ontology is appropriate for computation, you can call it
an explicit formal ontology.    (03)

If you wish, you can deprecate all other uses.  But lexicographers
will document whatever choices people make.    (04)

JFS
>> In fact, Doug Lenat said that his standard practice is to give
>> all prospective hires a short exam of a few sentences in English,
>> which they have to translate to FOL.  There are no ambiguous or
>> tricky sentences, and they don't go beyond FOL.    (05)

AV
> I don't know whether Doug Lenat ever said that, but it is false.    (06)

That's what Doug told me at one point, and I just repeated it.    (07)

John    (08)

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