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

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 03:42:27 -0500
Message-id: <5125DDF3.5020500@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Dear Matthew, Doug, and Ed,    (01)

I agree with almost all the points you've been making.  I have no
hang ups about words, and I'll try changing the words if it helps
to show that these arguments are about empty air.    (02)

Doug F
>> This seems to me to be what John is saying.  Detailed commitments
>> are not appropriate at the top level in a hierarchy of ontologies.    (03)

MW
> I am not talking about a hierarchy of ontologies, but a single
> monolithic ontology. Independent ontologies or systems would be
> mapped to and from it, not incorporated beneath it.    (04)

Doug recognized what I was trying to say, and he realized that I
agreed with Matthew.    (05)

First, I'll state my interpretation of what Matthew is saying:
An integrating ontology (or as I have been saying, *normative*
ontology) is a single, fully specified, monolithic ontology that
is declared (or as I said, *legislated* by some authority) as the
standard for some group, such as a business or an industry.    (06)

Matthew also said that the ontologies for other independently developed
systems that interoperate with his ontology "would be mapped to and
from it, not incorporated beneath it."    (07)

I completely agree.    (08)

But I also I believe that the Cyc approach is going in the right
direction in developing a broader *descriptive* ontology that can
be used to reason with and about various specialized ontologies.    (09)

In the Cyc approach, the upper level is less detailed than the
one that Matthew developed.  But it can support Matthew's ontology
by treating it as a *microtheory* within the Cyc hierarchy of theories.    (010)

I realize that Matthew is not talking about a hierarchy of theories.
But that does not prevent other people who do have hierarchies from
mapping Matthew's monolithic ontology to and from one of the theories
(or microtheories) in their hierarchy.  That mapping would achieve
exactly the same goal that Matthew wants to achieve:  enable his
ontology to be mapped to and from a wide range of other ontologies.    (011)

EJB
> Philosophically, a notional thing does not “have existence in some domain”.
> It either “has existence” or it doesn’t.    (012)

I agree with the second sentence.  When I added the qualifier
"in some domain", I only meant that its existence happened to occur
within some particular subset of the universe.  I called that
subset "a domain" because that is a common term in logic for
that part of the universe that is being considered.    (013)

EJB
> What [John] did was to delete the key phrase that conveys the intent
> “the nature of being”, and reinterpret “have existence” by adding
> “in some domain”.    (014)

If you really want that phrase, I'd be happy to put it back in.    (015)

In the Merriam-Webster definition, that phrase was an option separated
by the word 'or'.  I deleted it because I did not expect an engineer
or a physician to be concerned about deep metaphysical distinctions.
But if you want it, you can have it.  I don't really care.    (016)

EJB
> The first point of my emails is that John’s “specialization” is
> an entirely different concept!    (017)

No. It is just a special case in the same way that 'cat' is a special
case of 'animal'.  The M-W definition had the form (A & (B or C)).
I specialized it to (A & C & D).  You can use truth tables to verify
that every situation for which the latter is true, the former is true.    (018)

EJB
> My second point is that “ontology” is not a ‘natural language expression’.    (019)

No.  That is a simple fact about language that can be verified by
looking at any dictionary that records the dates of citations.
Merriam-Webster says that the first citation in English was in 1721.    (020)

If you want to make it a term of art, then you should qualify it
with some adjective or other phrase -- e.g., 'formal ontology' --
and define the term in some glossary for the appropriate field.    (021)

EJB
> It seems to me that John is trying to invent 4 or 5 “terms of art”,    (022)

Yes.  I was trying to suggest four terms that we could use to clarify
the various ways people have been using the word 'ontology'.  But I
have no proprietary claims on those terms.  I'd be happy to consider
other alternatives that make appropriate distinctions.    (023)

EJB
> My third point is this: “Knowledge engineering” is a relatively
> well-defined branch of software engineering that produces “logic programs”
> and “rulesets” and “ontologies” and perhaps other kinds of artifacts
> “Knowledge engineering” is the discipline this forum seeks to advance.    (024)

I agree with the last sentence.  I'll avoid getting into any debates
about whether or not the KE field is "relatively well defined".    (025)

EJB
> I regard John’s choosing to extend the term “ontology” to a meaningless
> buzzword as a negative contribution to the community itself, and as a
> threat to the external perception of the knowledge engineering community...    (026)

Simon Spero quoted the definition I stated in an email note from 1992.
In it, I said "An ontology is a theory of existence."    (027)

That definition is more general than the M-W definition, which includes
the same phrase "a theory of existence" but adds more qualifiers.  I'm
happy to go with the M-W definition or my old 1992 definition.    (028)

I still believe that it is useful to add adjectives and qualifying
phrases when appropriate.  But I'll withdraw my previous suggestion
to avoid these pointless arguments.    (029)

John    (030)

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