Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology vs KR

[Ali H <asaegyn@xxxxxxxxx>]

Rich,

The quick answer...

On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Rich Cooper <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Ed and Ali,

 

Why exactly are the “underlying philosophical commitments” so important, and just who are they important to? 

Because the explicit commitments of A and B may not have enough information / context as to the intended interpretations for the relevant symbols.

 

If agent A can communicate mission-effectively with B, why must they have mutual underlying commitments?  They simply used each other as signaling symbol systems and got functional results.  That should be enough.

No one said that the underlying commitments should agree. Simply that they are often relevant in clarifying intended interpretations.

 

 

-Rich

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Barkmeyer, Edward J
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 9:43 AM

To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology vs KR

 

Ali,

 

“I think that the connection to philosophical ontology is more than superficial, and something would be lost in reducing it to KR + schema.

Specifically, I would posit that some confusion arises because the philosophical underpinnings of the ontological assumptions that make their way into ontology artefacts and systems are glossed over or taken for granted. “

 

+1

 

As Matthew said, the ontological commitments underlying these knowledge representations are very important.

 

-Ed

 

 

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ali H
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 12:33 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology vs KR

 

Dear Steven,

 

Your concern about the conflation of the term ontology, especially as it has been co-opted and transformed in the computational sense is well appreciated. This co-option does seem to introduce significant ambiguity in discourse, though I would suggest that a clarification, not a retreat is warranted.

 

From a broad sociological vantage, what the field of computational ontology seems to consist of, is individuals and/or organizations developing computational ontologies describing a variety of domains at various levels of detail, abstraction and expressivity. 

 

The knowledge represented in these ontologies are the distillation, constrained by whatever institutional / social processes the activities of computational ontology creation allowed. That is to say, the epistemologies of the individual contributors seems to be obliquely mediated by the ontology construction processes, while the various purposes regulate which levels of detail, abstraction and expressivity are followed through and selected. 

 

To that end, while I empathize with your observation that we could simply call these endeavours "knowledge representation and schema", I think that the connection to philosophical ontology is more than superficial, and something would be lost in reducing it to KR + schema.

 

Specifically, I would posit that some confusion arises because the philosophical underpinnings of the ontological assumptions that make their way into ontology artefacts and systems are glossed over or taken for granted. At the risk of sidetracking this conversation, I'll invoke Polanyi [1][2][3][4], if only to highlight the importance that the broader context of how one arrives at an ontological claim is pertinent to what one calls an ontology artefact.

 

Applying the above thinking to computational ontology, I think we can generate ontology artefacts (not just KR + schema) by considering the broader system in which the artefacts are generated. That is to say, the epistemology, purposes and indeed the procedural systems which interpret, reason and do things with an ontology artefact are instrumental to discipline and understanding of computational ontology.

 

As noted in the response to Ed B, there is obvious merit in separating ontological analysis from other structural layers. However, virtually every ontological artefact that has been created to date, has displayed a need for belief revision, knowledge evolution or some way of updating the ontological assumptions and ontology artefact. This would seem to be significant evidence that these computational ontologies are situated in a broader dynamic / context which is not adequately captured by the ontology artefact alone.

 

Imo, this process becomes increasingly difficult, because computational ontology is interpreted too narrowly; and too often, ontological engineers create ontology artefacts that do not properly catalog or articulate their links to the underlying epistemologies, purposes and processes which encompass and give meaning to the ontology artefacts.

 

Best,

Ali

 

 

[1] Michael Polanyi, “Knowing and Being,” Mind, 70 N. S. 458-470, 1961

[2] Marjorie Grene, "The Knower and the Known" London: University of California Press Ltd, 1974.

[3] Phil Mullins  “Comprehension and the ‘Comprehensive Entity’: Polanyi’s Theory of Tacit Knowing and Its Metaphysical Implications”. Tradition and Discovery 33:3, 26-43, 2006.

[4] Tihamér Margitay. “From Epistemology to Ontology: Polanyi’s Arguments for the Layered Ontology”. In Margitay, T. ed. Knowing and Being: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Michael Polanyi. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars: 128-140, 2010.

 

 

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 7:32 PM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith <steven@xxxxxxx> wrote:

My first observation must simply be that while epistemology may indeed include a concern for the correspondence theory of "truth," ontology, in its classic sense, is entirely unconcerned with epistemology. Note that there is a necessary distinction between ontology and speaking about the world with some epistemology in mind. 

 

As far as I can tell, Brian Smith is using the term in the local sense. In other words the corrupt KR engineering form of "ontology" is a reference to some schema design .   

 

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Ali H <asaegyn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dear Steven,

 

It seems to me that any ontology is always grounded in some epistemology. Most of the discourse in this forum seems grounded in some epistemology that is taken to be true for some purpose (I can already envisage Hans Polzer's email to this effect).

 

In the context of accounting for the epistemology validity of an ontological claim (alternatively, an epistemological interpretation of an ontological claim), I must admit I'm surprised that probabilistic logic does not make much of an appearance in most ontology texts either.

 

That said, I'm curious to what degree ontologists identify with Brian C. Smith's knowledge representation hypothesis, and to what extent ontology is defined as grounding the selection (a) vs driving the application of (a) in (b).

 

Best,

Ali

 

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 6:53 PM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith <steven@xxxxxxx> wrote:

 

I often note the confusion here. In fact, much that you discuss here is epistemology and not "ontology" at all. In other words, it concerns the theory of knowledge involved. Whereas, ontology concerns the nature of existence at a profound level. I suspect the confusion comes from attempting to reason about how to speak of the world, but this will present a problem to any true ontologist since, in a profound sense, for example, much that is discussed in local "ontologies" does not "exist" in any sense. "Names and naming," for example.

 

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 3:39 PM, Ali H <asaegyn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello all,

 

I know this is a topic that has been tread over many years and many times, but I recently came across this statement from Brian C. Smith in [1]:

 

Any mechanically embodied intelligent process will be comprised of structural ingredients that a) we as external observers naturally take to represent a propositional account of the knowledge that the overall process exhibits, and b) independent of such external semantic attribution, play a formal but causal and essential role in engendering the behavior that manifests that knowledge.

 

Why is this definition never proffered when discussing "what is an ontology"?

 

It seems to me that those in the field of ontology focus on (a). 

 

Do most (formal) ontologists consider Ontology to be (a), and not (b)? If so, why not?

 

Lastly, I understand that in pantheon of AI sciences, Ontology is often suggested as a sub-discipline of KR - yet why is there such little cross over from KR to Ontology - or am I simply misinformed (c.f. FOIS vs KR or CommonSenseReasoning as part of AAAI etc) ?

 

[1] Smith, Brian C. (1985). "Prologue to Reflections and Semantics in a Procedural Language". In Ronald Brachman and Hector J. Levesque. Readings in Knowledge Representation. Morgan Kaufmann. pp. 31–40. 

 

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