Re: [ontolog-forum] understanding user difficulties with Description Log

[William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>]

+3

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 5:00 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Paul,

The problem isn't with description logics.  The primary problem
is the terminology and notation.  That handout is an outstanding
advertisement for using controlled English (or other NL):

http://people.kmi.open.ac.uk/warren/kmi-data/uploads/2015/03/handout_v3.pdf

Why not teach people the same terminology that they learned (and
probably forgot) in *grammar* school?  For the great majority
of OWL ontologies, they wouldn't have to go beyond Aristotle's
four sentence patterns.  For a brief summary, see slide 14 of
http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/aristo.pdf

For "X DisjointWith Y" say "No X is a Y."

For "X SubClassOf Y" say "Every X is a Y."

For "X EquivalentTo Y" say "Define X as Y."

That following jargon stinks to high heaven: "For example, we can
write X SubClassOf has_child some PERSON to indicate that everyone
in the class X has one or more children."

Just tell students to write "Every X has one or more children."

Instead of "X SubClassOf has_child some FEMALE to indicate that
all members of X have a daughter",

just tell them to write
     "Define daughter as female child."
     "Every X has a daughter."

Following is a book that Sister Miriam Joseph wrote for teaching
ontology and description logics (in Aristotelian notation) to
*freshman* English majors:

Rauh, Sister Miriam Joseph (1937) The Trivium: The Liberal Arts
of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric, Third edition 1948, reprinted
by Paul Dry Books, 2002.

Sister Miriam's former students loved her course so much that they had
the book reprinted.  Following are the Amazon ratings for this book:

> Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,713 in Books
>    #7 in Books > Textbooks > Education > Educational Philosophy
>    #30 in Books > Education & Teaching > Schools & Teaching >
>                 Education Theory > Philosophy & Social Aspects
>    #43 in Books > Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Rhetoric

Remember that Sister Miriam taught English majors.  What luck has
anyone had in teaching any freshmen of any major to use OWL?  What
Amazon rank do their books have?

John


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