Sounds a good place to start for me. (01)
Regards (02)
Matthew West
Reference Data Architecture and Standards Manager
Shell International Petroleum Company Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom (03)
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Mobile: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.shell.com
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/ (04)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Michael
> Gruninger
> Sent: 07 March 2007 19:07
> To: Ontology Summit 2007 Forum
> Subject: [ontology-summit] renewed attempt at "ontology" definition
>
>
> In an attempt to be constructive, here are some thoughts to hopefully
> refocus the discussion in preparation for the ontology summit ...
>
> We want a definition of ontology that can address the
> following questions:
> - how is Alice's ontology related to Bob's ontology? For
> example, can they
> be used together or is there some conflict between them?
> - can Alice reuse (and possibly extend) Bob's ontology for her domain?
>
> Proposed working definition:
> An ontology includes a vocabulary together with a specification of the
> meanings of the terms in the vocabulary. Furthermore, this
> specification
> is definable in a language with a model theory and a
> machine-interpretable
> syntax.
>
> Notes:
> 1. Model theory defines notions of truth assignment, entailment,
> satisfiability, validity
>
> 2. If we consider the specification of meaning to consist of a set of
> sentences
> in a formal language, then there is the unresolved problem of
> distinguishing
> an ontology from an arbitrary set of sentences in the language.
>
> 3. This definition does not require that the ontology be
> specified in a
> formal
> language. Ontologies specified as taxonomies, Topic Maps, or similar
> approaches
> are included so long as the concepts are definable in a
> formal language.
> For example, taxonomies are definable in monadic FOL, Topic Maps are
> definable in Common Logic (or even RDF?), and Leo has
> suggested similar
> ideas for thesauri.
>
> 4. This definition does not require that all specifications of all
> ontologies be
> written in the same language. All we need is
> - a formal characterization of relative expressiveness for
> logical languages
> - a characterization of the minimally expressive logical language
> required to
> define the concepts in a specification that is not in a
> logical language.
>
> Again, we are looking for a definition of "ontology" that can
> support the
> sharing and reuse of ontologies.
>
> 5. If an ontology is specified in two different languages
> with different
> expressiveness,
> then the relationships between the two languages should be
> sufficient to
> show
> that the two specifications are logically equivalent. If the
> specifications are in fact
> not logically equivalent, it would perhaps be more accurate
> to say that
> they
> correspond to two different (though related) ontologies.
>
> - michael
>
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