Re Chris Weltys remark: (01)
... But I was wrong; ontology is very, very, old. The only thing we
(computer scientists) have added are ways to implement, test, and run
them.
-- (02)
This is mostly true, but understates an important difference. Many of
the ontologies that are being built today are profoundly boring and of
no interest whatever to philosophers. So it is not true that we HAVE
found ways to implement, test and run them, that is not the ONLY thing
we have done. Because the purpose we are putting ontologies to, we are
creating useful artifacts that are of no interest to most philosophers.
They are engineered artifacts (or should be) to suit a purpose. (03)
One might make a good argument that I would agree with that computer
scientist would be better off if they DID build 'better' ontologies that
some philosophers might be interested in, but only because the resulting
engineered artifacts better suited the purpose, not BECAUSE an
philosopher might be interested. (04)
Michael (05)
==========================
Michael Uschold
M&CT, Phantom Works
425 373-2845
michael.f.uschold@xxxxxxxxxx
========================== (06)
----------------------------------------------------
COOL TIP: to skip the phone menu tree and get a human on the phone, go
to: http://gethuman.com/tips.html (07)
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Welty [mailto:cawelty@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 6:37 AM
To: Ontology Summit 2007 Forum
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Ontology Framework Draft Statement for
theOntology Summit (08)
Tom Gruber wrote:
> John Sowa wrote:
>> 1. I don't believe that the definitions in philosophy and
>> computer science differ in any significant way.
>> 3. If possible, we should adopt a common definition that
>> is acceptable to both fields
>
> The draft document is written as a logical walk down a set of
> distinctions, so that we could discuss the source of disagreements and (09)
> clearly identify the point of departure. John's objections to the
> first and most fundamental distinction (philosophy vs. computer
> science word senses) makes evident the reason why certain topics are
> never "put to rest" by philosophers and other dialectic sportsmen. To (010)
> say there is no difference between what a professor of Aristotelian
> ontology means by ontology and what a bioinformatics computer
scientist managing a gene database means is absurd. (011)
Wow. I find the absurdity the other way around - and I have studied
both. No matter what you study you will have armchair theoreticians and
hands-on practitioners. Sounds to me like that is the distinction you
are alluding to here. All ontology, whether practiced by "philosophers"
or "computer scientists" is grounded in the same things. (012)
The biggest problem here is precisely this position of arrogance
stemming from a belief that computer scientists have invented something
new. I thought so, too, when I started doing this two decades ago as a
computer scientist. But I was wrong; ontology is very, very, old. The
only thing we (computer scientists) have added are ways to implement,
test, and run them. (013)
-Chris (014)
--
Dr. Christopher A. Welty IBM Watson Research Center
+1.914.784.7055 19 Skyline Dr.
cawelty@xxxxxxxxx Hawthorne, NY 10532
http://www.research.ibm.com/people/w/welty (015)
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