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Re: [ontology-summit] Ontology Framework Draft Statement for theOntology

To: "Ontology Summit 2007 Forum" <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Uschold, Michael F" <michael.f.uschold@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:57:59 -0700
Message-id: <4301AFA5A72736428DA388B73676A38103577981@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tom and John:    (01)

IMHO, there is more agreement than meets the eye between Tom and John
Sowa.
I disagree with some of John's words, but when I look behind them to see
what I think he means, I often agree.  In my experience, John will often
backpeddle and realize that he himself did not quite mean it as
oringally worded.    (02)

To me, John sums it up pretty well by saying:    (03)

>     There are two important senses of the word 'ontology':
>     ontology as a general field that studies what exists,
>     and a particular ontology that is the result or product
>     of such a study.    (04)

I think that Tom and most of the rest of us could agree there there is a
lot of core truth in this - an there also some details that one can
quibble about (like whether this difference should give rise to two
distinct word senses)    (05)

I came up with this same conclusion myself, as per the slides I just
sent along.
--    (06)

TG> To 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.    (07)

JS> No.  If they both have a good background in logic, they would be in
complete agreement about the definition of ontology and its application
to bioinfomatics.    (08)

John this may be correct, but misses the point. An IT ontology is an
engineered artificat for a specific purpose, often to play a role in a
software application. As such, the ontology engineer will have very
different needs than a philosopher, and they will and they SHOULD come
up with ontologies that have important differences (as well as many core
similarities).  This is what Tom is emphasizing, and I agree.    (09)

It is also true, as Chris Welty points out that the artifacts being
created by philosophers and computer scientists are coming together
more.
--    (010)

TG> There is a new word sense for ontology...    (011)

JS> No.  In both philosophy and computer science, there are two ways of
using the word 'ontology'.  I suggest the following two definitions,
which apply equally well to both fields:    (012)

JS> Ontology:  The analysis and classification of what exists.    (013)

This is quibbling about whether an agreed difference in meaning should
give rise to two word senses.  I think should, John does not. Cool.  But
we all agree on the fact that the output of a study is different than
the process of performing the study itself.  That is more important.    (014)


Mike    (015)


==========================
Michael Uschold
M&CT, Phantom Works 
425 373-2845
michael.f.uschold@xxxxxxxxxx  
==========================    (016)

----------------------------------------------------
COOL TIP: to skip the phone menu tree and get a human on the phone, go
to: http://gethuman.com/tips.html     (017)



-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Gruber [mailto:onto@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 12:49 AM
To: 'Ontology Summit 2007 Forum'
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Ontology Framework Draft Statement for
theOntology Summit    (018)

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    (019)

The draft document is written as a logical walk down a set of
distinctions, so that we could discuss the source of disagreements and
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 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.      (020)

There is a new word sense for ontology, just as there are new word
senses for other technical terms in computer science: process, client,
server, etc.
While my training in philosophy is surely inferior, I would dare say
(with no loss of irony) that John's argument makes an ontological
category error.
The Ontologies of philosophy are theories, ideas, ways of thinking about
the world, and arguments about the nature of Reality.  The ontologies
that are the subject of W3C standards, manipulated by software, and used
to represent huge stores of data in databases are material, concrete,
objective documents in the same category as programs, database schemata,
and other digitally stored representations.    (021)

Another irony is the rhetoric that we should put the "15 year old"
definition in our literature "to rest" and replace examples of computer
based ontologies that we have been collecting for our summit with
examples from Aristotle and Kant.    (022)

There is a reason why a lot of people have stopped reading this list. It
is because of this style of long-winded argument by attrition.     (023)

Next week we are going to meet to do something constructive: get a clear
understanding of how the family of computer-based representations that
we work with every day -- from formal ontologies to concept hierarchies
to topic maps to taxonomies to folksonomies and a lot of interesting
other cases -- are alike and differ.  If we are successful, we will have
come up with a framework and way of talking about ontologies that will
allow normal people to stop glazing over when they hear the term.  We
have no need or ambition to come up with a definition of ontology that
is "acceptable to both fields" (philosophy and computer science).  It
would be a great achievement to get an understanding, if not a
consensus, of our own.    (024)

tom gruber    (025)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:ontology-summit- bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John 
> F. Sowa
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 10:35 PM
> To: Ontology Summit 2007 Forum
> Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Ontology Framework Draft Statement for 
> the Ontology Summit
> 
> Leo,
> 
> I agree with Chris W:
> 
>  > Surely after 15 years we can do better than "specification of  > a 
> conceptualization"?  Isn't it time we put that one to rest?
> 
> A lot of hard work has gone into that draft, but I have some concerns 
> about the definitions at the beginning:
> 
>   1. I don't believe that the definitions in philosophy and
>      computer science differ in any significant way.
> 
>   2. Where there are differences, they are differences in
>      emphasis or goals.
> 
>   3. If possible, we should adopt a common definition that
>      is acceptable to both fields, and include a few comments
>      about the way that differences in goals and emphasis may
>      cause differences in usage.
> 
> I'll start with the first point:
> 
>  > There are at least two important word senses for 'ontology':
>  > ontology as a field of study "ontology (philosophy)" and  > 
> ontology as a technology for computer and information  > scientists. 
> We are talking about the second sense of the  > word, "ontology 
> (computer science)".
> 
> Suggestion:  I would delete the two qualifiers "(philosophy)"
> and "(computer science)".   Then replace that statement with
> the following:
> 
>     There are two important senses of the word 'ontology':
>     ontology as a general field that studies what exists,
>     and a particular ontology that is the result or product
>     of such a study.
> 
> Then follow that with examples of such products, such as Aristotle's 
> ontology of 10 top-level categories, Kant's 12 top-level categories, 
> and various computer versions, such Cyc, SUMO, etc.
> 
> I agree with Chris that the following definition has some serious 
> problems:
> 
>  > An ontology, for computer and information sciences, is  > a 
> specification of a conceptualization...
> 
> A definition is supposed to define a poorly understood word in terms 
> of other words that are simpler, more common, or easier to understand.    (026)

> But the word 'conceptualization' is much harder to define than 
> 'ontology'.  It is also a less common term.  (Google has 14.5 million 
> hits for 'ontology', but only 4.3 million for 'conceptualization' -- 
> or 6 million if you include the spelling 'conceptualisation'.)
> 
> If we define "ontology" as "study of existence" and define "an 
> ontology" as the result of that study, those definitions depend only 
> on the three words "study", "existence", and "result", which have, 
> respectively, 492, 179, and 762 million hits on Google.  That meets 
> one criterion for a good definition:  define uncommon words in terms 
> of more common ones.
> 
> I have some quibbles about the remainder of the report, but my primary    (027)

> recommendation is to make a drastic cut in the opening section:  
> replace everything up to the heading "kinds of ontologies" with those 
> simple definitions above.
> 
> John
> 
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