| Hey Leo...
Your note hits precisely at the issue that I think plagues concept talk.
(1) If concepts are private to bearers, then why pretend to talk about "shared semantics", "shared meanings" and so on, as is common in the literature on ontology in computer science? For this to work, there would have to be something (anything!) by virtue of which such concepts could be shared. There are, as you know, theories about how that may come about (I'm thinking of Carnap's private language argument), but nobody's talking about that in computer science ontology.
(2) If concepts are not private, then there must be some nexus that supports the non-private component of them that is shared. Generally, we of a realist bent take that to be *reality*. Barry's comment concerning the bio-ontologist who thinks of their computational bio-ontology representing not concepts, but biological reality, comes to mind. If we still want concepts (say to talk about someone's personal concepts) some form of conceptual realism can be employed to relate the two.
In either case, I don't think any useful work is done whatsoever by calling the things denoted by linguistic terms in *computational* ontologies "concepts" with no further comment. We humans (at least those of us who are not concept theorists) seem to resort to to the use of the term "concept" for the same reason that we call something we can't remember the name of a "thingy" or "whatchamacallit" - in this form it's a kind of forgivable intellectual laziness. That, or we're *really* talking about concepts in which case we have lots of work to do. Rather, wouldn't it be better - especially if one doesn't care about (philosophically-motivated) ontology - simply to use the more neutral terms of "property", "relation", and "object" that can be taken to correspond to the denotation of relation- (unary and greater-than-unary) and constant-terms in mathematical logic. Nicola Guarino, and later with Chris Welty, went this direction. This relates to Welty's comment of yesterday about there being nothing new in computer science ontology -- it's almost as if computer scientists engaged in the "semantic technology" field are afraid to use terms that might make their enterprise seem less sexy and "semantic", so they stick with "concept"
On Apr 20, 2007, at 21:27 , Obrst, Leo J. wrote: [Opinion on] Everything is a concept: entities, relations among them, properties, attributes, even many instances/individuals (days of the week; Joe Montana; etc.) Especially when you think of concept in animal mental apparatus as a placeholder for something real in the real world (I am a realist). Sure, I have a concept for 'Joe Montana'. Is that concept a general notion, i.e., a class of something? No. The general problem (from my perspective) is that we are typically always addressing two perspectives: 1) ontology, i.e., what exists in the world? and 2) semantics, i.e., what is the relationship between our ways of talking/thinking and those things in the world? To me it's clear that we are talking about (1) things of the world, but our language (and our thought, I would say) interposes another layer or two. I would say there are minimally 3 things: 1) our language (terms and compositions of terms), 2) the senses of terms (and their compositions) which we might characterize as concepts, and 3) real world referents that those senses or concepts somehow point to. In formal semantics, a good theory of reference (i.e., (3)) is hard to come by. [Opinion off] _____________________________________________
Dr. Leo Obrst The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics
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me-thinks this is a leftover from DL-speak in which 'concept' refers to the classes, not the relationships.
I prefer the broader use of 'concept' whereby one speaks of the concept of having a brother, or of being a mentor (which of course are relationships). Good to raise this ambiguity. Mike ==========================
Michael Uschold
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Correction. Second sentence should read:
Are relations not "conceptual" in the way that "concepts" are?
Sorry 'bout that. On Apr 20, 2007, at 20:57 , Bill Andersen wrote: Pat,
How come "relations" are a separate category from "concepts"? Are relations not "conceptual" in the way that "conceptual" are? If it is the case that 'concept' is just parlor speak for those things that we typically represent with nodes in a taxonomy or unary predicates in a logic, and if 'relation' is used to talk about those things that are not "concepts" (i.e. the things we like to represent with predicate terms of arity greater than one), then the distinction seems artificial. Should there not be just "concepts" divided into the 1-, 2- ... n-ary cases?
.bill On Apr 20, 2007, at 19:12 , Cassidy, Patrick J. wrote: In discussions I use: "A representation of the structure of concepts and the relations between them, in a form that a computer can reason with."
Pat
Patrick Cassidy CNTR-MITRE 260 Industrial Way West Eatontown NJ 07724 Eatontown: 732-578-6340 Cell: 908-565-4053
-----Original Message----- Of Peter F Brown Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 7:08 PM To: Ontology Summit 2007 Forum Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Ontology Framework Draft StatementfortheOntology Summit
Too many too's... ;-)
But seriously, are we looking for a Gartner Group-style 4 word mission statement to make it sound good, or do we want a formulation that actually does mean something and that we can agree on? Brevity does not always equate with clarity: if I have to choose to sacrifice one, it would be brevity.
Peter
-----Original Message----- Deborah MacPherson Sent: 20 April 2007 16:02 To: Ontology Summit 2007 Forum Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Ontology Framework Draft Statement fortheOntology Summit
"a formal description of terms that represent concepts and relationships in as chosen subject matter of interest"
is too long, too much of a mouthful of too many words.
Debbie
Its almost good enough... But an ontology is more than just about terms.
How about:
"a formal description of terms that represent concepts and relationships in as chosen subject matter of interest"
Mike
========================== Michael Uschold M&CT, Phantom Works 425 373-2845 ==========================
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-----Original Message----- Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 3:08 PM To: Ontology Summit 2007 Forum Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Ontology Framework Draft Statement for theOntology Summit
I agree: we've worked with the definition "a formal descriptions of terms and the relationships between them" [1] as being good enough to know what we talking about when we're talking about what we're talking about...and "good enough" should be good enough.
Peter
[1] From 'OASIS Reference Model for Service-Oriented Architecture', p17, see
-----Original Message----- Chris Welty Sent: 19 April 2007 20:23 To: Ontology Summit 2007 Forum Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Ontology Framework Draft Statement for the Ontology Summit
Surely after 15 years we can do better than "specification of a conceptualization"? Isn't it time we put that one to rest?
-Chris
Obrst, Leo J. wrote: All,
Here is our draft statement about the Ontology Framework. We invite you to consider and discuss this -- now and in next week's sessions. We intend this to be an inclusive characterization of what an ontology
is. Inclusive: meaning that we invite you to consider where you and your community is with respect to these dimensions. If you have concerns or issues, restatements or elaborations, please let us know now and next week. This will shortly be posted on the Framework Wiki page:
meworksFor Consideration.
Thanks much,
Tom Gruber, Michael Gruninger, Pat Hayes, Deborah McGuinness, Leo Obrst
_____________________________________________ Dr. Leo Obrst The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics Voice: 703-983-6770 7515 Colshire Drive, M/S H305 Fax: 703-983-1379 McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA
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