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Re: [ontology-summit] Definitions from the Merriam-Webster 3rd

To: "Ontology Summit 2007 Forum" <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Uschold, Michael F" <michael.f.uschold@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 23:31:27 -0700
Message-id: <4301AFA5A72736428DA388B73676A381035779A4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
This is quite interesting, John.  These two word senses pretty much do
cover the difference between what I was calling philosopical ontology,
vs. IT/CS ontologies.    (01)

I don't particularly like tieh wording, but then if I did, someoone else
would not :-)    (02)

Mike    (03)



==========================
Michael Uschold
M&CT, Phantom Works 
425 373-2845
michael.f.uschold@xxxxxxxxxx  
==========================    (04)

----------------------------------------------------
COOL TIP: to skip the phone menu tree and get a human on the phone, go
to: http://gethuman.com/tips.html     (05)



-----Original Message-----
From: John F. Sowa [mailto:sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 6:54 PM
To: Ontology Summit 2007 Forum
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Definitions from the Merriam-Webster 3rd    (06)

I agree with Leo that this debate is endless, but I also believe that a
definition is valuable.  My suggestion is simple:    (07)

    TAKE A DEFINITION FROM A WELL-RESPECTED DICTIONARY.    (08)

I checked the Merriam-Webster Third Unabridged, copyright 1971, and the
Merriam-Webster Collegiate, copyright 1969.  Both of them were published
*before* anybody started to apply the word 'ontology' to computer
science, but their definitions are better than than anything else that
is likely to come out of all this wrangling.    (09)

My recommendation is to take definition 1a and definition 2 from the
Third Unabridged:    (010)

  1. a science or study of being; specifically, a branch of
     metaphysics relating to the nature and relations of being.    (011)

  2. a theory concerning the kinds of entities and specifically
     the kinds of abstract entities to be admitted to a language
     system.    (012)

Definition 2 covers exactly what we are doing with computer ontologies.    (013)

ISO normally uses the OED, but I don't have a copy of the OED handy. If
the group prefers the OED, I would accept that as well.    (014)

Let's just take the two definitions above (or the corresponding
definitions from the OED) and stop all this wrangling.  If we try to
change a single word, we will go on forever.    (015)

John    (016)

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