= Ontology Terminology Subcommittee= (as commonly decided on Sept. 11, 2012)    (3GYT)

CONTENT MIGRATED!! http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?IaoaOntologyTerminology Please edit the new wiki page.    (3F8Z)

Lexicon for Applied Ontology    (3DW0)

This page is used to organize the IAOA effort to create a lexicon of terms most relevant to applied ontology.    (3E1W)

Participants    (3E1X)

Todd Schneider suggested this project and provided a initial list of terms. This page is intended to collect a list of terms.    (3ELE)

Background    (3ELF)

During this year's IAOA Summer School (2012) the lectures provided a wealth of information about different aspects of ontology. It was clear that each area had an impact or was used by other areas in this interdisciplinary field. Two issues were not completely addressed during these lectures. The first was how the particular area being lectured about impacted or was used by the other areas addressed during the lectures. The second was a clear identification of how various terms were being used and how those uses differed (or not) in the other areas.    (3ELG)

Another aspect of this ambiguity is the need to ease the understanding and acceptance of ontology its paradigms and uses. In trying to explain this interdisciplinary field, or for newcomers, the lack of clear (or at least less ambiguous) 'meanings' of core terms in a discipline that claims to be able to overcome such short comings in other fields is problematic (if not embarrassing). I understand that there exist differences of opinion surrounding some terms or their uses. But ontology is supposed [help] make such things explicit.    (3ELX)

The following diagram was created to provide a simple view of the areas addressed (during the lectures) and their (perceived) relations and also to provide a focus on those areas whose terms need clarification. This was a joint undertaking (prior to dinner on Thursday evening of the summer school).    (3ELH)

http://iaoa.cim3.net/file/work/project/Lexicon/AppliedOntology_Consistuents_17Aug2012.png    (3ELI)

Core Terms    (3ELJ)

Please feel free to add to this list (of core terms) and to provide definitions and explanations of these terms. If a term is used in more than one sense or in one or more of the areas listed in the above diagram, please clearly label the sense or area of use and use different bullets to distinguish the different meanings and context of use. E.g.,    (3DW1)

(Depending on the size of the entry it might be best to create a new wiki page for the term.)    (3DW4)

* Category    (3ELK)

  1. A framework for logics[1] standardized in ISO/IEC 24707.    (3DWT)

* Class    (3DW7)

  1. ""class" has a clear meaning in the context of XML; but its meaning is clearly defined in the context of the BFO and OBO Foundry. I don't think we'd want to tell people to only use "class" in one of those two ways, but we could explain the difference across contexts." (Adam)    (3E6W)
  2. A CLASS is a collection of all and only the particulars to which a given general term applies. Where the general term in question refers to a universal, then the corresponding class, called the EXTENSION of the universal (at a given time), comprehends all and only those particulars which as a matter of fact instantiate the corresponding universal (at that time). The totality of classes is wider than the totality of extensions of universals since it includes also DEFINED CLASSES, designated by terms like ‘employee of Swedish bank’, ‘daughter of Finnish spy’ (Barry Smith, Waclaw Kusnierczyk, Daniel Schober, Werner Ceusters).    (3EM5)

* Concept    (3DW6)

* Continuant    (3EM8)

* Disposition    (3DW8)

  1. the term is often used more broadly in the philosophical literature, covering virtually all "realizable entities" (Luc(    (3E69)
    1. see entry in BFO (Luc)    (3E6A)

* Continuant    (3EM9)

* Essence    (3DW9)

* Exemplification    (3DWA)

* Instantiation    (3DWB)

* Kind    (3DWC)

* Logic    (3DWD)

  1. The combination of a formal language with a formal theory of truth or a proof theory (or both).    (3DWZ)
  2. The study of arguments, in particular whether arguments are valid or not.    (3DX0)

* Mass    (3DWE)

* Member (suggested by Johanna)    (3E6X)

* Metaphysics    (3DWQ)

* Necessity    (3DWF)

* Occurrent    (3EMA)

* Ontology    (3DWR)

  1. An ONTOLOGY is a representational artifact, comprising a taxonomy as proper part, whose representational units are intended to designate some combination of universals, defined classes, and certain relations between them (Barry Smith, Waclaw Kusnierczyk, Daniel Schober, Werner Ceusters).    (3EM1)

* Particular    (3EM6)

* Perdurant    (3EMB)

* Predicate    (3DWG)

* Property    (3DWH)

* Quality    (3DWI)

  1. A kind of sensory quality as used in DOLCE is "Quale" (Luc)    (3E6B)
  2. Relation    (3DWJ)

* Role    (3DWK)

* Semantics    (3DX1)

  1. Meaningless buzz word that can be safely ignored.    (3DX2)
  2. (logic) The semantics of a logic[1] is its formal theory of truth.    (3DX3)
  3. (semiotics) The relationship between a sign of a language to reality; in contrast to its relationship to other signs (syntax) and to the use of the sign (pragmatics).    (3DX6)

* Sortal    (3DWL)

* Trope    (3DWM)

* Type    (3DWN)

  1. "type" for the same reason that the term "set". A type in ontology modeling is a mathematical notion typically expressed at the meta-level (language). With this meaning, it should not be a term for ontological modeling.    (3E6C)
    1. (different definition of "type" at the concept level. (entry specification suggested from Richard D.)    (3E6D)

* Universal    (3EM7)

Member Comments    (3ELZ)

Brief summary of the IAOA members' comments posted between Monday 13 and August 15 August, 2012 (members's names mentioned with no reference to titles, surnames introduced only to disambiguate - happy to make revisions in case of compliances)    (3E6E)

MIND/Concept MAP    (3E6Y)

SUGGESTED REFERENCE WORKS :    (3E6R)

HOW TO PROCEED    (3E7D)

Suggestions:    (3E7E)

  1. Begin with a compilation of all freely available glossaries
     and lexicons of terms used in theoretical and applied ontology.    (3E7F)
  2. The terms should be sorted in alphabetical order.  The entry
     for each term should contain all the definitions from all the
     sources together with any new definitions that any board members
     propose.  Each definition should be annotated with the initials
     of the original source or the board member who proposed it.    (3E7G)
  3. Somebody should set up a site (such as a Google docs project)
     to which all IAOA board members would be entitled to make
     additions, revisions, and comments.  The first stage should
     emphasize additions before we make extensive revisions.    (3E7H)
  4. When we reach a consensus that the glossary is sufficiently
     complete, reliable, and presentable, it should be exported
     to a publicly available site.    (3E7I)
  5. The editing site should be maintained indefinitely for any
     further additions, corrections, or revisions.  Periodically,
     the latest consensus should be exported to the public site.    (3E7J)

(John Sowa)    (3E7K)

"I suppose one needs as many definitions as necessary to accommodate everyone's concept (!) behind the terms. Giving real (not made-up) example sentences is always a good idea. One can sort these contexts into groups where each group of examples uses the word with the same meaning and differently from the usages in other groups." (Christiane Fellbaum)    (3E7X)

JOINT WORK    (3E7L)

 "My main motivation for suggesting a subcommittee of the Education Committee is that is one way to make fit the effort into the IAOA structure and make it an official IAOA effort. The purpose of the subcommittee would be to provide a forum for a group of people who are committed to contribute to the lexicon." (Fabian)    (3E7M)

"There needs to be Lead Editor (or similar title) who will focus the efforts of producing a product applicable to the larger community of applied ontology and accounting for the sub-domains which constitute this interdisciplinary field." (Todd)    (3E7N)

+++ ON 'METAPHYSICS' AND 'ONTOLOGY' IN PHILOSOPHY / a 'side issue' (Luc) +++:    (3E7O)

"[...]    (3E7P)

 I also think it would be helpful if we philosophers were to try and minimize the difficulties for non-philosophers by sticking as much as possible to the term 'ontology' when we speak about ontology.  This should ease communication amongst ontologists in IT and ontologists in philosophy, since that communication is, after all, about ontology, not about metaphysics.  (We philosophers might then use our training to try to argue for the metaphysical preferability of the ontology we propose, but these efforts belong into philosophy)." (Johanna)    (3E7Q)

"This in itself is an important bias: that applied (or even "pure") formal ontology is going to be based on, or draw primarily from, a    (3E7R)

 metaphysical view." (Adam)    (3E7S)

"Certainly. However, this will be the case if you use foundational ontologies or the OntoClean methodology in order to build the respective applied ontologies.    (3E7T)

Some people try to do without foundational ontologies or ontology-based methodologies such as OntoClean. But in some sense you will always have to use abstract modeling primitives like "object" or "process", whether implicitly or explicity. If so, you will do formal ontology, knowingly or unknowingly.    (3E7U)

So, yes, it's a bias - but one that is difficult to avoid." (Luc)    (3E7V)

FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS    (3E76)

CONSTRAINS / SCEPTICISM    (3E8B)

Maybe we should face from the beginning on the natural scepticism that could arise from attempt to create a lexicon of applied ontology, very much justified by the objective difficulty to mark clear boundaries in and across the entries' definitions.    (3E85)

In our joint effort, we should keep in mind that: "Lexicon is"    (3E86)