[SCL] Re: read "ontology", think "ontological theory", eop

[Jon Awbrey]

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collogues, here's what i do, everytime i read "ontology"
these newtangled days, i think "logos about ontos", that
is to interpret, "ontological theory", that is to gloss,
"arbitrary set of sentences ostensibly about being", and
so ends the problem in my own mind.  try it, yule like it.

on a related note, i note that some of my best friends are
members of the general public, and i find them rather more
accustomed to the idea that they must accommodate the ways
of many different technical communities than are not a few
members of technical communities who listen solely to one.
what they require of each technical community is that it
do what a technical community ought to do best, and that
is to give technical definitions of its technical terms
and usages.  fair enough, i should think.

ja

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John F. Sowa wrote:
> 
> Pat,
> 
> Since you prefer the usage in semantic web circles,
> I will quote the definition from the "OWL Web
> Ontology Language Overview" of 15 Dec 2003:
> 
>     OWL can be used to explicitly represent the meaning of terms
>     in vocabularies and the relationships between those terms.
>     This representation of terms and their interrelationships
>      is called an ontology.
> 
> This definition has two implications for our discussion:
> 
>   1. OWL "can" be used to represent the meaning
>      of terms -- in other words, there are also
>      other applications for OWL.
> 
>   2. Only those applications of OWL that represent
>      the meanings of terms and their relationships
>      are called ontologies.
> 
> Point #2 is the primary purpose of the KL-ONE T-box
> as opposed to the A-box.  But theories are more general,
> since they can state A-box assertions in addition to
> T-box terminologies.  Examples:  rules, constraints,
> specifications, databases, knowledge bases, etc.
> 
> To get a second opinion for the field of KR,
> I typed the following to Google:
> 
>     ontology "knowledge representation"
> 
> And the first hit was
> 
>     http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~stevens/onto/
> 
> The text (copy below) defines the word in more detail,
> but still with the underlying idea that an ontology
> defines terms, as in the T-box, not assertions,
> as in the A-box.
> 
> I completely agree with your statement:
> 
>  > And frankly, I think it is foolish to not be willing
>  > to adapt to what is obviously the current term of
>  > choice used throughout the rest of the world, even
>  > to the point now where it is being used in journal
>  > and conference titles without comment or explanation,
>  > simply in order to identify a subdiscipline of
>  > computer science.
> 
> So I typed both words "ontology" and "theory" into Google:
> 
>     "ontology" -- 1,140,000 hits
> 
>     "theory" -- 25,800,000 hits
> 
> Clearly, the word "theory" is the current term of choice
> used throughout the rest of the world, even to the point
> now where it is being used everywhere without comment
> or explanation.
> 
> John
> ____________________________________________________
> 
> What is an Ontology?
> 
> Ontology is the study or concern about what kinds of things exist -- what
> entities or `things' there are in the universe [3].  The computer science
> view of ontology is somewhat narrower, where an ontology is the working
> model of entities and interactions either generically (e.g. the Cyc
> ontology [4]) or in some particular domain of knowledge or practice,
> such as molecular biology or bioinformatics. The following definition is
> given in [5]:
> 
> `An ontology may take a variety of forms, but necessarily it will
> include a vocabulary of terms, and some specification of their meaning.
> This includes definitions and an indication of how concepts are
> inter-related which collectively impose a structure on the domain and
> constrain the possible interpretations of terms.'
> 
> Gruber defines an ontology as `the specification of conceptualisations, used to help
> programs and humans share knowledge' [6].  The conceptualisation is the couching of
> knowledge about the world in terms of entities (things, the relationships they hold
> and the constraints between them). The specification is the representation of this
> conceptualisation in a concrete form. One step in this specification is the encoding
> of the conceptualisation in a knowledge representation language. The goal is to create
> an agreed-upon vocabulary and semantic structure for exchanging information about that
> domain.  The specification or encoding of an ontology will be explored in Section 5.
> 
> The main components of an ontology are concepts, relations, instances
> and axioms. A concept represents a set or class of entities or `things'
> within a domain. Protein is a concept within the domain of molecular
> biology. Concepts fall into two kinds:
> 
>     1. primitive concepts are those which only have necessary conditions
> (in terms of their properties) for membership of the class. For example,
> a globular protein is a kind of protein with a hydrophobic core, so all
> globular proteins must have a hydrophobic core, but there could be other
> things that have a hydrophobic core that are not globular proteins.
> 
>     2. defined concepts are those whose description is both necessary
> and sufficient for a thing to be a member of the class. For example,
> Eukaryotic cells are kinds of cells that have a nucleus. Not only does
> every eukaryotic cell have a nucleus, every nucleus containing cell is
> eukaryotic.
> 

John F. Sowa wrote:
> 
> Pat,
> 
> Since you prefer the usage in semantic web circles,
> I will quote the definition from the "OWL Web
> Ontology Language Overview" of 15 Dec 2003:
> 
>     OWL can be used to explicitly represent the meaning
>     of terms in vocabularies and the relationships between
>     those terms. This representation of terms and their
>     interrelationships is called an ontology.
> 
> This definition has two implications for our discussion:
> 
>   1. OWL "can" be used to represent the meaning
>      of terms -- in other words, there are also
>      other applications for OWL.
> 
>   2. Only those applications of OWL that represent
>      the meanings of terms and their relationships
>      are called ontologies.
> 
> Point #2 is the primary purpose of the KL-ONE T-box
> as opposed to the A-box.  But theories are more general,
> since they can state A-box assertions in addition to
> T-box terminologies.  Examples:  rules, constraints,
> specifications, databases, knowledge bases, etc.
> 
> To get a second opinion for the field of KR, I typed
> the following to Google:
> 
>     ontology "knowledge representation"
> 
> And the first hit was
> 
>     http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~stevens/onto/
> 
> The text (copy below) defines the word in more detail,
> but still with the underlying idea that an ontology
> defines terms, as in the T-box, not assertions,
> as in the A-box.
> 
> I completely agree with your statement:
> 
>  > And frankly, I think it is foolish to not be willing
>  > to adapt to what is obviously the current term of
>  > choice used throughout the rest of the world, even
>  > to the point now where it is being used in journal
>  > and conference titles without comment or explanation,
>  > simply in order to identify a subdiscipline of
>  > computer science.
> 
> So I typed both words "ontology" and "theory" into Google:
> 
>     "ontology" -- 1,140,000 hits
> 
>     "theory" -- 25,800,000 hits
> 
> Clearly, the word "theory" is the current term of choice
> used throughout the rest of the world, even to the point
> now where it is being used everywhere without comment
> or explanation.
> 
> John
> ____________________________________________________
> 
> What is an Ontology?
> 
> Ontology is the study or concern about what kinds of things exist - what
> entities or `things' there are in the universe [3]. The computer science
> view of ontology is somewhat narrower, where an ontology is the working
> model of entities and interactions either generically (e.g. the Cyc
> ontology [4]) or in some particular domain of knowledge or practice,
> such as molecular biology or bioinformatics. The following definition is
> given in [5]:
> 
> `An ontology may take a variety of forms, but necessarily it will
> include a vocabulary of terms, and some specification of their meaning.
> This includes definitions and an indication of how concepts are
> inter-related which collectively impose a structure on the domain and
> constrain the possible interpretations of terms.'
> 
> Gruber defines an ontology as `the specification of conceptualisations,
> used to help programs and humans share knowledge' [6]. The
> conceptualisation is the couching of knowledge about the world in terms
> of entities (things, the relationships they hold and the constraints
> between them). The specification is the representation of this
> conceptualisation in a concrete form. One step in this specification is
> the encoding of the conceptualisation in a knowledge representation
> language. The goal is to create an agreed-upon vocabulary and semantic
> structure for exchanging information about that domain. The
> specification or encoding of an ontology will be explored in Section 5.
> 
> The main components of an ontology are concepts, relations, instances
> and axioms. A concept represents a set or class of entities or `things'
> within a domain. Protein is a concept within the domain of molecular
> biology. Concepts fall into two kinds:
> 
>     1. primitive concepts are those which only have necessary conditions
> (in terms of their properties) for membership of the class. For example,
> a globular protein is a kind of protein with a hydrophobic core, so all
> globular proteins must have a hydrophobic core, but there could be other
> things that have a hydrophobic core that are not globular proteins.
> 
>     2. defined concepts are those whose description is both necessary
> and sufficient for a thing to be a member of the class. For example,
> Eukaryotic cells are kinds of cells that have a nucleus. Not only does
> every eukaryotic cell have a nucleus, every nucleus containing cell is
> eukaryotic.

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http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/mighty/history.html
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