Re: SUO: *Date 19 Mar 2002 -- Modus Ponens
Jean-Luc Delatre wrote:
> ...
> Some of the "assumptions" that, to me, seem questionable and shared
> by most people involved in ontology projects (alas, not only SUO!) are:
>
> 1) There exist ultimately a *perfect* all encompassing ontology that allows
> describing everything, and we have to chase for it however distant it be.
I certainly agree that that would be a dubious assumption, but it seems to
me that the prevailing view among participants on this project is that (a)
there is no all-encompassing ontology, maximally expressive ontology and
that (b) there there could be multiple ontologies -- even "upper level"
ontologies -- that reflect different ways of conceptualizing the world.
Exactly what evidence do you have that anyone involved in this project
actually accepts the above assumption?
> 2) There *must* be for each concept a *true* denomination ...
Now that is completely bizarre. There are a number of legitimate concerns
about the SUO project that can be, and indeed have been, raised, but that
is surely not one of them. No one involved in this project (or any
ontology project that I know of) thinks that the names of classes,
properties, relations, etc are anything but conventional. Any push for
one name rather than another is motivated only by pragmatic concerns, such
as the avoidance of names with natural language connotations that might
hinder a user's understanding of the ontology.
> and everybody have to agree to use it.
Well, what would you suggest to people who want to use the concepts in a
given ontology? That they choose their own terms for those concepts and
then write programs that translate the axioms of the ontology into
identical axioms that simply use their own lingo? How stupid would that
be?
If you've got credible objections to the SUO that you can document, I'm
sure the SUO participants will be happy to debate them. These objections
are not remotely credible.
-chris