Re: SUO: Multi-Source Ontology (MSO) Draft Ballot Question
Burkett, Bill wrote:
> Murray, Adam ---
>
> How can I differentiate a "philosophically-based" ontology from
> "linguistically-based" ontology? "Philosophically" and
> "linguistically" seem to refer to the academic point of view
>from which the ontology was/is developed and fails to convey the
> discriminating characteristics between the two. Would it be
> more correct to say a "formal, logic-based ontology" versus a
> "natural-language-based ontology"? I can understand and see a
> clear difference between these two things, but "philosophy-
< based ontology" leaves me scratching my head - what *is* such
> a thing?
Bill,
I think your characterization is probably more accurate. I think
of WordNet as basically a formalized thesaurus, where the relations
between words have been codified into various classes, etc. But
WordNet isn't based in FOL (unless one wants to make the argument
that everything is based in FOL, which is specious), it's just
based on lists of words that have been categorized and mapped via
various known relation types. There is a logic to those relations,
but the basis of the ontology is linguistic.
The "formal, logic-based ontology" is what we were calling the
"philosophical" ontology, which is admittedly, not a very good
term. But I think/hope we all know what was meant: projects like
Cyc, SUO, etc., where the basis of the ontology is at its root
logic, and perhaps something like #$Thing.
Sorry about the head scratching... :-)
Murray
......................................................................
Murray Altheim http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK .
"Iraqi sovereignty will be established by appointees
appointing appointees to select appointees to select
appointees. Add the fact that Bremer was appointed to
his post by President Bush and Bush to his by the US
Supreme Court, and you have the glorious new democratic
tradition of the appointocracy: rule by an appointee's
appointee's appointees' appointees' appointees' selectees."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1130138,00.html