Barry, (01)
I guess you are thinking of natural kinds and natural kind terms
(perhaps called rigid designators), i.e., entities with somehow fixed
reference or at least with reference more fixed than other entities, a
notion of referential transparence, or perhaps having distinct essences
(or a set of essential properties). I agree that natural kind notions
are useful, but they are not unproblematic. (02)
Even in science (shifting from biology to chemistry/physics), one might
want to say that terms like "atom" or "molecule" or "electron" or
"ether" seem to be candidates for natural kind terms, but what really
do they refer to, and doesn't it seem likely that that changes over
time, so that an "atom" to Democritus is not the same "atom" to
Feynman, that each notion has quite different distinguishing properties
and different extensions? (03)
Thanks,
Leo
_____________________________________________
Dr. Leo Obrst The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics
lobrst@xxxxxxxxx Center for Innovative Computing & Informatics
Voice: 703-983-6770 7515 Colshire Drive, M/S H305
Fax: 703-983-1379 McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA (04)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontac-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontac-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Smith, Barry
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 3:23 AM
To: ONTAC Taxonomy-Ontology Development Discussion
Subject: RE: [ontac-dev] Type vs. Class -- Please vote (05)
>
>Leo:> In NL formal semantics, there is formally distinctions made
between
>plurals (with distributed or collective interpretations: three
bananas,
>John and is friends, many girls; and sometimes so-called cumulative
>readings, which I won't go into), singular group-denoting nouns
usually
>called collectives (team, family, committee, nation, etc.), and groups
>(entities more than the sum of their parts), and sometimes
higher-order
>groups (groups of groups). Also included in these analyses is the
>distinction between mass and count nouns.
>
>So it seems that your distinction between class and type is perhaps
not
>quite right. If you mean by this the necessity for both intension and
>extension, then of course I agree. However, can't you talk about the
>description and the things that satisfy the description?
>
>In OWL FULL the distinction is made between class, instance, and class
>as an instance (so class as both characterizing a description, an
>extensional "class", and a class which is an instance maybe comparable
>to the plural individual mentioned above -- which might satisfy the
>species rabbit example, no? (06)
I am familiar with the literature Leo cites, and of course I
appreciate that the analogy between football team and animal species
(rabbit) is loose, and that a theory of collections would be needed
to deal with the former. Moreover, I am aware that we need, at some
stage, to incorporate a proper theory of those entities commonly
referred to by means of mass terms like 'water'. (07)
However, it seems that Leo is ignoring the main question, which is:
what do the terms in ontologies denote? (terms like 'rabbit',
'kidney', 'organisation', 'contract', 'ship', 'oil-well', etc.) (08)
What are we talking about when we say, e.g., that 'kidney is_a organ'? (09)
Leo would say that we are talking about individual instances
comprehended by 'kidney and individual instances comprehended by
'organ', namely that every one of the first is also one of the second. (010)
Then, however, we could equally well include in our ontology a term
like 'kidnose' (comprehending both kidneys and noses), and write: (011)
kidnose is_a organ (012)
Or a term like kidWose (comprehending both kidneys and Michael West's
nsoe), and write (013)
kidWose is_a organ (014)
But there is something about terms like 'kidney', 'ship', 'cell',
'person', etc. which makes them suitable for inclusion in an
ontology, where 'kidnose' and 'kidWose' are (I hope everyone agrees)
less suitable.
What is this extra something? I propose that it is that all instances
comprehended under 'kidney' instantiate the same type (pattern,
invariant, kind, sort, commonality, universal). I think scientific
research would make no sense without these types -- see e.g. the
writings of David Armstrong on Scientific Universals. I think natural
language is pervasively making reference to such types (there are
common nouns like 'rabbit' everywhere). And the philosophy of
language, since Kripke and Putnam, has discovered them too.
BS (015)
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