From Gary Berg-Cross (01)
>Sorry to be at the Ontology 101 level, but
>a long time ago (1998)\ Gruber, arguing that we
>need objective criteria founded on the purpose
>of ontological model, drafted some
>guidelines to evaluate ontological designs
>(other than “ a priori” notions of naturalness
>or Truth). Below are 4 from what I believe were
>his preliminary set of design criteria for
>ontologies for knowledge sharing and
>interoperation. I’m not sure that I agree with
>the 4th but it might be interesting to see what the group thinks about these…
>
>1. Clarity. An ontology should effectively
>communicate the intended meaning of defined
>terms. Definitions should be objective....
>Wherever possible, a complete definition (a
>predicate defined by necessary and sufficient
>conditions) is preferred over a partial
>definition (defined by only necessary or
>sufficient conditions). I take some of Barry’s
>comments to show that Roy’s categories are not
>complete or at least subject to alternative interpretations.
>
>2. Coherence. An ontology should be coherent:
>that is, it should sanction inferences that are
>consistent with the definitions.... If a
>sentence that can be inferred from the axioms
>contradicts a definition or example given
>informally, then the ontology is incoherent.
>
>3. Extendibility An ontologiest should be able
>to define new terms for special uses based on
>the existing vocabulary, in a way that does not
>require the revision of the existing
>definitions. (we need to look ahead to
>integrations that will be needed, a particular problem for a general ontology)
>
>4. Minimal ontological commitment....(Perhaps
>part of what the lattice discussion has been
>about…I’m not sure that Barry would agree with
>this and it might be interesting to here sides
>of the argument). An ontology should make as few
>claims as possible about the world being
>modeled, allowing the parties committed to the
>ontology freedom to specialize and instantiate the ontology as needed." (02)
I accept all of the above, and Gary is right that
many of my remarks thus far in this forum have
been in their spirit. I think I would understand
4 in terms different from Gruber himself,
however. The job of ontology is to unify
communities with heterogeneous data and
information. If we enforce minimum ontological
coherence on what they do, then this would mean
enforcing no constraints at all, and then we end
up with heterogeneous data and information in
separate bags (namespaces, I think W3C calls
them; it seems to think that they are good things
for ontological purposes; I think they still
leave us in a bad position regarding the problem
of unification). If we enforce too much
ontological coherence then we will find too few
groups who are willing to use the ontology.
BS (03)
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