Re: SUO: Monolithic ontologies (was ontology as science)
Erik,
I mentioned SUMO as an example of a monolithic ontology
because Adam has been insisting for a long time that there
is no need to support options, modules, or microtheories.
He agreed to vote for motion #2, but he remains unconvinced
about the need for any kind of modularity that goes beyond
the simple decomposition of SUMO into 11 modules, all of which
are assumed (but not yet proven) to be consistent with one
another.
The definition of a monolithic ontology is one that is (or
can be) stated as a single consistent theory with no room
for incompatible options. That is what SUMO is today, but
it's definitely not what Cyc is. I don't know about DOLCE.
> John, you're not singling out SUMO as a "monolithic" ontology
> are you? Many would agree that it's significantly less
> monolithic then its competitors, specifically becuase it was
> designed with communities of users in mind. For instance...
Those quotations from Guarino and OpenCyc state principles,
which don't say anything about modularity. I believe it is
a mistake not to emphasize modularity and options. But I know
that Cyc does have about 6000 microtheories, and I hope that
mechanism (or something like it) eventualy makes its way into
OpenCyc and whatever is proposed by the SUO Working Group.
>SUMO:
>
>Because of its characteristic merging of different upper level
> ontologies, SUMO is actually not influenced by a specific
> theoretical approach, rather it tends to take from various
> ontological proposals those general categories which seem
> to be largely shared by the computer science community.
I doubt that Guarino or the Cyclers would question the value
of borrowing ideas and axioms from many different sources.
But when people say that they have "not been influenced by
a specific theoretical approach" that merely means that they
have not fully analyzed their assumptions. That is not a good
sign -- it implies that that they have not done their homework.
> Given your interest in avoiding biases in the construction
> of an SUO, it seems you ought to be receptive to the SUMO
> approach. Are you?
I'll reply with a quotation from my favorite philsopher,
C. S. Peirce:
Find a scientific man who proposes to get along without any
metaphysics... and you have found one whose doctrines are
thoroughly vitiated by the crude and uncriticized metaphysics
with which they are packed. We must philosophize, said the
great naturalist Aristotle -- if only to avoid philosophizing.
Every man of us has a metaphysics, and has to have one; and
it will influence his life greatly. Far better, then, that
that metaphysics should be criticized and not be allowed
to run loose.
Peirce said this about Ernst Mach and the positivists, but
he would have been even more vehemently opposed to the logical
positivists of the 1920s and 30s. It also applies to anybody
who claims no influence from "a specific theoretical approach."
John