- From: Dan Brickley <danbri@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 16:17:39 -0400 (EDT)
- To: "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>
- cc: <sandro@w3.org>, <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>, <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
On Fri, 25 Oct 2002, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote: > It also is extraordinarily difficult to make a distinction between > definitional and non-definitional information. For example, it is > definitional that tigers are mammals? It is definitional that tigers come > from India? It is definitional that tigers are an endangered species? It > is definitional that tigers are a symbol of royalty? Is it definitional > that tigers are to be revered? Is it definitional that Tigger is a tiger? I agree wholeheartedly. There's a huge literature in philosophy and the cognitive sciences on Natural Kind definitions, categories etc. We really really don't want to go there. Maybe in version 4.0, if any of us are still going... ;-) Nah, even then, trying to say of a category which of its characteristics are considered 'defining' vs 'descriptive' is a recipe for building brittle systems, since subsequently realising that some characteristic of a class was incidental rather than essential would undermine all uses of that class. Some topics are too murky and social to be worth formalising... Dan -- mailto:danbri@w3.org http://www.w3.org/People/DanBri/
Received on Friday, 25 October 2002 16:17:41 UTC