Re: Ontology of signs

On Wednesday, July 16, 2008 11:39 AM, Bernard Vatant wrote:
> As said for quite a while, we need an ontology of signs. You can see a
first cut of it at http://www.lingvoj.org/semio.rdf Very early release 
intended to attract feedback, criticisms and questions. Certainly too raw 
for immediate consumption!

It is a very good topic, although my browser failed to open your RDF 
document. But your slogan: ''Everything is a sign'' is too strong. In fact, 
this crucial subject, a mostly significant issue for whole knowledge 
technology as the semantic systems (1), was discussed some years ago.  After 
testing the feel of the SW and OntoLog Forum communities, I posted the 
outlines to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign (the nature of 
signs); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_meaning (the nature of 
meaning). To my surprise, it is still there, without corrupting:

''The nature of signs and symbols and significations, their definition, 
elements, and types, is mainly established by Aristotle, Augustine, and 
Aquinas. According to these classic sources, significance is a relationship 
between two sorts of things: signs (the signifier) and the kinds of things 
(the signified) they signify (intend, express or mean), where one term 
necessarily causes something else to come to the mind. Distinguishing 
natural signs and conventional signs, the traditional theory of signs sets 
the following threefold partition of things:
  1.. There are things that are just things, not any sign at all;
  2.. There are things that are also signs of other things (as natural signs 
of the physical world and mental signs of the mind);
  3.. There are things that are always signs, as languages (natural and 
artificial) and other cultural nonverbal symbols, as documents, money, 
ceremonies, and rites.
Thus there are things which may act as signs without any respect to the 
human agent (the things of the external world, all sorts of indications, 
evidences, symptoms, and physical signals), there are signs which are always 
signs (the entities of the mind as ideas and images, thoughts and feelings, 
constructs and intentions); and there are signs that have to get their 
signification (as linguistic entities and cultural symbols). So, while 
natural signs serve as the source of signification, the human mind is the 
agency through which signs signify naturally occurring things, such as 
objects, states, qualities, quantities, events, processes, or relationships. 
Human language and discourse, communication, philosophy, science, logic, 
mathematics, poetry, theology, religion (as well as SW technology) are only 
some of fields of human study and activity where grasping the nature of 
signs and symbols and patterns of signification may have a decisive value.''

Azamat Abdoullaev

(1)http://www.igi-global.com/books/details.asp?id=7641




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bernard Vatant" <bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>
To: "Semantic Web" <semantic-web@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 11:39 AM
Subject: ANN: Ontology of signs



Hi all

I've kept off the various recent and ongoing discussions such as 'How do
you deprecate URIs' and the like, to focus on semiotic aspects of this
debate.
As said for quite a while, we need an ontology of signs. You can see a
first cut of it at http://www.lingvoj.org/semio.rdf
Very early release intended to attract feedback, criticisms and
questions. Certainly too raw for immediate consumption!
Needs examples (TBD soon).
Some general background thoughts at
http://universimmedia.blogspot.com/2008/07/everything-is-sign.html

Feel free to send off-list comments, either by mail or by commenting on
the blog, rather than opening another endless off-topic thread here :-) .

Thanks for your attention

Bernard

-- 

*Bernard Vatant
*Knowledge Engineering
----------------------------------------------------
*Mondeca**
*3, cité Nollez 75018 Paris France
Web:    www.mondeca.com <http://www.mondeca.com>
----------------------------------------------------
Tel:       +33 (0) 971 488 459
Mail:     bernard.vatant@mondeca.com <mailto:bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>
Blog:    Leçons de Choses <http://mondeca.wordpress.com/>

Received on Wednesday, 16 July 2008 16:14:13 UTC