Re: relationship of rdfs:Literal to rdfs:Resource

Hi Garret,

Garret Wilson wrote:
> Benja Fallenstein wrote:
>> Someone who assigns a URI like "uri:x-people-garretwilson" to denote 
>> not a person, but the *character string* G-a-r-r-e-t-_-W-i-l-s-o-n is 
>> doing something really misleading :-)
> 
> Nope, sorry Benja, you misread the example. I'm referring to the 
> resource denoted by the lexical form "Garret Wilson". Here's the whole 
> thing again:
> 
> <rdf:Description rdf:about="uri:x-example-document">
>   <dc:creator>Garret Wilson</dc:creator>
> </rdf:Description>
> 
> "...But if I talk about the resource identified by the literal, "Garret 
> Wilson," why can't I use a URI as well? ... I could be talking about 
> 'Garret Wilson' and 'uri:x-people-garretwilson', but are those the same 
> resources? Who knows?"

Well, if dc:creator is defined as having as its object the creator of 
its subject, then you have stated above,

     uri:x-example-document was created by the character string
     G-a-r-r-e-t-_-W-i-l-s-o-n.

At least

     http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/#section-Literals

says that

     Literals are used to identify values such as numbers and dates by
     means of a lexical representation.

and I don't think that "values such as numbers and dates" includes 
people. Besides, if you allowed a literal "Garret Wilson" to identify a 
person, you would have a *real* problem: What if *I* used it to denote a 
*different* person?

I don't believe that RDF allows for this; refering to such concepts as 
people is what URI resources are for, so that you and I will use 
different URIs when speaking about different things, which we might 
refer to through the same character string. Literals are for numbers, 
dates, character strings, and so on.

So hopefully, for this example, dc:creator is actually defined as having 
as its object the *name* of the creator of its subject.

Cheers,
- Benja

Received on Saturday, 27 September 2003 21:47:48 UTC