RE: What do the ontologists want?

> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: www-rdf-logic-request@w3.org
> >[mailto:www-rdf-logic-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of tim finin
> >Sent: 15 May 2001 23:02
> >To: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
> >Subject: Re: What do the ontologists want?
> >
> >
> >One thought I have is that we might differ about
> >what kind of ontologists we should be trying to
> >support.  There is a wide spectrum, from philosophers
> >to logicians to KR people (neat and scruffy) to DB
> >people to Java programmers trying to build a better
> >web site.
> >
> >We want to be sure that we don't focus to obsessively
> >on the philosopher end and thereby fail to give the
> >work-a-day practitioner anything that makes a difference.

Just for the record, I might observe that my own passion for logical 
precision is fuelled largely by KR concerns than from philosophical 
purity. Distinctions like use/mention start to matter a lot when you 
are trying to keep inference machinery internally coherent.

The other thing is that the logicians, in spite of their sometimes 
exasperatingly mathematical writing style, don't spend most of their 
time counting angels. They have done a lot of extremely hard 
conceptual work for us already, and it just seems damn silly not to 
try to take advantage of it. In particular, if they say that some 
parts of the beach are slippery, it seems foolhardy to choose that 
very spot to erect our new headquarters.

Pat Hayes

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Received on Tuesday, 15 May 2001 18:14:19 UTC