- From: pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
- Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 17:14:11 -0500
- To: "Danny Ayers" <danny@panlanka.net>
- Cc: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
> >-----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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
Received on Tuesday, 15 May 2001 18:14:19 UTC