Re: REQDOC: New Draft

On February 28, Guus Schreiber writes:
> Jef Heflin wrote:
> > Ian Horrocks wrote:
> > > 
> > > Here are some comments on the revised text.
> > > 
> > > 0. The term "definition" is often used to refer to statements in an
> > > ontology, e.g., in 3.1 "to provide additional definitions", in
> > > 5.Commitment to ontologies "which set of definitions", 5. Class
> > > definition primitives, etc. Are we suggesting that all statements in
> > > an ontology are "definitions". What about statements of the form
> > > sameClassAs C1 C2, where neither C1 nor C2 is a class name? I think
> > > that each use of "definition" should be examined and, in most cases,
> > > changed to something more neutral such as "axiom" or "statement".
> > 
> > I can understand your objection to word "definition." I think
> > "statement" would be too vague. "Axiom" is a possibility, but I fear
> > that there might be a number of readers who don't have the background in
> > logic to understand what we mean here. Can someone suggest a better
> > term?
> 
> I have struggled with this before. "Definition" seems to be natural term
> for people to use, but in KR/DL it has a specific meaning, which covers
> only a subset. The only solution I have come up with is to use the term
> "definition" in the introduction, but including a note that states
> explictly the intended sloppy meaning of the term. 

The trouble with that is that there can also be axioms in the ontology
that don't correspond in any way to a "definition", e.g., disjointness
axioms, complex class inclusions. How about some form of words like
"asserted fact"?

Ian

> 
> Guus
> 
> -- 
> A. Th. Schreiber, SWI, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15
> NL-1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Tel: +31 20 525 6793 
> Fax: +31 20 525 6896; E-mail: schreiber@swi.psy.uva.nl
> WWW: http://www.swi.psy.uva.nl/usr/Schreiber/home.html

Received on Thursday, 28 February 2002 09:32:47 UTC