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ontologymore about ontology

ontology

 

  3  definitions  found 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  Ontology  \On*tol"o*gy\,  n.  [Gr.  ?  the  things  which  exist 
  (pl.neut.  of  ?,  ?,  being  p.  pr  of  ?  to  be)  +  -logy:  cf.F. 
  ontologie.] 
  That  department  of  the  science  of  metaphysics  which 
  investigates  and  explains  the  nature  and  essential  properties 
  and  relations  of  all  beings,  as  such  or  the  principles  and 
  causes  of  being 
 
  From  WordNet  r  1.6  [wn]: 
 
  ontology 
  n  :  the  metaphysical  study  of  the  nature  of  being  and  existence 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  ontology 
 
  1.    A  systematic  account  of  Existence. 
 
  2.    (From  philosophy)  An  explicit 
  formal  specification  of  how  to  represent  the  objects,  concepts 
  and  other  entities  that  are  assumed  to  exist  in  some  area  of 
  interest  and  the  relationships  that  hold  among  them 
 
  For  {AI}  systems,  what  exists"  is  that  which  can  be 
  represented.  When  the  {knowledge}  about  a  {domain}  is 
  represented  in  a  {declarative  language},  the  set  of  objects 
  that  can  be  represented  is  called  the  {universe  of  discourse}. 
  We  can  describe  the  ontology  of  a  program  by  defining  a  set  of 
  representational  terms.  Definitions  associate  the  names  of 
  entities  in  the  {universe  of  discourse}  (e.g.  classes, 
  relations,  functions  or  other  objects)  with  human-readable 
  text  describing  what  the  names  mean  and  formal  {axioms}  that 
  constrain  the  interpretation  and  well-formed  use  of  these 
  terms.  Formally,  an  ontology  is  the  statement  of  a  {logical 
  theory}. 
 
  A  set  of  {agents}  that  share  the  same  ontology  will  be  able  to 
  communicate  about  a  domain  of  discourse  without  necessarily 
  operating  on  a  globally  shared  theory.  We  say  that  an  agent 
  commits  to  an  ontology  if  its  observable  actions  are 
  consistent  with  the  definitions  in  the  ontology.  The  idea  of 
  ontological  commitment  is  based  on  the  {Knowledge-Level} 
  perspective. 
 
  3.    The  hierarchical  structuring  of 
  knowledge  about  things  by  subcategorising  them  according  to 
  their  essential  (or  at  least  relevant  and/or  cognitive) 
  qualities.  See  {subject  index}.  This  is  an  extension  of  the 
  previous  senses  of  ontology"  (above)  which  has  become  common 
  in  discussions  about  the  difficulty  of  maintaining  {subject 
  indices}. 
 
  (1997-04-09)




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