RE: Ontology vs. taxonomy

It does seem unconscionable that the field of "knowledge organization" (my
preferred term for all varieties of classification systems) lacks a shared
definition of these two terms.

I think we're *close* to agreement on "taxonomy" ... maybe.

Claudio's succinct description of "taxonony" -- "taxonomies only include
hierarchical relations (A is a kind of B)" -- might be sufficient. But
shouldn't we also include whole-part relationships as another very
fundamental application of taxonomies?

Claudio's definition of taxonomy, I think, implies the absence of
polyhierarchical relationships among concepts and therefore excludes most
Yahoo-like directories. That would be a good thing from a terminological
perspective.

Not surprisingly, the term taxonomy is regularly abused in business
implementations. It can mean anything, but the typical "corporate taxonomy"
probably looks like a Yahoo-style directory.

The use of the term "ontology" to describe knowledge-organization schemas in
enterprises is extraordinarily and unnecessarily sloppy. The motivation for
this usage is clearly, "My buzzword is slicker than your buzzword." The
whiff of a fresh scientific connection (to Artificial Intelligence), it
seems, is thought to score more points for you than the rather bookish term
"taxonomy."

In 1993, Tom Gruber, a distinguished contributor to the field of Artificial
Intelligence (AI), defined ontology as follows: "An ontology is an explicit
specification of a conceptualization. The term is borrowed from philosophy,
where an Ontology is a systematic account of Existence. For AI systems, what
'exists' is that which can be represented. When the knowledge of a domain is
represented in a declarative formalism, the set of objects that can be
represented is called the universe of discourse."
<http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html>

Comments:

1. The term, as used in AI, is already once-removed from its original
meaning. But the intention seems honorable. (cf. the massive Cyc ontology of
common sense reasoning.)

2. The emphasis on representing things in the real world -- or, perhaps more
correctly, the real world as expressed in natural language and human
communication -- is central.

3. There is an implied emphasis on exhaustiveness of description -- an
ontology that will handle any case within a specified domain.

4. In some cases, "ontology" implies sufficient structure to support logical
inference [by computer agents]. (This is the expectation in AI.)

5. The construction of an ontology is generally viewed as a substantial (and
often costly) one-time, top-down effort ... with allowances for tweaking and
incremental improvements.

My primary area of interest is knowledge organization as applied to
enterprise requirements. The goal of describing the reality of an enterprise
is a laudable -- even essential -- business objective, but IMHO this
objective does not necessarily require creating an "ontology" in this
traditional sense. But that's a rant for another time.

The second part of Claudio's definition -- "ontologies also include any
other kind of relations (A is husband of B, A is singer of song B, ...)."
also describes a "semantic network," which may have any number of typed
relationships among concepts.

BTW, has anyone noticed the IA is AI backwards? And is that a good thing or
a bad thing?

Just my 2 cents.

    Phil



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of IvyGrad91
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 9:37 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [facetedclassification] Ontology vs. taxonomy


Can we please have a discussion thread about the meaning and
application of taxonomies and ontologies?

As is normal in the course of discussion, the terminology can become
muddy.

Many thanks,

MJB Indexing Service




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