[Air-l] Origin of the term "Internet" ?

[Ellis Godard]

Here's a less verbose (and so more obtuse) definition, complementary to at
least some aspects of that "short answer" and in the context of three
others:

Ontology regards what can be known (including demarcations regarding the
basis for decisions, such as appeal to observable facts).

Epistemology involves strategies for knowing (ideally implying, if not
explicitly specifying, criteria for evaluating particular applications of
the strategy).

Theory attempts to summarize what is known (reducing the idiosyncrasies of
life's complexity by appeal to patterns, processes, or other connecting
threads).

Methodology involves and applies ideas about coming to know.

-eg

> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-
> bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of James Whyte
> Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 1:09 PM
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Origin of the term "Internet" ?
> 
> I have received comments both onlist and offlist about my comments on
> this thread. I offer this as a source for my reasoning. My apology for
> not doing this earlier.  What is an Ontology?    Tom Gruber
> <gruber at ksl.stanford.edu>
> Short answer:
>    An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization.   The word
> "ontology" seems to generate a lot of controversy in discussions about
> AI. It has a long history in philosophy, in which it refers to the
> subject of existence. It is also often confused with epistemology,
> which is about knowledge and knowing.   In the context of knowledge
> sharing, I use the term ontology to mean a specification of a
> conceptualization. That is, an ontology is a description (like a formal
> specification of a program) of the concepts and relationships that can
> exist for an agent or a community of agents. This definition is
> consistent with the usage of ontology as set-of-concept-definitions,
> but more general. And it is certainly a different sense of the word
> than its use in philosophy.   What is important is what an ontology is
> for. My colleagues and I have been designing ontologies for the purpose
> of enabling knowledge sharing and reuse. In that context, an ontology
> is a specification used for
>  making ontological commitments. The formal definition of ontological
> commitment is given below. For pragmetic reasons, we choose to write an
> ontology as a set of definitions of formal vocabulary. Although this
> isn't the only way to specify a conceptualization, it has some nice
> properties for knowledge sharing among AI software (e.g., semantics
> independent of reader and context). Practically, an ontological
> commitment is an agreement to use a vocabulary (i.e., ask queries and
> make assertions) in a way that is consistent (but not complete) with
> respect to the theory specified by an ontology. We build agents that
> commit to ontologies. We design ontologies so we can share knowledge
> with and among these agents.   This definition is given in the article:
> T. R. Gruber. A translation approach to portable ontologies. Knowledge
> Acquisition, 5(2):199-220, 1993. Available on line.   A more detailed
> description is given in   T. R. Gruber. Toward principles for the
> design of
>  ontologies used for knowledge sharing. Presented at the Padua workshop
> on Formal Ontology, March 1993, to appear in an edited collection by
> Nicola Guarino. Available online.
> 
>   http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------
> Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check.
> Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.
> _______________________________________________
> The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> 
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/