Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- List of Contributors
- List of Figures and Tables
- Introduction: Philosophy's Relevance in Computing and Information Science
- Part I Philosophy of Computing and Information
- Part II Complexity and System Theory
- Part III Ontology
- Part IV Knowledge Representation
- 10 Sophisticated Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Requires Philosophy
- 11 On Frames and Theory-Elements of Structuralism
- 12 Ontological Complexity and Human Culture
- Part V Action Theory
- Part VI Info-Computationalism
- Part VII Ethics
- Notes
- Index
12 - Ontological Complexity and Human Culture
from Part IV - Knowledge Representation
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- List of Contributors
- List of Figures and Tables
- Introduction: Philosophy's Relevance in Computing and Information Science
- Part I Philosophy of Computing and Information
- Part II Complexity and System Theory
- Part III Ontology
- Part IV Knowledge Representation
- 10 Sophisticated Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Requires Philosophy
- 11 On Frames and Theory-Elements of Structuralism
- 12 Ontological Complexity and Human Culture
- Part V Action Theory
- Part VI Info-Computationalism
- Part VII Ethics
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The explosion of the infosphere has led to a proliferation of metadata and formal ontology artefacts for information systems. Information scientists are creating ontologies and metadata in order to facilitate the sharing of meaningful information rather than similarly structured information. Formal ontologies are a complex form of metadata that specify the underlying concepts and their relationships that comprise the information of and for an information system. The most common understanding of ontology in computer and information sciences is Gruber's specification of a conceptualization. However, formal ontologies are problematic in that they simultaneously crystallize and decontextualize information, which in order to be meaningful must be adaptive in context. In trying to construct a correct taxonomical system, formal ontologies are focused on syntactic precision rather than meaningful exchange of information. Smith describes accurately the motivation and practice of ontology creation:
It becomes a theory of the ontological content of certain representations … The elicited principles may or may not be true, but this, to the practitioner … is of no concern, since the significance of these principles lies elsewhere – for instance in yielding a correct account of the taxonomical system used by speakers of a given language or by scientists working in a given discipline.
It is not fair to claim that syntax is irrelevant, but the meaning we make of information is dependent upon more than its syntactic structure.
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- Philosophy, Computing and Information Science , pp. 131 - 144Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014