OntoClean

Highlights

  • uses punning
  • "A sortal is a class all of whose instances are identified in the same way. In information systems, these criteria are often extrinsic, like a social security number or universally unique id, which is not interesting from an ontological point of view. Identity criteria should be informative, they should help us and others understand what a class means. A triangle, for example, can be identified by the length of its three sides, or by two sides and an interior angle, etc. This says a lot about what is intended by the triangle class here, e.g. the same triangle could be in many places at the same time. Someone else may have an ontology in which the triangle class has different identity criteria, such that different drawings are always different triangles, even if they are the same size. Identity criteria (and OntoClean, for that matter) do not tell you that one of these definitions of triangle is right or wrong, just that they are different and thus that the classes are different."

Resources

References


Backlinks