Re: Which ontologies; how to compare them
Don Dwiggins <dwig@markv.com>
Subject: Re: Which ontologies; how to compare them
To: cg@cs.umn.edu
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 16:05:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Don Dwiggins <dwig@markv.com>
Cc: poli@risc1.gelso.unitn.it, interlingua@ISI.EDU, srkb-list@ISI.EDU
In-reply-to: <9402171237.AA10497@rodin.wustl.edu> from "Fritz Lehmann" at Feb 17, 94 06:37:46 am
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Fritz Lehmann writes, in reponse to Roberto Poli:
> >>I don't understand 'internal relations'.
> >It is an old distinction. It could perhaps be rewritten saying that an
> >internal relation is a relation of mutual existential dependence. Consider
> >the connection teacher/pupil. There is no teacher if there is no pupil (and
> >viceversa). It is important to note the following aspect: we can say that
> >someone is a teacher even if s/he doen't have any pupil, but in this case we
> >say that it is a potential teacher, not an actual one. Consider now the
> >lenght/breadth opposition. No thing has lenght without having also some
> >breadth (and viceversa). We can build up things that have only lenght and
> >no breadth, but such things are ideal things, not real ones (if you prefer:
> >abstract, not concrete things). You see from the
> >above example that at least some internal relations are useful in
> >distinguishing real things from ideal things and real actual things from
> >things that are only potential. From these skratched examples you see that
> >internal relations (or double existential dependence relations) play a deep
> >role in the organization of a conceptual network. What is quite strange to
> >our scientific taste is that the topic of internal relation was the pi!ce de
> >r!sistance of the so-called idealists philosophers. For this reason, the
> >choice to exclude idealists thinkers (say Hegel) from your list could be
> >(at least in part) unjustified.
>
> This symmetric internal/external "foundation"-like thing
> sounds useful -- OK, so maybe my gut feelings are wrong about
> Hegel, but please, don't ask people to read him! I hear he's as
> bad as late Husserl. For these Tedeschi we need interpreters like
> you who are willing to give simple examples. (So do their fellow-
> Tedeschi, I bet.)
It is useful. In the relational database community, this concept (or one
much like it) is called "referential integrity"; it's usually illustrated by
examples like "you can't delete a customer if there are outstanding invoices
to him". I'm only tangentially involved with RDBs, so I don't have any good
references beyond the standard textbooks like Date.
Don Dwiggins "The truth will make you free,
Mark V Systems, Inc. but first it will make you miserable"
dwig@markv.com -- Tom DeMarco