Re: propositions

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From: macgregor@ISI.EDU
Message-id: <199405122154.AA02650@quark.isi.edu>
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Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 14:55:36 -0800
To: phayes@cs.uiuc.edu (Pat Hayes)
Subject: Re: propositions
Cc: interlingua@ISI.EDU

>From Pat:

> can an
>"ontology" contain several different, incompatible, theories (and therefore
>be inconsistent, for example)? I thought that "ontology", in this
>community, was just a (bad) synonym for "theory".

I will make it simple by refraining from defining "ontology" (hoping
that someone else will provide an answer).

I was getting at the following:

Option 1:  Define a set of theories, each defining a different notion
of "proposition".  A knowledge base should import at most one of these
theories.

Option 2: Define a single theory containing different notions of
"proposition".  To avoid inconsistency, we would have to generate
different names, e.g., "proposition1", "proposition2", etc.

The general idea is more important than the choice of options.  And
that is, that multiple definitions of "proposition" would be made
available (i.e., a KIF user would get her choice).  Rather than deciding
in advance what constitutes an
"acceptable" theory of propositions, I would advocate obtaining a
few example theories, and then critiquing them.

- Bob


Robert M. MacGregor                                     macgregor@isi.edu
USC/ISI, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292      (310) 822-1511