Institutionalising Ontology-Based Semantic Integration

We address what is still a scarcity of general mathematical foundations for ontology-based semantic integration underlying current knowledge engineering methodologies in decentralised and distributed environments. After recalling the first-order ontology-based approach to semantic integration and a formalisation of ontological commitment, we propose a general theory that uses a syntax-and interpretation-independent formulation of language, ontology, and ontological commitment in terms of institutions. We claim that our formalisation generalises the intuitive notion of ontology-based semantic integration while retaining its basic insight, and we apply it for eliciting and hence comparing various increasingly complex notions of semantic integration and ontological commitment based on differing understandings of semantics

A Goal-Directed Implementation of Query Answering for Hybrid MKNF Knowledge Bases

Ontologies and rules are usually loosely coupled in knowledge representation formalisms. In fact, ontologies use open-world reasoning while the leading semantics for rules use non-monotonic, closed-world reasoning. One exception is the tightly-coupled framework of Minimal Knowledge and Negation as Failure (MKNF), which allows statements about individuals to be jointly derived via entailment from an ontology and inferences from rules. Nonetheless, the practical usefulness of MKNF has not always been clear, although recent work has formalized a general resolution-based method for querying MKNF when rules are taken to have the well-founded semantics, and the ontology is modeled by a general oracle. That work leaves open what algorithms should be used to relate the entailments of the ontology and the inferences of rules. In this paper we provide such algorithms, and describe the implementation of a query-driven system, CDF-Rules, for hybrid knowledge bases combining both (non-monotonic) rules under the well-founded semantics and a (monotonic) ontology, represented by a CDF Type-1 (ALQ) theory. To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP

Ontology and Formal Semantics - Integration Overdue

In this note we suggest that difficulties encountered in natural language semantics are, for the most part, due to the use of mere symbol manipulation systems that are devoid of any content. In such systems, where there is hardly any link with our common-sense view of the world, and it is quite difficult to envision how one can formally account for the considerable amount of content that is often implicit, but almost never explicitly stated in our everyday discourse. \ud The solution, in our opinion, is a compositional semantics grounded in an ontology that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about it in ordinary language. In the compositional logic we envision there are ontological (or first-intension) concepts, and logical (or second-intension) concepts, and where the ontological concepts include not only Davidsonian events, but other abstract objects as well (e.g., states, processes, properties, activities, attributes, etc.) \ud It will be demonstrated here that in such a framework, a number of challenges in the semantics of natural language (e.g., metonymy, intensionality, metaphor, etc.) can be properly and uniformly addressed.\u

An ontology for software component matching

Matching is a central activity in the discovery and assembly of reusable software components. We investigate how ontology technologies can be utilised to support software component development. We use description logics, which underlie Semantic Web ontology languages such as OWL, to develop an ontology for matching requested and provided components. A link between modal logic and description logics will prove invaluable for the provision of reasoning support for component behaviour

Language, logic and ontology: uncovering the structure of commonsense knowledge

The purpose of this paper is twofold: (i) we argue that the structure of commonsense knowledge must be discovered, rather than invented; and (ii) we argue that natural language, which is the best known theory of our (shared) commonsense knowledge, should itself be used as a guide to discovering the structure of commonsense knowledge. In addition to suggesting a systematic method to the discovery of the structure of commonsense knowledge, the method we propose seems to also provide an explanation for a number of phenomena in natural language, such as metaphor, intensionality, and the semantics of nominal compounds. Admittedly, our ultimate goal is quite ambitious, and it is no less than the systematic ‘discovery’ of a well-typed ontology of commonsense knowledge, and the subsequent formulation of the longawaited goal of a meaning algebra

Willard Van Orman Quine's Philosophical Development in the 1930s and 1940s

As analytic philosophy is becoming increasingly aware of and interested in its own history, the study of that field is broadening to include, not just its earliest beginnings, but also the mid-twentieth century. One of the towering figures of this epoch is W.V. Quine (1908-2000), champion of naturalism in philosophy of science, pioneer of mathematical logic, trying to unite an austerely physicalist theory of the world with the truths of mathematics, psychology, and linguistics. Quine's posthumous papers, notes, and drafts revealing the development of his views in the forties have recently begun to be published, as well as careful philosophical studies of, for instance, the evolution of his key doctrine that mathematical and logical truth are continuous with, not divorced from, the truths of natural science. But one central text has remained unexplored: Quine's Portuguese-language book on logic, his 'farewell for now' to the discipline as he embarked on an assignment in the Navy in WWII. Anglophone philosophers have neglected this book because they could not read it. Jointly with colleagues, I have completed the first full English translation of this book. In this accompanying paper I draw out the main philosophical contributions Quine made in the book, placing them in their historical context and relating them to Quine's overall philosophical development during the period. Besides significant developments in the evolution of Quine's views on meaning and analyticity, I argue, this book is also driven by Quine's indebtedness to Russell and Whitehead, Tarski, and Frege, and contains crucial developments in his thinking on philosophy of logic and ontology. This includes early versions of some arguments from 'On What There Is', four-dimensionalism, and virtual set theory