Computational ontologies are often described with certain defining features. We should both critically examine, question and verify those features. Typically mentioned, if not cliched, features of ontologies include: reflecting agreement or consensus, shared, common knowledge, ...
Ontologies are often described as aiming for or being examples of common agreement: agreement of the given formal vocabulary; the intended meaning or definitions of the constituent terms; of the coneptual, semantic, ontological or knowledge model; of one or more worldviews; of a specific model of the target domain of interest, etc. They are described as aiming to reach consensus, which is then encoded and made shareable for use or reuse.
An often-stated feature of ontologies is their expressing consensus on the model, vocabulary, or the represented knowledge (modeling consensual knowledge), etc., i.e. agreement of some sort.
- We must ask and determine: Is there, actually, agreement/consensus? Was it reached? If so, how? What was the population (the community among which consensus was reached)? Did all member of the population agree? Was there diversity of views and opinions? Or was the population cherry-picked for common worldview?
Ontologies--as a knowledge representation system--are often described as capturing, encoding or representing common knowledge or commonly-agreed knowledge.
- We must ask and determine: What is the given knowledge? Is it truly common knowledge? Common among whom? To what degree is it common knowledge? Is it common or agreed knowlege to the group of ontology developer or the users or a specific community? How is it judged as common knowledge?
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