[topicmapmail] Re: Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus On Line

[Murray Altheim]

kal@techquila.com wrote:
> Lars Marius Garshol writes:
> 
> 
>>* Murray Altheim
>>| 
>>| No, I don't think the terminology is incorrect, it's just that
>>| things can be instances or not within specific contexts. "species"
>>| is a class in one context (when it is used as a categorizing term)
>>| and is an "instance" in the context of being an instance of a
>>| zoological taxonomical category (or taxon, for short).
>>
>>I think Murray is right here. We could have fun discussing whether or
>>not these are the same subject "species" or not, but in my mind
>>it's clear that both of these points of view make sense.

Again, Peirce's Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness apply here (sorry
to be pedantic about this). "species" would be considered Firstness,
i.e., defined absent an association (Secondness) within a context
(Thirdness). So, the subject of species is safe -- it remains the
subject regardless of how it's used in associations or assertions (which
is what I'm calling statements of Thirdness in Ceryle).

> Actually, I think that it is important that we agree on whether a topic
> playing the XTM-defined role of 'class' in one association can also play
> the XTM-defined role of 'instance' in another association. It is *not*
> necessary is to enforce this as the only point of view, nor is it necessary
> (or even possible) to make a statement about whether those two "species"
> are the same subject or not. However, there should be a statement on the
> use of the XTM PSIs and it seems from this discussion that stating that the
> XTM class-instance association is not transitive is possibly not enough.
> I'm not in a position to check right now, but if its not in the current ISO
> 13250 revision drafts, then I would urge the editors to make the semantics
> of the XTM class-instance association and the XTM subclass-superclass
> association as tightly defined as possible.

Well, any logic I'm aware of defines class-instance as intransitive,
so I think you're safe. Mathematically, that's the case AFAIU.

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim                         http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK                    .

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