Why should we think about ontology?

“It is ironic that ontology is proposed as a mechanism for resolving common semantic frameworks, but a complete understanding and a shared meaning for ontology itself are yet to be achieved”
–Agarwal

Agarwal, a computer scientist, takes on the challenging task of applying the concept of ontology to Geographic Information Science.  After introducing the concept, the author discusses some applications of ontologies in GIScience, stressing that ontologies underpin much of the ‘scientific’ potential of the field.  She then outlines and discusses the considerations and challenges associated with developing and implementing a common ontology for GIScience.

It is clear from the article that the concept of ontology is a complex one, grounded in classical philosophical thought.  It is also apparent that ontologies are of the utmost importance to applications such as artificial intelligence, but why exactly should GIScientists drop what they’re doing and consider ontology?  Agarwal gives some reasons.  First, ontologies require us to come to a consensus on terms in the discipline that may currently be fuzzily or ambiguously defined.  Additionally, ontologies make the underlying assumptions and relationships of a GIS data and/or analysis model more explicit and transparent.  These advantages lend themselves well to the overall goal of data interoperability, the achievement of which will make everyone’s lives easier in the long run.

More fundamentally, Agarwal asserts that “the lack of an adequate underlying theoretical paradigm means that GIScience fails to qualify as a complete scientific discipline.”  Fighting words!  Is the legitimacy of GIScience, or even geography in general, rendered null and void by its lack of a unifying ontology?  Agarwal contends that the conceptual fuzziness and ambiguities of many terms and processes in GIScience and geography, as well as the difficulties associated with the concepts of scale and spatial cognition, not only make ontologies very difficult to develop, but should be considered problematic to the entire geographic discipline.  Problems of scale and other disciplinary ambiguities are typically handled by geographers arbitrarily based on the researcher’s individual research question: do we need a more strictly defined framework?  I would argue that it is not possible to get rid of geography’s messiness; that it is the complex subjectivities of geography that are part of what distinguishes it as a discipline and it is not really possible to separate these subjectivities from GIScience.  If anything, the challenge of applying ontology to GIScience should be a humble reminder that making sweeping and universal conclusions is problematic, but it shouldn’t stop us in our tracks.

-FischbobGeo

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