Web Ontology Languages: theory and practice-will they ever meet?

摘要

The current state of Semantic Web ontology languages is briefly described, and the ontology languages are characterised from the logical point of view. Generally, these languages are based on the first-order predicate logic enriched with ad hoc higher-order constructs wherever needed. We argue that in the Semantic Web we need a rich language with transparent semantics, in order to build up metadata on the conceptual level of the Semantic Web architecture. A powerful logical tool of Transparent Intensional Logic (TIL) is described, which provides a logico-semantic framework for a fine-grained knowledge representation and conceptual analysis. TIL is based on a rich ontology of entities organised in an infinite ramified hierarchy of types. The conceptual role of TIL in building ontologies is described, and we show that such a system can serve as a unifying logical framework. Concluding we argue that the conceptual and logical level of the Web architecture have an important role, and we should pay a due attention to these levels.