ralf: > There is a technical term "ontology" that has emerged in recent years, > which has nothing to do with the philosophical term. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_%28computer_science%29
Thank you. Yes, I know that (and it's obvious from the context of the original paper). While writing my long post I actually made the conscious decision to not confuse my point by bringing that up, assuming that someone would bring it up in a reply :-) The technical definition given to "ontology" is redundant: the word for that definition is "taxonomy". At best, the poor word choice is naive. More realistically, it's a dangerous naivete. The taxonomic vs. ontological distinction is, already, long before the use of either in software engineering, a deep philosophical and ethical concern: Taxonomies are socially active (because the rules of how the power of institutions is operated are expressed in terms of taxonomies). Get classified as a witch in 17th century Salem, MA. and then see what happens to you. Get classified as a "three-strikes" criminal in CA see what happens. Power organizes, reproduces, and deploys itself using taxonomies as a cornerstone of the foundation. Taxonomic vs. Ontological confusion is exactly where our institutions go badly wrong: it's where systematic injustices happen; it's where systematic oppression happens. So deep are the institutional and social effects here that it is where conceptions of Self often come from (Thus ends your quick introduction to Foucault through Tom's eyes. :-) There is a wealth of serious thinking about the social responsibility that comes with being placed in an institutional position to define a taxonomy. A simple example can be found in library science where taxonomic decisions determine and shape people's access to and perceptions of available information about the world. In some other fields, people take this distinction as important -- central even -- to the benefit of us all. Screwing up the language this way in software engineering cuts practitioners off from that accumulated wisdom and discourages them from contemplating otherwise well-understood ethical concerns. Witness the casualness with which, for example, the authors of the paper we are discussing leap from an artifact in their taxonomy to the conclusion of a *hypothetical* "social problem" among programmers -- which connection they will now, it seems, set about to *"prove"*. In software engineering, we are now tinkering with unprecedented feedback signals where the signals in question are large essences of human culture and one of the components in the circuit is large groups of people in consequential circumstances. The new feedback circuit is beyond human scale but its personal consequences for many individuals is at a very human scale. Power is reconfiguring, and far from obviously in any of our interests. (Witness me and the history of this project.) -t _______________________________________________ Gnu-arch-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-arch-users GNU arch home page: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnu-arch/
