[Sigia-l] Question about the use of the term 'ontology'

[ruth at ruthkaufman.com]

Quoting Lars Marius Garshol <larsga at ontopia.net>:

>
> I think I can summarize this with a taxonomy as follows:
>
>   subject-based classification
>     controlled vocabulary
>     taxonomy
>       thesaurus
>     faceted classification
>     ontology (in an IA context, anyway)
>       topic map
>
> So it may be useful to say that what you need is a "subject-based
> classification", and that the approach you propose is a "topic map".


Interesting. I was under the impression that topics are reified subjects (from
reading the paper called The TAO of Topic Maps -
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tao.html#d0e657), so how can 
they be
nested within a taxonomy of subject-based classifications? In other words, I
don't see a topic as a type of subject, but as something that a subject may
become. I'm possibly jumping to a conclusion that wasn't intended -- that by
nesting topic maps under subject-based classification, that topics would be
nested under subjects... thoughts?

By the same token, I'd think that subject-based classifications reify
ontologies. Maybe what we need is a way to express the way these things become
each other -- a sort of state change diagram perhaps?