Rough Theory

One of my more amusing experiences this term has been being the point person for students with questions about ontology. My best guess is that this is happening because of a public lecture I gave early in the term, which among other things was tasked with trying to make sense of the concepts of ontology and epistemology for novice researchers in the social sciences. Since then, I’ve had a steady stream of students referred to me by other faculty, who want me to explain to them “what an ontology is” – or, worse, what their ontology is… (Everyone wants their own, it seems…)

Now, thanks to L Magee, I have some place to refer them. LM offers a tantalising – illustrated and in full-colour – selection of ontologies for all your research needs. I might suggest that this post casts the concept of “ontology matching” in an entirely new light: forget monitoring how people achieve intersubjective consensus in the face of incommensurable worldviews! Turn that fancy software of yours into an Ontology Matching Service! Students can answer a series of targeted questions in the privacy and anonymity of their homes, and then be matched by your ARC-backed, empirically validated, software, to their very own personalised ontology – a sort of conceptual dating service for researchers who may feel too shy or too busy to develop their own paradigm or conceptual scheme.