Semiotics

Semiotics for Linked Data

As a partial response to the challenges outlined in Why the Semantic Web Will Never Work.

Vocabulary and cataloging approaches vary widely 1. Many approaches, especially those which claim to embody meaning, seek to accurately incorporate key insights illustrated by the triangle of meaning 2.

In 1867 Charles Sanders Peirce published On a New List Of Categories in which he develops a post Kantian approach to categorization. Peirce's later work, building on New List of Categories, is now recognized as a significant contribution to the field of semiotics.

Because most vocabulary and cataloging approaches incorporate only parts of the this important work and do so inconsistently, the adoption of a standard ontology can be of significant value to Government Linked Data. In order to facilitate discussion among working group participants I am providing a Minimalist On a New List of Categories Ontology for standardization under the Government Linked Data Working Group.

The ontology classifies as ALCO(D) in the Pellett OWL Reasoner for Java which is its reference implementation. For further information see the following:

RDFS Idioms for the Working Semiotician

Linked Data: Interpretants and Interpretation

Observations from OWL Experiences and Directions (2009)

1896: The Year We Did Linked Data Right