Actually, What Does “Ontology” Mean?

Abstract

This article is a fictitious, moderated dialogue between an information scientist, a philosopher, and a psychologist. They explore the term “ontology” from the point of view of their own discipline, with the object of learning from each other. The target audience of this article are laypersons with respect to the specific disciplines – but who have a scientific background.

The authors work in the fields of computer science, knowledge engineering, electrical engineering, mathematics, neurobiology, philosophy, and psychology.