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Robert Arp (born March 20, 1970 in Chicago, Illinois) is a philosopher, ontologist, and technical writer who is known for his work in ontology (information science), philosophy of biology, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy and popular culture. He completed his undergraduate degree in philosophy at The Catholic University of America (1992), his master's degree in philosophy at The Catholic University of America (1993), and Ph.D. in philosophy at Saint Louis University (2005). Arp taught at Southwest Minnesota State University and then at Florida State University for a year with Michael Ruse, as well as at many schools in the St. Louis, Missouri area as an adjunct professor of philosophy, before doing postdoctoral research in ontology through the National Center for Biomedical Ontology〔http://www.bioontology.org/〕 with Mark Musen〔http://bmir.stanford.edu/people/view.php/mark_a_musen〕 and Barry Smith (ontologist)〔http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/〕 at the University at Buffalo. == Work in ontology == As a practical, working ontologist, besides producing numerous technical documents, Arp has utilized RDF, RDFS, OWL, and SPARQL to assist in building ontologies for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, utilizing ontology-building tools such as TopBraid and Protégé (software). He was part of the initial steps in developing the world’s first weather ontology with other ontologists at Lincoln Laboratory.〔http://www.ll.mit.edu/mission/aviation/softwarecommarch/nextgen.html〕 He was also part of the genesis of the Infectious Disease Ontology〔http://www.infectiousdiseaseontology.org/Home.html〕 through meetings and discussions in 2007〔http://meetings.cshl.edu/courses/m-ontol07.html〕〔http://www.bioontology.org/wiki/index.php/Infectious_Disease_Ontology〕 and 2008.〔http://www.bioontology.org/wiki/index.php/Infectious_Disease_Ontology_2008#IDO_200〕 The Infectious Disease Ontology is one of the ontologies in the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies Foundry, also known as the OBO Foundry. As a theoretical ontologist, having worked closely with Barry Smith (also a philosopher/ontologist), Arp has contributed to Smith's Basic Formal Ontology in the areas of function, role, and disposition. Concerning biological function (biology), in the past Arp has put forward a middle position between the two viable accounts of function today—namely, the organizational account of function (usually attributed to Robert Cummins) and the modern history account of function (usually attributed to Paul Griffiths and Peter Godfrey-Smith)—and his position has been called “reconciliatory” and “pluralist.” Within the context of Basic Formal Ontology, biology, and bioinformatics, although Arp’s definition of function has been criticized as inapplicable to “entities above or below a certain size,” the definition not only offers an attempt at a “coherence between the concepts of biological function and technical function,” but it also has been utilized by researchers doing work in biochemical processes, hypersensitivity conditions, service systems, and domain conceptual modeling in general.〔https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=9459513284098678939&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en〕〔https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=11305771016648524910&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en〕 Like Barry Smith, Arp also has sought to defend a common sense realist position concerning the construction of domain ontologies (essentially, scientific realism) whereby a domain ontology should, if possible and appropriate, represent the actual entities out there in the world that fall under the purview of science. One argument Arp puts forward is a restatement of the “no-miracles argument” for scientific realism which states that it would be miraculous if scientific theories were not at least approximately true descriptions of the world, since they are so (seemingly) successful at prediction and control. He has argued for this position in the past. However, cognizant of the difficulties surrounding a realist position (especially for practical, working ontologists), Arp has argued for a form of as-if philosophical realism, along the lines of Immanuel Kant and Hans Vaihinger whereby the “commitment to the pursuit of abstract objects could become instrumental in guiding the life of philosophy and science in a limited as if manner.”〔 Just as Kant spoke of the value of the regulative ideas as aiding in, not only the rounding off of our systematic picture of reality, but also prompting us to do further research and investigation, so too, according to Arp thinkers are to act as if there is a reality “out there” (the ding-an-sich or noumenon, as it were) when they construct domain ontologies or engage in any other kind of scientific endeavor. Given the as-if nature of this position, there is always the possibility that there may be practical or pragmatic concerns in building domain ontologies which actually trump the realist pursuit, and Arp is mindful of this possibility.〔 Also, following other ontologists he has drawn a distinction between philosophical ontology (physical ontology), domain ontology, and upper ontology (information science) (also known as top-level or formal) ontology, and has attempted to articulate principles for best practices in the building of domain ontologies in radiology, cell signaling, bioethics, and finance. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Robert Arp」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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