Information about Dogma

DOGMA (Spyns et al., 2002, Jarrar et al., 2003, De Leenheer et al., 2007) is an ontology approach and framework that is not restricted to a particular representation language. This approach has some distinguishing characteristics that make it different from traditional ontology approaches such as (i) its groundings in the linguistic representations of knowledge and (ii) the explicit separation of the conceptualisation (i.e., lexical representation of concepts and their inter-relationships) from its axiomatisation (i.e., semantic constraints). The goal of this separation, referred to as the double articulation principle (Spyns et al., 2002), is to enhance the potential for re-use and design scalability. This principle corresponds to an orthodox model-theoretic approach to ontology representation and development. Conceptualisations are materialised in terms of lexons. A lexon is a 5-tuple declaring either (in some context G):
1. taxonomical relationship (genus): e.g., < G, manager, is a, subsumes, person >;
2. non-taxonomical relationship (differentia): e.g., < G, manager, directs, directed by, company >.


Lexons could be approximately considered as a combination of an RDF/OWL triple and its inverse, or as a conceptual graph style relation (Sowa, 1984). Next, we will elaborate more on the notions of context.

Language versus Conceptual Level

Another distinguishing characteristic of DOGMA is the explicit duality (orthogonal to double articulation) in interpretation between the language level and conceptual level. The goal of this separation is primarily to disambiguate the lexical representation of terms in a lexon (on the language level) into concept definitions (on the conceptual level), which are word senses taken from lexical resources such as WordNet (Fellbaum, 1998). The meaning of the terms in a lexon is dependent on the context of elicitation (De Leenheer and de Moor, 2005).

For example, consider a term “capital”. If this term was elicited from a typewriter manual, it has a different meaning (read: concept definition) than when elicited from a book on marketing. The intuition that a context provides here is: a context is an abstract identifier that refers to implicit and tacit assumptions in a domain, and that maps a term to its intended meaning (i.e. concept identifier) within these assumptions (Jarrar et al., 2003).

Ontology Evolution

Ontologies naturally co-evolve with their communities of use. Therefore, in (De Leenheer et al., 2007) we identified a set of primitive operators for changing ontologies. We make sure these change primitives are conditional, which means that their applicability depends on pre- and post-conditions (Banerjee et al., 1987). Doing so, we guarantee that only valid structures can be built.

Context Dependency Types

In (De Leenheer and de Moor, 2005), we distinguished four key characteristics of context: (i) a context packages related knowledge: it defines part of the knowledge of a particular domain, (ii) it disambiguates the lexical representation of concepts and relationships by distinguishing between language level and conceptual level, (iii) it defines context dependencies between different ontological contexts and (iv) contexts can be embedded or linked, in the sense that statements about contexts are themselves in context. Based on this, we identified three different types of context dependencies within one ontology (intra-ontological) and between different ontologies (inter-ontological): articulation, application, and specialisation. One particular example in the sense of conceptual graph theory (Sowa, 1984) would be a specialisation dependency for which the dependency constraint is equivalent to the conditions for CG-specialisation (Sowa, 1984: pp. 97). Context dependencies provide a better understanding of the whereabouts of knowledge elements and their inter-dependencies, and consequently make negotiation and application less vulnerable to ambiguity, hence more practical.

REFERENCES:

• Banerjee, J., Kim, W. Kim, H., and Korth., H. (1987) Semantics and implementation of schema evolution in object-oriented databases. Proc. ACM SIGMOD Conf. Management of Data, 16(3), pp. 311-322
• De Leenheer P, de Moor A (2005). Context-driven disambiguation in ontology elicitation. In P. Shvaiko and J. Euzenat (eds), Context and Ontologies: Theory, Practice, and Applications. Proc. of the 1st Context and Ontologies Workshop, AAAI/IAAI 2005, Pittsburgh, USA, pp 17–24
• De Leenheer P, de Moor A, Meersman R (2007). Context dependency management in ontology engineering: a formal approach. Journal on Data Semantics VIII, LNCS 4380, Springer, pp 26-56
• Jarrar, M., Demey, J., Meersman, R. (2003) On reusing conceptual data modeling for ontology engineering. Journal on Data Semantics 1(1):185–207
• Spyns P, Meersman R, Jarrar M (2002). Data modeling versus ontology engineering. SIGMOD Record, 31(4), pp 12–17

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Dogma (the plural is either dogmata or dogmas, Greek δόγμα, plural δόγματα) is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed or doubted. While in the context of religion the term is largely descriptive, outside of religion its current usage tends to carry a pejorative connotation — referring to concepts as being "established" only according to a particular point of view, and thus one of doubtful foundation. This pejorative connotation is even stronger with the term dogmatic, used to describe a person of rigid beliefs who is not open to rational argument.

Dogma in religion

Religious dogmata, when properly conceived, reach back to proofs other than themselves, and ultimately to faith. Perhaps the pinnacle of organized exposition of theological dogma is the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, who proposed this relationship between faith and objection: "If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections — if he has any — against faith" (I 1 8).

Dogmata are found in many religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam, where they are considered core principles that must be upheld by all followers of that religion. As a fundamental element of religion, the term "dogma" is assigned to those theological tenets which are considered to be well demonstrated, such that their proposed disputation or revision effectively means that a person no longer accepts the given religion as his or her own, or has entered into a period of personal doubt. Dogma is distinguished from theological opinion regarding those things considered less well-known. Dogmata may be clarified and elaborated but not contradicted in novel teachings (e.g., Galatians 1:8-9). Rejection of dogma is considered heresy in certain religions, and may lead to expulsion from the religious group.

For most of Eastern Christianity, the dogmata are contained in the Nicene Creed and the canons of two, three, or seven ecumenical councils (depending on whether one is Nestorian, Oriental Orthodox, or Eastern Orthodox). These tenets are summrized by St. John of Damascus in his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, which is the third book of his main work, titled The Fount of Knowledge. In this book he takes a dual approach in explaining each article of the Eastern Orthodox faith: one for Christians, where he uses quotes from the Bible and, occasionally, from works of other Fathers of the Church, and the second, directed both at non-Christians (but who, nevertheless, hold some sort of religious belief) and at atheists, where he quite skillfully employs Aristotelian logic and dialectics, especially reductio ad absurdum.

Catholics also hold as dogma the decisions of 14 later councils and two decrees promulgated by popes exercising papal infallibility (see immaculate conception and Assumption of Mary). Protestants to differing degrees affirm portions of these dogmata, and often rely on denomination-specific 'Statements of Faith' which summarize their chosen dogmata (see, e.g., Eucharist).

In Islam, the dogmatic principles are contained in the aqidah.

Within many Christian denominations, "dogma" is instead referred to as "doctrine". The other term is dsogmoses wich here means that beliefs are different and people are different in every way, as proven by a book i once read.

See also

• Dogmatic definition
• Age of Enlightenment

External links

• "" in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
• Dogma - Strong's N.T. Greek Lexicon