The goal of this paper is two-fold: first, to emphasize causality in disease ontology and knowledge representation, presenting a general and cursory discussion of causality and causal chains; and second, to clarify and develop the River Flow Model of Diseases (RFM). The RFM is an ontological account of disease, representing the causal structure of pathology. It applies general knowledge of causality using the concept of causal chains. The river analogy of disease is explained, formal descriptions are offered, and the RFM (...) disease definition is refined by describing causal chains in terms of causal relations. The definition is updated to coincide with the actual RFM classes found in its upper-level ontology, YAMATO, which brings to light some challenges in developing both YAMATO and the RFM. The RFM is also discussed in relation to another ontological account of disease. Strategies are offered toward interoperability between these theories. (shrink)

The ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) is a research topic with both theoretical and practical significance. However, the ethical and moral aspects of conceptual, ontological, semantic, and knowledge modeling, more specifically, and which are sometimes found in AI applications, is not being given sufficient attention. I argue that it should. Whether considering using or developing these meaning-focused models, there are ethical aspects. This paper offers a preliminary outline about this potentially new research field, discussing: some questions and areas of concern, (...) their significance; scenarios of ethical import, and initial ethical guidelines. A focus area, potential case study, and lens through which to see the ethical significance at hand, is ontologies, with emphasis on the most abstract ontologies (so-called generic, foundational, top-level or upper ontologies). This would aim to show the ethical import of highly abstract (often philosophical) ontological choices, assumptions, and their effects on data, developers, users, and society. In particular, I stress the need for critical examination of such models, their content, their intended meanings, assumptions, ideologies, as well as the development process. Both the ethics of, and ethics in, these activities are, therefore, of interest. Topics in the ethics of AI that are relevant include: transparency, bias, data-sharing, privacy, control over data, etc. This paper thereby contributes to the ethics of AI, as well as the ethics of information, of knowledge managment and relevant topics by developing and discussing the ethics of ontology (and similar systems). Future development will refine and add to the ideas expressed in this paper. (shrink)

In “A Defense of Presentism ”, Ned Markosian addresses the problem of singular propositions about non-present objects. The proposed solution uses a paraphrasing strategy that differentiates between two kinds of meaning in declarative sentences, and also distinguishes between two truth-conditions for singular propositions. The solution, however, is unsatisfactory. I demonstrate that the both truth-conditions suffer from the same problems in spite of the examples used to support the claim that one is a proper treatment for singular propositions. Part of the (...) difficulty is in the limited expressivity of logical formalisms, a limitation not unique to the philosophy of time, but which calls for greater attention. (shrink)