Lean, Oliver M (2021) Are Bio-ontologies Metaphysical Theories? [Preprint]
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Lean, O.M. (2021) Are Bio-ontologies Metaphysical Theories_PhilSciArchive.pdf Download (302kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Bio-ontologies are digital frameworks for handling biological and biomedical data. They consist of theoretical entities and relations with explicitly defined logical structures and precise definitions, whose purpose is to provide a shared language for representing information to be distributed and integrated across diverse scientific contexts. It is tempting to view bio-ontologies as clear and formal expressions of a scientific community’s ontological commitments about their domain of inquiry, and to view their integration as tantamount to the metaphysical unification of science that some philosophers have envisaged. However, I argue that the local, practical, social and technological factors that influence their design prevent us from straightforwardly reading metaphysical conclusions from them. I discuss these complications and suggest how they can be overcome, revealing more general lessons for the development of a well-founded scientific metaphysics.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Philosophy of Biology; scientific metaphysics; ontology; bioinformatics; data; datacentric biology; scientific pluralism; data integration | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Data General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Computation/Information |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Oliver Lean | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 06 Jul 2021 02:08 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 06 Jul 2021 02:08 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 19281 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Data General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Computation/Information |
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| Date: | 2021 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19281 |
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