Roles are not classes: a reply to Nicola Guarino

Abstract

In this paper we reply to Nicola Guarino's comments on our article entitled “Using explicit ontologies in knowledge acquisition”. We concentrate on the issues raised by Guarino: (i) the existence of the interaction problem at the knowledge level, (ii) the nature of ontologies, and (iii) the utility of method ontologies. In our reply we attempt to distinguish between (mutual) misunderstandings, alternative viewpoints and true differences of opinion.