Wittgenstein e o significado dos nomes na web semântica

Abstract

Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) are designed to name or identify resources on the Web. Every resource has a URI that references it unambiguously. However, what does a URI in the context of the Semantic Web mean? On that, a clash was established between Tim Berners-Lee - the creator of the Web - and Patrick Hayes - logical that formalized the Semantic Web. For Berners-Lee, a URI represents a real-world “thing” on the Web, denoting it unambiguously; Hayes says that a URI can only describe a real-world “thing,” but never denote it unambiguously. It is possible to see a theoretical conflict within the Philosophy of Language and the objective of the article is to explore possible links between Ludwig Wittgenstein’s postulates about language and the Semantic Web through bibliographical research and literature review. In addition to bringing to light the above-mentioned clash, as a result of the research it is suggested that Wittgenstein’s postulates and Web search engines applied to ontology repositories may, together, ground advances in the Semantic Web that are dependent on a better understanding of the meaning of URIs.