post-structuralistm and (formal) ontologies
I am looking for pointers for thinking about whether some ontological
constructs, maybe owl:complementOf, are patriarchal.I am wondering whether work by people like Foucault or say some
feminists could be used as a basis for this.A sample argument, in sketch form, would be that a political affirmative
definition of gender would be by positive qualities of ‘feminine’ and
positive qualities of ‘masculine’, without an assertion of the
disjointness, or the definition of say female as not male.In contrast, social structures constructed by the powerful, define the
powerful in-group (us) and then define the out-group as (not us).To illustrate the point relating to sexism, at least traditionally, the
concept of man has being associated with a number of attributes e.g.
(strong, heterosexual) - with woman defined as not-man, then we see a
homosexual male being called ‘a woman’ in a derogatory fashion - which
is insulting to both homosexuals and women, as well as simply being an
error. (Although the error, as hypothesised is in the classification
system, the T-Box, rather than the A-Box)I wonder whether the underlying primitives we use to construct our
categories (e.g. the constructs used to build the T-Box) are implicated,
and could do with critical review.Any pointers appreciated.
Jeremy
via NetTime / Reto Bachmann-Gmuer
