From Encyclopedia To Ontology: Toward Dynamic Representation Of The Discipline Of Philosophy / quote 25 of 30
Novel discoveries thanks to the expert-supervised approach
An advantage of our expert-supervised approach to ontology population is that it provides ample quality-control while still allowing for the possibility of novel discovery. Our co-occurrence statistics have turned up a number of connections that might easily have been overlooked by area experts. To take one example, the methods ranked anaphor as one of the highest hypernym candidates for propositional attitudes. Though two of the authors of this article are philosophers of mind, we initially thought this connection was due to error. A quick SEP search revealed, however, that the ranking could be explained by the fact that anaphoric sentences pose a challenge to the Fregean theory of propositional attitudes. This interesting connection would likely not be discovered by novices; and though experts might not think of the connection off the tops of their heads, they can easily uncover its validity with a cursory inspection of the relevant SEP articles.