Towards A More Reasonable Semantic Web

TL;DR

This paper advocates for a fundamental shift in the semantic web's design, moving from description logic to a fragment of first-order logic to better leverage existing data infrastructure and tools.

Contribution

It proposes a new logical foundation for the semantic web, emphasizing data migration and integration over description logic, to realize its original vision more effectively.

Findings

Using first-order logic simplifies data integration.

Existing tools can be repurposed for semantic web tasks.

The approach enhances scalability and practicality.

Abstract

We aim to accelerate the original vision of the semantic web by revisiting design decisions that have defined the semantic web up until now. We propose a shift in direction that more broadly embraces existing data infrastructure by reconsidering the semantic web's logical foundations. We argue to shift attention away from description logic, which has so far underpinned the semantic web, to a different fragment of first-order logic. We argue, using examples from the (geo)spatial domain, that by doing so, the semantic web can be approached as a traditional data migration and integration problem at a massive scale. That way, a huge amount of existing tools and theories can be deployed to the semantic web's benefit, and the original vision of ontology as shared abstraction be reinvigorated.