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Barry Smith (born 4 June 1952) is an academic working in the fields of
ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophy, philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, Becoming (philosophy), becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into Category ...
and
biomedical informatics Health informatics is the field of science and engineering that aims at developing methods and technologies for the acquisition, processing, and study of patient data, which can come from different sources and modalities, such as electronic hea ...
. Smith is the author of more than 700 scientific publications, including 15 authored or edited books, and he is one of the most widely cited contemporary philosophers.


Education and career

From 1970 to 1973 Smith studie
Mathematics and Philosophy
at the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
. He obtained his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...
from the
University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...
in 1976 for a dissertation on ontology and reference in
Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...
and
Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic p ...
. The dissertation was supervised by Wolfe Mays. Among the cohort of graduate students supervised by Mays in Manchester were
Kevin Mulligan __NOTOC__ Kevin Mulligan (born 23 June 1951) is a British philosopher, working on ontology, the philosophy of mind, and Austrian philosophy. He is currently Honorary Professor at the University of Geneva, Full Professor at the University of It ...
(Geneva/Lugano), and Peter Simons (Trinity College, Dublin). Both shared with Smith an interest in analytic metaphysics and in the contributions of certain turn-of-the-century Continental philosophers and logicians to central issues of analytic philosophy. In 1979 Mulligan, Simons and Smith together founded the Seminar for Austro-German Philosophy, which organized workshops and conferences centered around the work of early Central European philosophers from
Bolzano Bolzano ( or ; german: Bozen, (formerly ); bar, Bozn; lld, Balsan or ) is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third ...
to Tarski and their impact on subsequent generations. A central role in this respect was played by Husserl's contributions to formal ontology. One prominent supporter of these meetings was Roderick Chisholm, who in his Intellectual Autobiography published in 1997 describes the 'significant role' played by these meetings in contemporary philosophy. From 1976 to 1994 Smith held appointments at the
University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...
(1976–1979), the
University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...
(1979–1989) and the International Academy of Philosophy,
Liechtenstein Liechtenstein (), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (german: link=no, Fürstentum Liechtenstein), is a German language, German-speaking microstate located in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is a semi-constit ...
(1989–1994). In 1994 he moved to the
University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...
(New York, USA),Barry Smith – CV
/ref> where he is currently Julian Park Distinguished Professor of
Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
and Affiliate Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Computer Science and Engineering, and Neurology. From 2002 to 2006 Smith served as founding Director of the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS), initially in
Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
and then, from 2004, in
Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is ...
. In 2005 Smith founded the National Center for Ontological Research (NCOR), under the auspices of which he initiated in 2006 the Ontology for the Intelligence Community, subsequently STIDS, conference series, and also the International Conference on Biomedical Ontology (ICBO). From 1992 to 2016 Smith served as editor of '' The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry''. From 2016 he served as editor of international standard ISO/IEC 21838: Top Level Ontologies, Parts 1 and 2, which were published by ISO in 2021. Part 1 specifies the requirements for being a top-level (which means: domain-neutral) ontology. Part 2 is devoted to
Basic Formal Ontology Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) is a top-level ontology developed by Barry Smith and his associates for the purposes of promoting interoperability among domain ontologies built in its terms through a process of downward population. A guide to buil ...
(BFO). The ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...
'', pointed to the fact that BFO is the first example of a piece of philosophy that has been elevated to the status of an industrial norm, describing this as a 'small sensation in the history of science'. Since 2019 Smith has served as Visiting Professor at the
University of Italian Switzerland A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
.


Research activities

From the beginning of his career Smith has worked in the field of
ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophy, philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, Becoming (philosophy), becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into Category ...
, initially on the history of ontology as a sub-discipline of philosophy in the tradition of
Brentano Brentano is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Antonie Brentano, philanthropist * August Brentano, bookseller * Bernard von Brentano, novelist * Christian Brentano, German writer * Clemens Brentano, poet and novelist, ...
,
Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...
,
Ingarden Roman Witold Ingarden (; February 5, 1893 – June 14, 1970) was a Polish philosopher who worked in aesthetics, ontology, and phenomenology. Before World War II, Ingarden published his works mainly in the German language. During the war, he s ...
and Reinach. A special focus was on the theory of ontological dependence and part-whole relations proposed by Husserl, a theory which was applied by Husserl's students for example to the understanding of the ontology of mental and linguistic acts. In 1984 he published together with Mulligan and Simons the paper "Truth-Makers". This paper helped to launch
truthmaker theory Truthmaker theory is "the branch of metaphysics that explores the relationships between what is true and what exists". The basic intuition behind truthmaker theory is that truth depends on being. For example, a perceptual experience of a green t ...
, a still active research program at the borderlines of logic, semantics and philosophical ontology that is based on a new understanding of the
correspondence theory of truth In metaphysics and philosophy of language, the correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world ...
. In the 1990s Smith worked closely with David Mark, one of the founders of
geographic information science Geographic information science or geographical information science (GIScience or GISc) is the scientific discipline that studies geographic information, including how it represents phenomena in the real world, how it represents the way humans under ...
(GIS), on initiatives in the field of geospatial ontology. In this connection he introduced the idea of ''fiat objects'' to describe (typically rectangular) geospatial entities, such as postal districts and real estate parcels, which are not separated from their surroundings by any physical discontinuity. This terminology has been generalized into other fields. Since 2000 much of Smith's research has been centered on the application of ontology in
biomedical informatics Health informatics is the field of science and engineering that aims at developing methods and technologies for the acquisition, processing, and study of patient data, which can come from different sources and modalities, such as electronic hea ...
, where he has worked on a variety of projects relating to biomedical terminologies and electronic health records. He is a founding Coordinating Editor of the
OBO Foundry The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry is a group of people dedicated to build and maintain ontologies related to the life sciences. The OBO Foundry establishes a set of principles for ontology development for creating a s ...
and has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the
Gene Ontology The Gene Ontology (GO) is a major bioinformatics initiative to unify the representation of gene and gene product attributes across all species. More specifically, the project aims to: 1) maintain and develop its controlled vocabulary of gene and ge ...
Consortium, and of the
Ontology for Biomedical Investigations The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an open-access, integrated ontology for the description of biological and clinical investigations. OBI provides a model for the design of an investigation, the protocols and instrumentation used, ...
(OBI). He contributes to the development of a number of biological and biomedical ontologies, including the Protein Ontology, the Plant Ontology, and others. Between 2005 and 2015 he was a co-PI of the NIH National Center for Biomedical Ontology, where he was responsible especially for dissemination of ontology best practices and for providing training opportunities for biomedical ontologists. Between 2013 and 2018 he served as ontology lead on the
NIAID The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, ) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID' ...
ImmPort project. Smith works also on the ontology of social reality, particularly in connection with the work of
John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mari ...
. He serves as consultant to
Hernando de Soto Hernando de Soto (; ; 1500 – 21 May, 1542) was a Spanish explorer and ''conquistador'' who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire ...
, Director of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru, on projects relating to the advancement of property and business rights among the poor in developing countries. Since 2008 Smith has worked on ontology initiatives in the military and intelligence field. In 2008–2010 he served as technical lead on a project sponsored by the US Army Net-Centric Data Strategy Center of Excellence (ANCDS CoE) to create the Universal Core Semantic Layer (UCore-SL). Since 2010 he was worked on a series of initiatives sponsored by the US Army Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate (I2WD) to create a framework for semantic enhancement of intelligence data in the Cloud. Since 2014 he is collaborator on initiatives of the US
Air Force Research Laboratory The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of aerospace warfighting technologies, pl ...
on planning, mission assurance, and lifecycle management. In this connection he has worked on the creation of an ontology for joint
military doctrine Military doctrine is the expression of how military forces contribute to campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements. It is a guide to action, rather than being hard and fast rules. Doctrine provides a common frame of reference acros ...
, designed to support the use of information technology in joint operations by allowing computational access to the contents of Joint Doctrine publications. Since 2016 Smith has been centrally involved in the Industrial Ontologies Foundry (IOF) initiative, which is creating a set of open ontologies to support the data needs of the manufacturing and engineering industries in a way that will advance data interoperability. Basic Formal Ontology, which serves as the top-level hub of the IOF, has been applied in the development of ontologies in many areas of engineering, including maintenance, supply chain, product life cycle, and additive manufacturing. In 2022 Smith published with the German scientist Jobst Landgrebe ''Why Machines Will Never Rule the World. Artificial Intelligence Without Fear''. The book defends the thesis that there are strict limits to what AI can achieve. For stochastic AI, the limits rest on the fact that, for a stochastic algorithm to work requires training data which are ''representative'' of the data in the target domain. Training data which satisfy this requirement can be achieved in relation to simple systems. Where complex systems are involved, however, as is the case for all systems involving organisms, features of the target domain are always changing in unforeseeable ways, and each such change has the potential to deprive the training data of its representativeness. For deterministic AI, the problems are similar, because there the models require very strict regularities of a sort which we do not generally find in complex systems.


Recognition

*1999 Fellow of the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
*2002 Wolfgang Paul Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation *2010 First Paolo Bozzi Prize for Ontology, University of Turin *2014 Fellow of the
American College of Medical Informatics The American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) is a college of elected fellows from the United States and abroad who have made significant and sustained contributions to the field of medical informatics. Initially incorporated in 1984, the o ...
(FACMI) Leo Zaibert's ''The Theory and Practice of Ontology'' (2016) and Gloria Zúñiga y Postigo and Gerald J. Erion's ''Barry Smith an sich'' (2017)''Cosmos + Taxis. Studies in Emergent Order and Organization'', 4 (4), June 2017

/ref> are Festschrifts dedicated to Smith containing studies of his work by colleagues and students.


Bibliography


Publications by Barry Smith
''Cosmos + Taxis'' 4 (4):67-104 (2017) *Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons and Barry Smith,
What’s Wrong with Contemporary Philosophy?
, ''Topoi'', 25 (1-2), 2006, 63-67.


Books

*
Structure and Gestalt: Philosophy and Literature in Austria-Hungary and Her Successor States
' (ed.), 1981. *
Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology
' (ed.), Munich/Vienna: Philosophia, 1982. *

' (ed.), Munich/Vienna: Philosophia, 1988. *

', Band I: Die Werke, Teil I: Kritische Neuausgabe (1905–1914), Teil II: Nachgelassene Texte (1906–1917); Band II: Kommentar und Textkritik (ed. with Karl Schuhmann), Munich/Vienna: Philosophia 1989. *

', 2 vols. (ed. with Hans Burkhardt), Munich/Vienna: Philosophia, 1991. *
Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano
', Chicago-LaSalle, Open Court, 1994. *

' (ed., with David W. Smith), Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. *
Rationality and Irrationality
' (ed., with Berit Brogaard), Vienna: öbv&hpt, 2001. *
Formal Ontology in Information Systems
' (ed., with Christopher Welty), New York: ACM Press, 2001. *
John Searle
' (ed.), Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. *
Applied Ontology: An Introduction
' (ed. with K. Munn), 2008. *
The Mystery of Capital and the Construction of Social Reality
' (ed. with David Mark and Isaac Ehrlich), Chicago: Open Court, 2008. *
Biomedizinische Ontologie. Wissen strukturieren für den Informatik-Einsatz
' (ed. with Ludger Jansen), Zurich: vdf, 2008. *

', with Robert Arp and Andrew Spear, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015
Chinese translation
published by the Peking Medical Publishing House in October 2020. *
Why Humans Will Never Rule the World. Artificial Intelligence Without Fear
' (with Jobst Landgrebe), Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2022, ISBN 978-1-00-331010-5.


References


External links


Barry Smith's faculty page at the University at Buffalo

National Center for Ontological Research

WorldCat au:Barry Smith (1952)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Barry Living people 1952 births 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Academics of the University of Manchester University at Buffalo faculty Ontologists British bioinformaticians People from Bury, Greater Manchester People educated at Bolton School