The document discusses how researchers can utilize open access Wittgenstein resources through an open research infrastructure (RI). It describes how a researcher could search for and browse primary and secondary sources on Wittgenstein's thoughts about language learning using the Wittgenstein Source website. However, the researcher wants more data, metadata, and interconnected browsing capabilities. The document proposes using SwickyNotes, which integrates sources, ontology, and graph visualization to allow interlinked browsing of texts and relations. It also discusses annotating resources through adding comments supported by controlled vocabularies and ontologies.

1. How we can envisage a researcher
successfully browsing Wittgenstein Web
contents, but why s/he also should be
able to annotate the contents, and what
needs to be in place for such annotation
Alois Pichler (WAB)
Cortona & Berlin, 17. & 21.1.2013

2. OA Wittgenstein resources 2012
• (1) A substantial amount of Wittgenstein primary sources
available OA
– http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/
• (2) A substantial amount of Wittgenstein secondary
sources available OA
– http://wab.uib.no/agora-wab
– http://wab.uib.no/agora-alws
– http://www.nordicwittgensteinreview.com/
• (3) A substantial amount of Wittgenstein metadata
available OA
– http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/
– http://wab.uib.no/cost-a32_philospace/wittgenstein.owl
– DM2E …
Alois Pichler (WAB). CCPL BY- 2
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3. Adequate utilization
Adequate utilization of these resources
requires:
• (4) An open RI which integrates and
interlinks the resources and offers an
attractive environment for work on them
along the lines of ”research primitives”/
”scholarly primitives”
Such utilization should also include the
possibility to annotate the resources further
Pundit
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4. My plan for this presentation
• (1) Scholarly scenarios for searching,
browsing and focusing
– RI: wittgensteinsource.org-SwickyNotes
• (2) The case for annotation, and elements
of what is needed for it (→ Pundit)
– Annotation tool
– Controlled vocabularies and ontologies
• Three steps: Wittgenstein Source →
SwickyNotes → Pundit
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5. Wittgenstein Source
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6. SwickyNotes
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7. Pundit
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8. Wittgenstein Source
research scenario
• A scholar wishes to investigate Wittgenstein’s
thought about language learning
• Searching for ”learning of language” on the OA
Wittgenstein Source
http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/ brings her to
a number of relevant passages
• She gets particularly interested in a specific
passage from the Brown Book:
http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/Ts-310,1[1]_d
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9. Wittgenstein Source: Searching for
”learning of language”
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10. Wittgenstein Source: Search
results for ”learning of language”
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11. Wittgenstein Source: Focusing on a specific
passage, containing ”learning of language”
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12. But we need more than Wittgenstein Source alone:
The case for something like SwickyNotes
• The researcher wishes to learn more about the Ts-
310,1[1] passage, including about the Ts-310 item and
the context to which it belongs.
– She wants more data (more texts: relevant primary and
secondary sources)
– She wants more metadata (relevant data about these texts and
the relations within and between them: bibliographic, semantic
… metadata)
– She wants to browse the data and metadata in interconnected
ways
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13. In order to get his wish fulfilled, the
researcher has to …
• … be able to find out that there are other
relevant texts (primary and secondary sources)
• … have access to these texts, ideally OA
• … be able to find, have access to and efficiently
browse information about these texts and about
the relations within and between them
(metadata), ideally OA
• … be able to use all these resources together, in
interlinked and integrated ways, ideally, through
one interface, and with nice graph vizualisation
tools as support
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14. In order to get his wish fulfilled,
the researcher has to … (cont.)
• … get data and metadata organized in an OA RI
with an ontology as its backbone
– Ontology (classes, subclasses, instances,
relations/properties), see http://wab.uib.no/cost-
a32_philospace/wittgenstein.owl
• We have this RI now getting in place(!) thanks to EU DISCOVERY
(2006-09), NordForsk JNU VWAB (2008-11), EU Agora (2011-13),
EU SemLib (2011-12), EU DM2E (2012-14), NB-UBB Digitale
Fulltekstarkiv (2012-13), … For a brief description of the situation in
2012 see Pichler & Smith & Falch & Krüger 2012.
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15. The SwickyNotes browsing tool / RI
• The best currently available browsing tool / RI
for Wittgenstein research is SwickyNotes
– SwickyNotes has the great benefit of offering one
interface for working with primary sources, secondary
sources and metadata in interlinked ways
– Three key components
• Resource
• Graph
• Ontology
– Bi-directional interaction between Graph and
Resource
• SwickyNotes is a desktop application. 
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16. The SwickyNotes Trio
(2b) Text / Resource (2a) Graph
→ ←
(1) Ontology
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17. SwickyNotes: Integrating sources,
ontology and graph vizualisation
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18. Searching for ”Lernen der Sprache”
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19. Interlinked browsing of texts (data) and
relations (metadata)
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20. Exploring Wittgenstein’s references to
Augustine further
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21. Checking PG 1969, Part II, §17, and
focusing on one of its sources
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22. Results from focusing on the source of
PG 1969, Part II, §17
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23. Bi-directional interaction
• In order to pursue the original Nachlass
context further, the scholar browses in
Wittgenstein Source to the next
Bemerkung (Ms-114,47v[6]et48r[1]_n).
• This leads to an automatic update of the
graph window which now displays the
relations recorded for Ms-
114,47v[6]et48r[1].
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24. Pursuing the co(n)text of PG 1969, Part II,
§17 in the Nachlass source
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25. ”Semantic” queries
• Now the scholar wants to query Wittgenstein
secondary sources for the topic of language
learning.
• On the list of ”Issue” instances he finds a
number of relevant terms, among them
”language acquisition” and ”learning”.*
– ”learning” leads him to two articles on the subject.
*A note: The secondary sources issues are derived from
keywords provided by the authors of these sources.
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26. From ”language acquisition” …
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27. … to a secondary source author …
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28. … to ”form of life”
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29. Querying the relation between
”published works” and Nachlass
• The Wittgenstein scholar familiar with the so-
called ”Published Works” from Suhrkamp or
Blackwell or … wishes to consult the original
Nachlass about a certain passage he knows
from the ”work” ”Philosophical Grammar”: PG
1969, Part II, §17.
• She focuses in the Wittgenstein ontology on the
instance W-PG1969:PartI:II:sect17 which leads
her to the instance Ms-114,47v[5], the Nachlass
source for the ”work” publication.
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30. Now the scholar wants to add new knowledge to
the existing knowledge: Annotation through adding
comments / explicating existing relations
• Annotation can be carried out through ”free
comments”
• However, even such ”free” annotation greatly
benefits from support through controlled
vocabularies and ontologies:
– By referring to and using the same ontological
background, Wittgenstein scholars’ engagement and
interaction with the resource and each other can
become incomparibly more structured and shareable.
– We can more quickly start talking about the same
things! 
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31. ”Talking the same language”
Shared concepts for objects (in square brackets):
• ”The text [Bemerkung: Ts-310,1[1]_d]]”
– ”discusses [Issue: learning of language]” (NB: multilinguality!)
– ”is authored by [Person: Wittgenstein Ludwig]”
– ”is part of [TS: Ts-310]”
– ”has been published in [Work: W-BBB]”
– ”dates from [Date: 19341000-19350500]”
– ”has other version in [Bemerkung: Ms-141,1[1]_d]”
– ”refers to [Person: Augustine]”
– ”refers to [External Source: Augustine: Confessiones]”
• ”[Work: W-BBB] is referred to in [Secondary Source:
VenturinhaNuno_2004]”
• [Secondary Source: VenturinhaNuno_2004] discusses several issues,
including [Issue: style]”
• …
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32. ”Talking the same language”
(cont.)
Shared concepts for relations:
• The strings in square brackets (e.g. ”Bemerkung: Ts-
310,1[1]_d”) in the slide above describe the stable nodes
of the map (the instances), while the strings between the
entries in square brackets refer to relations between
these nodes (the relations).
• For each relation, its domain and range are defined so
that they are ascribed in consistent and coherent ways.
– E.g.: In our Wittgenstein ontology, it is excluded that one
predicates about an instance of Issue that it has a date (relation:
hasDate); only an instance of Source can have a date.
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33. WAB’s Wittgenstein ontology
(for a brief description see Pichler & Zöllner-Weber 2012)
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34. Source
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35. Subject
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36. Person
• Tba.
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37. Source branch (classes)
• Source: A thing which is a primary or a secondary source.
• Primary source: A primary source for Wittgenstein scholarship, authored by Wittgenstein or in cooperation with
Wittgenstein, or not by Wittgenstein but referred to by Wittgenstein.
• Wittgenstein primary source, subclass of Primary source: A primary source for Wittgenstein scholarship, authored
by Wittgenstein or in cooperation with Wittgenstein.
• External primary source, subclass of Primary source: A primary source for Wittgenstein scholarship, not authored
by Wittgenstein nor in cooperation with Wittgenstein, but referred to in a Wittgenstein primary source.
– Example of instance: Goethe JWv: Faust; Augustine St: Confessiones
• MS, subclass of Wittgenstein primary source: A Wittgenstein primary source physical item, handwritten.
– Example of instance: Ms-115; Ms-139a
• TS, subclass of Wittgenstein primary source: A Wittgenstein primary source physical item, typed.
– Example of instance: Ts-213; Ts-310
• Bemerkung, subclass of Wittgenstein primary source: A single remark in a Wittgenstein primary source.
– Example of instance: Ts-310,21[2]et22[1]
• Sentence, subclass of Wittgenstein primary source: A single sentence in a Wittgenstein primary source.
– Example of instance: Ts-310,21[2]et22[1]_1; Ts-310,21[2]et22[1]_2
• Chapter, subclass of Wittgenstein primary source: A single chapter in a Wittgenstein primary source.
– Example of instance: Ts-213,ch-i
• Work, subclass of Wittgenstein primary source: A standard publication (“work”) of a Wittgenstein primary source.
– Example of instance: W-CV; W-TLP
• Secondary source: A secondary source for Wittgenstein scholarship, not authored by Wittgenstein nor in
cooperation with Wittgenstein, but referring to Wittgenstein or a Wittgenstein primary source.
– Example of instance: PichlerAlois_2001; WallgrenThomas_2008
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38. Person branch (classes)
• Person: A thing which is a person.
• Author, subclass of Person:
– Example of instance: KantImmanuel;
PichlerAlois; WallgrenThomas
• NB: In addition to instances of the
subclass Author, the Person class is also
populated with direct instances of person
– Example of instance: Socrates; Moses;
WittgensteinPaul
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39. Subject branch (classes)
• Subject: All things which are neither a source nor a person (nor a relation)
• Place, subclass of Subject:
– Example of instance: Skjolden; Cambridge
• Date, subclass of Subject:.
– Example of instance: 19361105; 19450000
• Issue, subclass of Subject:
– Example of instance: philosophy; logical analysis
• Point, subclass of Subject:
– Example of instance: Logical analysis is essential to philosophy
• Field, subclass of Subject: A field of philosophical discussion.
– Has subclasses: Metaphysics; Epistemology a.o.
• Example of subclass structure: Field > Epistemology > Scepticism > Rule-
FollowingScepticism
• Perspective, subclass of Subject:
– Has subclasses: APichler_Course_TLP; APichler_Course_PI a.o.
• Example of subclass structure: Perspective > APichler_Course_TLP > [Instances]
Kontradiktion-contradiction; Sachverhalt-state_of_affairs …
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40. Relations (selection)
•
isPartOf ↔ hasPart
– Example of instance:
[Ms-114,48v[5]et49r[1]] isPartOf [Ms-114];
[Ms-114] hasPart [Ms-114,48v[5]et49r[1]]
• isPublishedInWork ↔ isWorkPublishedFrom
– Example of instance:
[Ms-114,48v[5]et49r[1]] isPublishedIn [W-PG1969:PartI:II:sect19];
[W-PG1969:PartI:II:sect19] isPublicationOf [Ms-114,48v[5]et49r[1]]
• refersTo ↔ isReferredToIn
– Example of instance:
[Augustinus, Aurelius: Confessiones] isReferredToIn [Ms-114,48v[5]et49r[1]];
[Ms-114,48v[5]et49r[1]] refersTo [Augustinus, Aurelius: Confessiones]
• hasAuthor ↔ isAuthorOf
– Example of instance:
[ArisoJM] isAuthorOf [ArisoJM_2003];
[ArisoJM_2003] hasAuthor [ArisoJM]
• hasDate ↔ isDateOf
– Example of instance:
[Ms-118,11r[2]] hasDate [19370825];
[19370825] isDateOf [Ms-118,11r[2]]
• hasOtherVersion
– Example of instance:
[Ms-114,48v[5]et49r[1]] hasOtherVersion [Ms-152,38[2]]
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41. Relations (selection, cont.)
• Discusses[Issue/Point] ↔ is[Issue/Point]DiscussedIn
– Example of instance:
[ArisoJM_2003] discusses [dream];
[dream] isDiscussedIn [ArisoJM_2003];
[W-TLP] discusses [Logical analysis is essential to philosophy];
[Logical analysis is essential to philosophy] isDiscussedIn [W-TLP]
• isContra ↔ isArguedAgainstIn
– Example of instance:
[Logical analysis is essential to philosophy] isArguedAgainstIn [W-PI];
[W-PI] isContra [Logical analysis is essential to philosophy]
• isPro ↔ isArguedForIn
– Example of instance:
[W-TLP] isPro [Logical analysis is essential to philosophy];
[Logical analysis is essential to philosophy] isArguedForIn [W-TLP]
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42. Conceptual mappings (cf.
http://dm2edata.hu-berlin.de/neologism/dm2e)
WAB speech DM2E data model
isPartOf ↔ hasPart [dct:isPartOf] ↔ [dct:hasPart]
isPublishedInWork ↔ isWorkPublishedFrom [dm2e:publicationOfRemark]
refersTo ↔ isReferredToIn [dm2e:refersTo]
hasAuthor ↔ isAuthorOf [dm2e:author]
hasDate ↔ isDateOf [dm2e:dateOfRemark]
hasOtherVersion
Discusses[Issue/Point] ↔ is[Issue/Point]DiscussedIn
isContra ↔ isArguedAgainstIn
isPro ↔ isArguedForIn
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43. WAB’s Wittgenstein ontology:
a very great number of RDF triples
• The model is throughout: aRb, where a and b
stand for instances (objects), and R for the
relation between them
– Objects can enter into different configurations (pairs)
– but not all combinations are possible
– Between the same pair of object a range of different
relations can obtain – but not all relations
– Formalized example:
• [instance1]R1[instance2] & [instance1]R1[instance3] &
[instance2]R2[instance7] & …
 A web of connections
• Cf. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus logico-
philosophicus!
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44. The RDF triple ”code”: an example
<Bemerkung rdf:about="http://wittgensteinsource.org/Ms-
115,118[1]_n">
<rdfs:label>Ms-115,118[1]</rdfs:label>
<hasAuthor rdf:resource="http://discovery-
project.eu/ontologies/wittgensteinsource/Wittgenstein_Ludwig"/>
<hasDate rdf:resource="19360800-19361100"/>
<isPublishedInWork rdf:resource="http://discovery-
project.eu/ontologies/wittgensteinsource/W-EPB1970"/>
</Bemerkung>
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45. Some figures
As of today (January 2013), our ontology
comprises:
• 10+ types of relations
• 100+ instances of External Source
[Source]
• 500+ instances of Secondary Source
[Source]
• 1 000+ instances of Issue [Subject]
• 10 000+ instances of Bemerkung [Source]
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46. Moreover: The case for user-driven
augmentation of the ontology!
• Why the annotator needs to be able not only to:
– Create free comments
– Explicate already existing relations (picked from a
pre-established set) between already existing
instances (picked from a pre-established set)
• But also to:
– Create new instances and relation types
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47. The case for user-driven augmentation
of the ontology (cont.)
Creating new instances
• A new [Secondary source]
– A scholar has published a new article which discusses a certain Wittgenstein primary source; he wants to make the public aware
of this achievement and (1) adds to the existing ontology a new secondary source instance, and (2) establishes through the
property refersTo the relation between his secondary source and the Wittgenstein primary source.
• A new [Issue]
– Moreover, the scholar (1) adds a philosophical theme (issue) treated in the article to the list of issues, and (2) establishes through
the property discusses the relation between his secondary source and the issues. [NB: it shall be possible to add the new issue in
a different language (or a translation of an already existing issue) → language labels!]
• A new [Point]
– Also, the scholar (1) adds a philosophical claim (point) to the list of points, and (2) establishes through the property discusses the
relation between his secondary source and the point. [NB: the new point can be added in a different language → language labels!]
• A new [Date]
– The scholar disagrees with WAB’s dating of a specific Wittgenstein Bemerkung and wants to propose an alternative date. She (1)
adds to the existing ontology a new date instance, and (2) establishes through the property hasDate the relation between the
Bemerkung and this date. In addition, (3) the scholar creates a point ”Bemerkung […] hasdate […]” and (4) labels, through the
relation isPro, his article to support this point.
• …
There must be procedures and premises for sharing and including user annotation in the backbone ontology!
– Legal
– Technical
– Scholarly
– …
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48. Work flow for user-driven augmentation of
the ontology (adding of new instances and
additional relation types)
• Creating (to begin with in one’s own ”notebook”)
new ontological instances and relations
• Sharing one’s suggestions for new instances
and relations with others
• Submitting the new instances and relations for
review by the ontology coordinators
• (Having the new instances and relations
included in the master ontology the ”master
notebook”)
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49. URLs and references
Entrance:
• (2006-) http://wab.uib.no/wab_philospace.page
Primary and secondary sources:
• (2009-) http://wittgensteinsource.org
• (2011-) http://wab.uib.no/agora-alws
• (2011-) http://wab.uib.no/agora-wab
• (2012-) http://www.nordicwittgensteinreview.com/
WAB’s ontology:
• (2011-) http://wab.uib.no/wittgenstein.owl
SwickyNotes:
• (2010-) http://dbin.org/swickynotes/downloads.php
References:
• (1921) L. Wittgenstein: Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung. In: Annalen der Natur- und
Kulturphilosophie 14. pp. 185-262.
• (2012) A. Pichler & A. Zöllner-Weber: Towards Wittgenstein on the Semantic Web. In: Digital
Humanities 2012 Conference Abstracts. pp. 318-321. Hamburg University Press.
• (2012) A. Pichler, D. Smith, R. J. Falch & W. Krüger: Elements of an e-platform for Wittgenstein
research. In: Ethics - Society - Politics. Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society.
Edited by Martin G. Weiss and Hajo Greif. pp. 268-270. Kirchberg am Wechsel: ALWS.
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