XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web

Subjects and Data: The Subject-Centric View

The notion of “shoe-ness” has already been mentioned as a notion that is eternal but ineffable, while any given shoe is ephemeral but concrete. As Plato might have pointed out, only our minds can sense shoe-ness, and only directly; we cannot sense shoe-ness with any of our five physical senses, even though we can certainly sense a given shoe in a variety of ways. We can be aware of shoe-ness—even the shoe-ness of a particular shoe— only with our minds. For Plato, shoe-ness exists in a plane of existence that is somehow more exalted, perhaps because it is more permanent than anything our five senses can sense. Plato's idea that there is a plane of existence that is accessible only by our minds is exploited ...