Ontological methodology

✍ Scribed by ROBERTO POLI

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 226 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1071-5819
• DOI: 10.1006/ijhc.2002.1003

✦ Synopsis

The interest in ontology may peter out unless three problems are addressed: What are the boundaries of ontology? What types are there of ontology? What is the structure of ontology? After distinguishing three main kinds of information (ontological, quasiontological and non-ontological) and three types of ontologies (descriptive, formal and formalized), the paper presents a few basic ontological sub-theories (theory of particulars, of levels of reality, of wholes, parts and boundaries, and the intensiveextensive opposition for determinations). The methodology of domain analysis is further addressed and the distinction between a domain's structure and the scheme of the canonical item of a domain is introduced.