Foundational Meta-Ontology

An important component of the foundational ontology framework is a particular meta-ontology, which formalises
relationships between  various categories of formal and semi-formal theory and also the connection of these theories to the informal concepts of natural language.
 

Levels of Idealisation

• Formal Concepts:

the concepts of a formal ontology. These should be given a precise formal semantics and their logical meaning captured by an axiom system which is preferably categorical with respect to the semantics.
 
• Data Concepts:

concepts employed in any kind of database or information system.
 
• Natural Concepts:

the concepts of ordinary language.

The formal concepts will be defined within a precise formal system with a well-defined semantics. At this level it is desirable to have a single formal ontology, which because of its generality is sufficient to give a formal underpinning to any more specific and pragmatic ontology. Of course there is likely to be disagreement about the precise details of the formal ontology. Thus we plan that the foundational ontology resource will include a number of alternatives. Nevertheless we believe that convergence to a single formal ontology can be achieved by a process of negotiation and integration between rival formalisms.

The semantics of data concepts are determined by their use within an information system. Hence, such system will normally require a tailor-made ontology. However, our proposal is that each ontology of data concepts should be constructed by definition in terms of the formal ontology. This anchorage to the neutral formal ontology will provide a means of communication between information systems using different vocabularies.

Natural concepts will be linked to formal concepts (and perhaps also to data concepts) by soft constraints, which allow for a degree of variability in their interpretations, due to differences of usage and the intrinsic vagueness of many natural language terms. In analysing vague concepts our approach is to identify the most significant modes of variation in their range of possible senses. The meanings of vague concepts can then be specified by means of parameterised definitions,  where each choice of parameters corresponds to a different sense of the term.