Glossary
This document is currently under development. Content may be incomplete or subject to change.
This is the glossary for the National Center for Ontological Research.
A
Adequatism: The principle that an ontology should be designed to include all entities that are relevant to the domain being modeled, without artificially restricting the scope.
Aristotelian definition: A definition that follows the form of genus-differentia, specifying what kind the defined entity is and how it differs from other members of that kind.
B
Basic Formal Ontology (BFO): A top-level ontology designed to support information integration, retrieval and analysis across diverse domains. BFO is characterized by its realist approach and provides a framework of formally defined terms representing basic entities such as objects, processes, functions, and roles.
BFO 2.0: The second major version of the Basic Formal Ontology, providing a more comprehensive framework for ontological modeling.
C
Class: A category of entities that share common characteristics.
Conceptualism: The philosophical position that universals exist only within the mind or as mental constructs.
Continuant: An entity that persists, endures, or continues to exist through time while maintaining its identity. Contrasted with occurrent.
D
Defined Class: A class that is defined by necessary and sufficient conditions for membership.
Domain Ontology: An ontology whose scope is a specific subject area or discipline, such as medicine, finance, or engineering.
E
Entity: The most general type in BFO, encompassing everything that exists.
F
Fallibilism: The principle that an ontology may contain errors and should be subject to revision as knowledge advances.
Formal Ontology: An ontology concerned with general categories applicable across domains.
I
Interoperability: The capacity of distinct systems, schemas, ontologies, and so on to be integrated and maintain integration without special effort.
Is_a: The foundational relation in ontologies, indicating that one type is a subtype of another.
M
Material Ontology: An ontology concerned with specific kinds of entities in specific domains.
O
Occurrent: An entity that happens, unfolds, or develops through time. Examples include processes and events.
Ontology: A formal representation of the entities, types, properties, and relations that exist in a domain, designed to enable knowledge sharing and reuse.
P
Particular: An individual entity, as contrasted with a universal.
Perspectivalism: The principle that an ontology represents one among multiple legitimate perspectives on reality.
R
Realism: The philosophical position that reality exists independently of human thought and perception.
T
Taxonomy: A hierarchical classification of entities.
Top-Level Ontology: An ontology that defines very general categories applicable across all domains.
U
Universal: A repeatable feature of reality, instantiated by particulars. In BFO, universals are contrasted with classes.
Universal-Universal Relation: A relation between types or universals, such as is_a or part_of.
Universal-Particular Relation: A relation between a universal and an instance, such as instantiation.
Use-Mention Distinction: The distinction between using a term to refer to something and mentioning the term itself.