A Meta-ontological Architecture for Foundational Ontologies

Abstract. In this paper we present and discuss a meta-ontological archifor ontologies which centers on abstract core ontologies (ACOs). s the most abstract part of a foundational ontology. It is useful for an ontologically founded description of ontologies themselves, therefore ACOs are lifted to the meta-level. We propose a three-layered metaontological architecture which distinguishes an object level comprising foundational, generic or domain-specific ontologies, a meta-level with core ontologies, and a meta-meta-level employing abstract top ontologies for the formalization of the underlying levels. Moreover, two axiomatic fragments for ACOs are provided, one of which is applied to formal concept lattices [1]. This demonstrates the use of ACOs for the ontological foundation of representation formalisms and illustrates advantages in comparison to the usual direct formal reduction to set theory. Finally, related work with respect to the architecture is briefly discussed.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: OTM
• Authors: Heinrich Herre, Frank Loebe
• Keywords: Abstract Core Ontologies, Core Ontologies, Internet Technology, Ontologies, OTM 2005