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What Kind of Ontological Categories for Geo-ontologies?

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Abstract

Despite their recent development, geo-ontologies represent a complicated conundrum for the different experts involved in their design. Computer scientists use ontologies for describing the meaning of data and their semantics in order to make information resources built for humans understandable also for artificial agents. Geographers pursue conceptualizations that describe the (geographical) domain of interest in a way that should be accessible, informative, and complete for their final recipients. In this context, philosophers are not (only) required to sketch the historical (and/or cultured) background of ontology. Rather, they should offer conceptual solutions for carving nature at the joints and choosing how best to categorize and classify the different entities belonging to the geographical domain in question. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to combine assumptions and requirements coming from these different areas of research in order to show what different (ontological) categories might potentially complete the current domain of geo-ontologies.

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Notes

  1. However, Lowe himself also acknowledges that there are aspects of common sense that need to be revised or abandoned.

  2. See for example Smith 1997.

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Acknowledgements

Parts of this article draw on previous materials. In particular, Sections 1, 3, and 4 have some overlaps with Tambassi (2017) while Section 7 has some overlaps with Tambassi (2018). Thanks are due to Matthew R.X. Dentith and Giulia Lasagni for providing comments and feedback, and for their invaluable support.

Funding

This paper was supported by a fellowship at the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB).

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  1. ICUB, University of Bucharest, 1 Dimitrie Brandza St., RO-060102, Bucharest, Romania

    Timothy Tambassi

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  1. Timothy Tambassi
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Correspondence to Timothy Tambassi.

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Tambassi, T. What Kind of Ontological Categories for Geo-ontologies?. Acta Anal 34, 135–144 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-018-0370-7

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