Formal process ontology
Johanna Seibt · 2001
The paper reports some results of the author's recent work on a process-ontological framework called APT. APT is based on the notion of a free process, a new category in ontology, with Broad's / Sellars' "subjectless" or "pure" processes as their closest cognates. With a pointer to verbal and nominal aspect shift as background motivation I argue that basic classificatory terms of common sense reasoning (activity, event, thing, stuff, property etc.) can be treated as different types of free processes. After introducing essential elements of the formal framework of APT (a non-standard extensional mereology with a non-transitive part-relation) I sketch APT-classifications of basic and complex processes, based on five main descriptive parameters: homomerity pattern, participant structure, dynamic composition, dynamic shape, and dynamic context.