On Defining Ontologies and Typologies of Objects and of Processes for Causal Reasoning
Jos Lehmann, Joost Breuker · 2001
This article presents the results of our effort in specifying the minimal common sense conceptualization used in reasoning about legal causal matters. Coming from the humanistic side of formal ontology, we give priority to the intuitive definitions, rather than to the technical formalization of the contents of our ontology. We therefore introduce all the material in natural language, assuming that a formal language makes a conceptualization clearer only if this is already clear. Section 1 points at some methodological and terminological issues that we believe to be great obstacles to reaching consensus on formal ontology within the AI community. Section 2 proposes a phenomenological approach to formal ontology and a definition of common sense. Sections 3, 4, 5 provide an example of how to apply the proposed approach. Finally, section 6 presents some conclusions and research objectives.