Ontology of Time in GFO.
Ringo Baumann, Frank Loebe, Heinrich Herre · Formal Ontology in Information Systems · 2012
Time, events, changes and processes play a major role in conceptual modeling, and in information systems and computer science altogether. Accordingly, the representation of time structures and reasoning about temporal data and knowledge are important theoretical and practical research areas. We assume that a formal representation of temporal knowledge must use as a framework some toplevel ontology that describes the most general categories of temporal entities. In the current paper we discuss an ontology of time which is part of the foundational ontology GFO (General Formal Ontology). This ontology of time is inspired by ideas of Franz Brentano [1]. It is used to propose novel contributions to a number of problematic issues related to temporal representation and reasoning, among others, the Dividing Instant Problem and the problem of persistence and change. We present an axiomatization of the ontology as a theory in first-order logic. Eventually, metalogical analysis shows the consistency, completeness, and decidability of this theory.