Core Constructional Ontology

The Foundation for the Top-Level Ontology of the Information Management Framework

The purpose of this report is to give an understanding of the technicalities of the foundation and formalisation underpinning a foundational ontology. This report is directed at a technical audience interested in understanding what the foundation of the foundational ontology is and how it is formalised. In particular, we expect the report to be of interest to logicians and formal ontologists. This is part of a project to build a unified foundation, called the Core Constructional Ontology (CCO). This stage of the project has developed a transitional framework that establishes the feasibility of building the CCO. The framework is formalised by means of a theory we call the Core Constructional Theory (CCT). Here we describe the CCT and its associated CCO. Later stages of the project will further develop and enhance this framework. Appendix E.5 gives some indication of what these enhancements could be. This novel theory develops the idea that all the objects in the CCO emerge during construction. We start from an initial collection of objects—often called givens—and a small number of constructors, and the entire ontology unfolds from repeated constructions. So from the givens and constructors one knows, in principle, all the objects in the ontology. Using the technical resources of plural logic, the CCT formalises the arrangement of constructions in stages, where the intended ontology arises after exhausting all the stages. This report documents the CCT and provides a proof of its consistency.