Formal ontologies, exemplars, prototypes

Abstract

The problem of concept representation is relevant for knowledge engineering and for ontology-based technologies. However, the notion of concept itself turns out to be highly disputed and problematic in cognitive science. In our opinion, one of the causes of this state of affairs is that the notion of concept is in some sense heterogeneous, and encompasses different cognitive phenomena. This results in a strain between conflicting requirements, such as, for example, compositionality on the one side and the need of representing prototypical information on the other. AI research in some way shows traces of this situation. In this paper we propose an analysis of this state of affairs, and we sketch some proposals for concept representation in formal ontologies which take advantage from suggestions coming from cognitive science and psychological research. In particular we take into account the distinction between prototype and exemplar accounts in explaining prototypical effects. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.