Situoid theory An ontological approach to situation theory

Situations are entities that have been discussed in philosophy, ontology and computer science for applications in the field of knowledge representation, conceptual modelling and natural language semantic. On the basis of an extensive literature review, situations and entities we call situoids, which are more basic than situations, will be discussed and their ontological features investigated. As far as possible, the results of this investigation are formulated as axioms. This is done with respect to a background top-level ontology, the ontology of GOL. The belief that situoids are “parts of reality that can be comprehended as a whole” is central to this research, and will be investigated thoroughly. Situations as derived entities are not given as much attention, but some of their features will be discussed as well. While attempting to describe situoids, other categories have to be mentioned, such as states of affairs and infons. The theory is built up systematically from states of affairs over infons, situoids to situations. Some applications known from situation theory are revisited in the framework of situoids. Finally, it is shown how the theory if situoids can be used to introduce modality in GOL.