FOUST VIII 2024 : 8th Edition of the Foundational Ontology Workshop

*Overview

Foundational Ontologies are attempts to systematize very high-level categories of thought or reality. In practical terms, they aim to understand and formalise the meaning of very general terms, such as object, event, property, time, quality, relation, and process. Once formalised, these terms provide the top-level categories that are in principle common to many (if not all) domains of application. Consequently, Foundational Ontologies are widely acknowledged as crucial tools for tackling system and software interoperability issues.

Despite this recognition, there is less consensus on the specific entities a foundational ontology should cover, its organizational structure, its scope, and even its role in relation to more specialized domain ontologies. This lack of consensus often reflects deep-rooted debates stemming from different philosophical perspectives on reality, mind, and language.

The workshop aims to create a platform for researchers to explore the foundational aspects of applied ontology. This encompasses discussing philosophical foundations, presenting new research on specific foundational ontologies, discussing existing foundational ontologies, comparing them, and examining their relevance to the broader ontological enterprise.

*Topics of FOUST VIII

Applied ontology operates at the intersection of various disciplines. Many philosophical concepts and ideas have found fruitful applications in information systems, through their use and formalisation in applied ontology. Notably, philosophical inquiries into part-hood, ontological dependence, constitution, time, etc, have inspired concrete formalizations in applied ontology.

FOUST traditionally focuses on a series of topics in foundational ontology which lies at the intersection with philosophy. In some editions, FOUST adds a special topic to attract attention to some research questions. Along with this tradition, this year's focus revolves around the role of constructional approaches in applied ontology.

The concept of constructional ontology, introduced by Kit Fine in his influential paper "The Study of Ontology" (1991), involves assuming a set of ontological givens or basic elements and a set of constructors that can be iteratively applied to generate new elements in the ontology. This idea is related to the iterative conception of sets (Gödel 1964, Boolos 1971), a powerful paradigm in the philosophy of mathematics designed to prevent paradoxes (e.g. the “Russell set”).

Beside the usual topics, this edition of FOUST aims to explore how similar ideas can be implemented in applied ontology. What does it mean to have a constructional ontology, in practice? Are there recurring patterns that can be considered as ontological givens? Do reusable patterns of constructions exist? What are the conceivable means of construction, and, crucially, what are the practical advantages of adopting such an approach in applied ontology?

In fostering and starting a discussion of these themes, FOUST 8 welcomes presentations of ongoing research and perspectives that encourage interdisciplinary dialogue among the diverse sub-fields of applied ontology. Papers centred around the traditional workshop topics are also highly encouraged.

Topics of interest thus include (but are not limited to):

- Constructional approaches in applied ontology.
- Methodological aspects in applied ontology.
- Changes to existing foundational ontologies/extensions by new modules.
- Novel research on any specific category or topic that is usually covered by foundational ontology:
.functions,
.roles,
.time,
.mereology,
.ontological dependence,
.constitution,
.properties and intensional entities,
.collectives and social entities.
- Theoretical results about specific foundational ontologies (e.g., consistency proofs, modularizations)
- Application results of foundational ontologies in AI, the Semantic Web, Linguistics and more.
- Conceptual and formal comparisons and alignments of foundational ontologies.
- Relationship and alignment of foundational ontologies and domain ontologies.
-Philosophical foundations for applied ontology.

*Important Dates

Preliminary submission deadline: April 17, 2024
Notification of acceptance: May 15, 2024
Camera-ready deadline: June 30th, 2022
Workshop dates: 15-19, 2024
Submission types

*We welcome three types of submissions.

Abstract for presentation only: 2-3 pages (not included in the proceedings);
Short papers: 5-9 pages;
Full research papers: max. 10-14 pages.

(Page number includes references)

*Submission instructions

The submissions need to adhere to the one-column CEUR template available here: https://ceur-ws.org/HOWTOSUBMIT.html, https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/template-for-submissions-to-ceur-workshop-proceedings-ceur-ws-dot-org/wqyfdgftmcfw.

Submissions need to be uploaded on EasyChair as a single pdf: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fois2024.

Submissions including semantic artifacts, methodologies, softwares, etc, need to adhere to the FAIR guidelines. Please check:https://www.utwente.nl/en/eemcs/fois2024/fair-4-fois/.

All contributions to JOWO workshops will be published in a joint CEUR proceedings volume, compare:

JOWO 2022: https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3249/
JOWO 2021: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2969/
JOWO 2020: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2708/
JOWO 2019: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2518/
JOWO 2018: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2205/

*Organisation

Chairs:
Greta Adamo, BC3 – Basque Centre for Climate Change
Guendalina Righetti, University of Oslo

Steering Committee:
Stefano Borgo – Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy
Oliver Kutz – Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Frank Loebe – University of Leipzig, Germany
Fabian Neuhaus – Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany