Instance-type relations John’s heart instantiates human heart. In this document we discuss relations in all three groups. Note that relations of none of sorts are first-class entities (to see why not, see the discussion of the Bradley regress in [20]). However, there are first-class entities, such as and relational qualities relational (see below), which are relational in the sense that they link multiple relata. First-class entities processes are entities which have counterparts both at the level of instances (John’s act of kissing Mary yesterday) and at the level of universals (kiss, act, person). Primitive and defined terms We use terms (such as or Hayes’) to refer to entities, and relational expressions ‘BFO:object’ ‘Patrick (such as to assert that relations obtain between such entities. note(ontology)[For both ‘has_participant’) terms and relational expressions in BFO, we distinguish between and is an primitive defined. ‘Entity’ example of one such primitive term. Primitive terms in a highest-level ontology such as BFO are terms that are so basic to our understanding of reality that there is no way of defining them in a non-circular fashion. For these, therefore, we can provide only elucidations, supplemented by examples and by axioms. ] a(entity)[Elucidation: An is anything that exists or has existed or will [001-001]] entity as(entity)[Examples: Julius Caesar\, the Second World War\, your body mass index\, Verdi’s Requiem ] Definitions We distinguish between and Definitions of terms are required to be always terms relational expressions. of the form: = Def. which A B Ds
Instance-type relations John’s heart instantiates human heart. In this document we discuss relations in all three groups. Note that relations of none of sorts are first-class entities (to see why not, see the discussion of the Bradley regress in [20]). However, there are first-class entities, such as relational qualities and relational processes (see below), which are relational in the sense that they link multiple relata. First-class entities are entities which have counterparts both at the level of instances (John’s act of kissing Mary yesterday) and at the level of universals (kiss, act, person). Primitive and defined terms We use terms (such as ‘BFO:object’ or ‘Patrick Hayes’) to refer to entities, and relational expressions (such as ‘has_participant’) to assert that relations obtain between such entities. note(ontology)[For both terms and relational expressions in BFO, we distinguish between primitive and defined. ‘Entity’ is an example of one such primitive term. Primitive terms in a highest-level ontology such as BFO are terms that are so basic to our understanding of reality that there is no way of defining them in a non-circular fashion. For these, therefore, we can provide only elucidations, supplemented by examples and by axioms. ] a(entity)[Elucidation: An entity is anything that exists or has existed or will [001-001]] as(entity)[Examples: Julius Caesar\, the Second World War\, your body mass index\, Verdi’s Requiem ] Definitions We distinguish between terms and relational expressions. Definitions of terms are required to be always of the form: A = Def. B which Ds
BFO2-Reference.docx