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Towards Representing Change in the BFO
Werner Ceusters1, Alan Ruttenberg2
1Department of Biomedical Informatics, University at Buffalo, USA.
Formal Ontology in Information Systems : Proceedings of the ... International Conference. FOIS (Conference)
|September 15, 2025
Summary
This study proposes extending the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) to explicitly represent change as a subtype of occurrent. This allows changes to be linked to processes and continuants, improving ontological modeling of real-world events.
Area of Science:
- Formal Ontology
- Information Science
- Philosophy of Science
Background:
- The Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) categorizes reality into continuants and occurrents.
- BFO currently lacks explicit representation for 'change' as a distinct ontological category.
- Existing BFO definitions limit the participation of qualities and dependent continuants in processes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a theoretical extension to the BFO for representing 'change'.
- To develop an axiomatization recognizing 'change' as a subtype of occurrent.
- To enable changes to be linked to processes and continuants.
Main Methods:
- Exploration of a theoretical basis for change representation.
- Development of initial axiomatization for change as an occurrent.
- Analysis of how changes 'happen-in' processes and 'happen-to' continuants.
Main Results:
- A framework is proposed where 'change' is a subtype of occurrent.
- This allows changes to be explicitly modeled as occurring within processes.
- Continuants can be linked to processes through these changes.
Conclusions:
- The proposed extension enhances BFO's ability to model dynamic aspects of reality.
- Explicit representation of change facilitates richer data integration and analysis.
- Future work involves formalizing these ideas as BFO-FOL axioms.
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