"Relations, Events, and Explanation" Prof. Giancarlo Guizzardi (IC3K 2022)

Keynote Title: Relations, Events, and Explanation Keynote Lecturer: Giancarlo Guizzardi Presented on: 26/10/2022, Valletta, Malta Abstract: In Computer Science and, in particular, in Artificial Intelligence, ontologies have been deemed for the past 30 years as artifacts capable of supporting knowledge exchange and reuse, and semantic interoperability. However, if they are to play this role, ontologies must be more than just logical specifications, and ontology engineering must be primarily about Ontological Analysis. Ontological Analysis, in turn, is about employing formal (i.e., domain-independent) theories in the philosophical sense, as well as the analytical tools put forth by Ontology (with a capital ‘O’) to unpack the semantic content of representations. One particular type of Ontological Analysis is Truthmaker Analysis, which, in turn, is strongly connected to the notion of Metaphysical Grounding and Explanation. In this talk, I will (i) present an ontological theory of Relationships and Events, and show that they are the natural truthmakers of Relations. I will then show how this theory can be used to systematically unpack (i.e., explain) the semantic content of domain ontologies, and how this reveals important and subtle aspects of domain modeling that can have a decisive impact on semantic interoperability. Conference Website: https://ic3k.scitevents.org Presented at the following Conference: IC3K, 14th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management