http://www.loa-cnr.it/ontologies/DOLCE-Lite#physical-object
The main characteristic of physical objects is that they are endurants with unity. However, they have no common unity criterion, since different subtypes of objects may have different unity criteria. Differently from aggregates, (most) physical objects change some of their parts while keeping their identity, they can have therefore temporary parts. Often physical objects (indeed, all endurants) are ontologically independent from occurrences (discussed below). However, if we admit that every object has a life, it is hard to exclude a mutual specific constant dependence between the two. Nevertheless, we may still use the notion of dependence to (weakly) characterize objects as being not specifically constantly dependent on other objects.
Instances of dol:physical-object can have the following properties:
| PROPERTY | TYPE | DESCRIPTION | RANGE |
|---|---|---|---|
| From class dol:physical-endurant | |||
| dol:host-of | owl:ObjectProperty | dol:feature | |
| dol:physical-location | owl:ObjectProperty | Analytical location holding between physical endurants and physical regions. | dol:physical-region |
| From class dol:endurant | |||
| dol:life | owl:FunctionalProperty | Total constant participation applied to the mereological sum of the perdurants in which an endurant participates. | dol:perdurant |
| dol:constant-participant-in | owl:ObjectProperty | dol:perdurant | |
| dol:mereologically-coincides | owl:ObjectProperty | Having the same parts at time t. | dol:endurant |
| dol:participant-in | owl:ObjectProperty | dol:perdurant | |
| dol:temporary-atomic-part | owl:ObjectProperty | Having an atom as part at a time t. | dol:endurant |
| dol:temporary-atomic-part-of | owl:ObjectProperty | dol:endurant | |
| dol:temporary-part | owl:ObjectProperty | Being part at time t. It holds for endurants only. This is important to model parts that can change or be lost over time without affecting the identity of the whole. In FOL, this is expressed as a ternary relation, but in DLs we only can reason with binary relations, then only the necessary axiom of compresence is represented here. | dol:endurant |
| dol:temporary-part-of | owl:ObjectProperty | dol:endurant | |
| dol:temporary-participant-in | owl:ObjectProperty | x participates in some of y's parts. | dol:perdurant |
| dol:temporary-proper-part | owl:ObjectProperty | Being proper part at time t. It holds for endurants only. This is important to model proper parts that can change or be lost over time without affecting the identity of the whole. | dol:endurant |
| dol:temporary-proper-part-of | owl:ObjectProperty | dol:endurant | |
| dol:total-constant-participant-in | owl:ObjectProperty | dol:perdurant | |
| dol:total-temporary-participant-in | owl:ObjectProperty | dol:perdurant | |
@prefix dol: <http://www.loa-cnr.it/ontologies/DOLCE-Lite#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .
dol:physical-object a owl:Class ;
rdfs:comment "The main characteristic of physical objects is that they are endurants with unity. However, they have no common unity criterion, since different subtypes of objects may have different unity criteria. Differently from aggregates, (most) physical objects change some of their parts while keeping their identity, they can have therefore temporary parts. Often physical objects (indeed, all endurants) are ontologically independent from occurrences (discussed below). However, if we admit that every object has a life, it is hard to exclude a mutual specific constant dependence between the two. Nevertheless, we may still use the notion of dependence to (weakly) characterize objects as being not specifically constantly dependent on other objects."^^xsd:string ;
rdfs:subClassOf dol:physical-endurant ;
owl:disjointWith dol:amount-of-matter,
dol:feature .