Dispositions and Roles of Generically Dependent Entities
This addresses a problem for ontology developers and users in fields like computer science and data management, but it is incremental as it builds on existing BFO 2020.
The paper tackles the limitation in BFO 2020 that prevents representing functions, dispositions, and roles of generically dependent continuants like software or datasets, and presents two approaches to address this issue, including proposing changes to BFO to support such representations.
BFO 2020 does not support functions, dispositions, and roles of generically dependent continuants (like software or datasets). In this paper, we argue that this is a severe limitation, which prevents, for example, the adequate representation of the functions of computer models or the various roles of datasets during the execution of these models. We discuss the aspects of BFO 2020 that prevent the representation of realizable entities of generically dependent continuants. Two approaches to address the issue are presented: (a) the use of defined classes and (b) a proposal of changes that allow BFO to support functions, dispositions, and roles of generically dependent continuants. The latter also addresses limitations of BFO 2020 concerning the roles and dispositions of immaterial entities, particularly boundaries and sites.