A taxonomy of collective phenomena

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Wood, Zena | Galton, Antony

Affiliations: School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Note: [] Corresponding author.

Abstract: We are surrounded by collective phenomena, with examples existing on many levels of granularity. Despite our frequent experiences of such phenomena they seem to have been largely ignored within the field of ontology. In this paper, existing ontologies are examined to determine the extent to which they can adequately represent collective phenomena, and are found wanting in a number of important respects. An adequate representation of collective phenomena must do justice to the often subtle relationship that exists between a collective viewed as a whole and its constitution as a plurality of individual participants. An important prerequisite for this is to determine the range of variation that exists within the broad class of collectives. Numerous examples of collective phenomena have been studied to extract appropriate classification criteria. The results from this study are used to produce a new typology of collectives which is intended to establish a basis for the adequate treatment of collectives within an ontology. To illustrate the classification system we show how it can be used to highlight the significant distinctions between a suitably diverse range of examples. The paper concludes with a set of further research questions that have been raised during the development of the taxonomy.

Keywords: Collective, collection, social group, dynamic phenomena

DOI: 10.3233/AO-2009-0071

Journal: Applied Ontology, vol. 4, no. 3-4, pp. 267-292, 2009