Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology: Leveraging Perspectives via a Showcase of EMMO-Based Domain and Application Ontologies

The effectiveness of semantic technologies in ensuring interoperability is often hindered by the preference for internally developed knowledge bases and the presence of diverse conceptual frameworks and implementation choices. Foundational, upper-level ontologies based on FOL and OWL2-DL address interoperability and provide a robust foundation for domain and application ontologies. They emphasize logical rigor and expressiveness, aligning with the idea of shared ontologies for knowledge diffusion and reuse. In scientific and industrial contexts, a framework that accommodates scientific pluralism is essential. The Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology (EMMO) meets this need, offering a rigorous yet pluralistic representation of knowledge through the mereocausal theory, focusing on parthood (mereology) and causation. EMMO’s adaptable architecture includes discipline-specific modules, enabling the representation of items from multiple perspectives, such as viewing an image as both an’Object’ and’Data’. This paper presents EMMO’s perspectives, including the Reductionistic, Holistic, Persistence, Contrast, Structural and Semiotics perspectives. It then proceeds to showcase four recently-developed ontologies based on EMMO, one at the domain level (CHAMEO) and three at the application level (BTO, HPO and MAEO), taking advantage of EMMO’s perspectives and therefore demonstrating its representational capabilities and versatility.