Abstract. This paper is concerned with certain ontological issues in the foundations of geographic representation. It sets out what these basic issues are, describes the tools needed to deal with them, and draws some implications for a general theory of spatial representation. Our approach has ramifications in the domains of mereology, topology, and the theory of location, and the question of the interaction of these three domains within a unified spatial representation theory is addressed. In the final part we also consider the idea of nonstandard geographies, which may be associated with geography under a classical conception in the same sense in which non-standard logics are associated with classical logic. 1.

Continuity from a qualitative perspective is different from both the philosophical and mathematical view of continuity. We explore different intuitive notions of spatio-temporal continuity. We present a general formal framework for continuity and continuous transitions in mereotopology for spatio-temporal histories and thus sketch the correctness of the conceptual neighbourhood for the qualitative spatial representation language RCC-8.

To fix the semantics of different kinds of parthood relations we require axioms which go beyond those characterizing partial orderings. I formulate such axioms and show their implications for bio-ontologies. Specifically, I discuss parthood relations among masses, for example among body substances such as blood and portions thereof, and among components of complexes, for example between your stomach and your gastro-intestinal system. I contrast these with the relation of being contained in (as your lungs are contained in your thorax).

Formal ontology, as the science of the formal relations that structure reality as a whole, aims at a theory of categories corresponding to the most general features of possible objects, whether existing or non-existing. The present paper is an attempt to summarise and extend recent research in analytical metaphysics in a formalised theory of objects. Existence is characterised as a formal property, suggesting that the use of quantifiers alone does not involve any existential assumptions about the objects quantified over. However, the only non-existing objects allowed for in the present account are real or objective possibilities. De re modalities as well as ontological dependence are defined on the basis of a counterpart-theoretic specification of possibilia. The present framework allows for necessary and non-relative identity as well as for a granular parthood relationship satisfying the thesis of composition as partial identity. The paper culminates in the formalisation of an Aristotelian four-category ontology allowing for universals and particulars, substances and particularised properties; in this context, the redundance of higher-order material universals as well as moderate haecceitism is argued for. After a short analysis of relationality and extrinsicness, a theory of spatial and temporal objects is sketched and a temporal counterpart theory is proposed as a solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics. The paper concludes with some general remarks on the relation between ontology and the theory of subjectivity, defending a modal approach to consciousness and a counterpart theoretic analysis of intentionality.

Since our world is populated by entities that persist through time and that change over time it is important to represent knowledge about those entities in a formal manner. In this paper a formal theory of the mereological structure of stages and persistent entities is presented. Stages are entities which exist only at a single moment in time. Persistent entities are entities which exist at more than one instant in time. Endurance and perdurance are identified as different modes of persistence. The underlying framework is a mereology of spacetime regions in which we can distinguish between spatial regions (i.e., regions of minimal temporal extend) and temporally extended regions. Time-slices are defined as maximal spatial regions and are used to describe the temporal properties of spacetime regions and the entities (endurants, perdurants, and stages) located at these regions.

Material constitution and coincidence are widely discussed but poorly understood. This paper is an attempt to make progress by developing an account of how numerically distinct material objects coincide when one constitutes the other. I address two central issues: first, do material coincidents share their proper spatiotemporal parts, and if so, do they share all of them? Second, how can material coincidents share their spatiotemporal location and matter, so share material properties such as having mass m, shape s, and location l, but not share all of their properties? To answer these questions, I develop a property mereology for objects and argue that coincidents overlap with respect to all of their spatiotemporal parts but not all of their property parts. If we can adequately explicate coincidence, we can begin to answer questions about material constitution and related questions about de re modality, persistence, supervenience, redundant causation, event individuation, personal identity, nonreductive materialism in mind, and reference.

Abstract. The so-called “argument from vagueness”, the clearest formulation of which is to be found in Ted Sider’s book Four-dimensionalism, is among the most powerful and innovative arguments offered in support of the view that objects are four-dimensional perdurants. The argument is defective—I submit—and in a number of ways that is worth looking into. But each “defect”, each gap in the argument, corresponds to a model of change that is independently problematic and that can hardly be built into the common-sense picture of the world. So once all the gaps of the argument are filled in, the three-dimensionalist is left with the burden of a response that cannot rely on a passive plea for common sense. The argument is not a threat to common sense as such; it is a threat to the three-dimensionalist faithfulness to common sense.

We aim to characterize some properties of concrete objects that seems to be reflected in language use and that make for different categories of references. A difference is made here between so-called spatial objects, and concrete, or material objects (cars, dogs, pools of mud, accountants or puffs of smoke). When talking

This paper presents an axiomatic formalisation of a theory of top-level relations between three categories of entities: individuals, universals, and collections. We deal with a variety of relations between entities in these categories, including the sub-universal relation among universals and the parthood relation among individuals, as well as cross-categorial relations such as instantiation and membership. We show that an adequate understanding of the formal properties of such relations – in particular their behavior with respect to time – is critical for geographic information processing. The axiomatic theory is developed using Isabelle, a computational system for implementing logical formalisms. All proofs are computerverified and the computational representation of the theory is available online.

In the current debate on how ordinary objects persist through time, more than one philosopher has endorsed the following two theses: stage theory and diachronic universalism. In this paper, I would like to offer a solution to the problem (related to lingering properties) that Balashov poses to the joint acceptance of these theses. I will also offer a number of reasons why, even if it is not necessary to undermine Balashov‘s counterexamples, stage theorists can, without making their theory less appealing, reject Balashov‘s understanding of sorts, which plays a crucial role in his criticisms of stage universalism.