Author Description

This volume collects 7 articles on applied ontology I wrote between 1996 and 2007 which were published in different journals and conferences (one unpublished): - A short and a long discussion of differences in the form of being of (1) observation of reality; (2) physical objects like men, cars and mountains, (3) objects and relations created by social conventions, e.g. money, marriage and real estate, (4) personal knowledge. - Two papers proposing a foundation of taxonomies on the distinctions that separate one taxon from another, which allows to create taxonomic structures of objects, relations and actions.- A proposal for an ontology for a changing world with actions and events.- An investigation of an ontology, which takes into account the limitations of human observations: measurement errors, approximations and uncertainty.- A plea for re-usable ontologies and how such can be achieved.The introduction - written 2018 - links the individual contributions together and puts them into perspective. The volume includes an extensive bibliography and index.