Ontological Prisms

Knowledge Engineering for Enterprise & Agentic Systems
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-394-35262-3
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons Inc

Buch, Englisch, 352 Seiten

Ontological Prisms

The expansion of generative AI has highlighted the limitations of purely neural approaches and the benefits of coupling them with symbolic counterparts epitomized by ontologies. While knowledge graphs emerge as the jack of all trades among agents dealing with language, knowledge, and orchestration, there is little consensus on the sources and roles of ontologies, in other words, knowledge.

The book introduces ontological prisms, a game-changing paradigm that unfolds the geometry of knowledge into a triptych of observed worlds (facts), meanings (concepts), and shared representations (categories).

This approach entails three major breakthroughs with regard to: - Interoperability: by establishing a principled and actionable distinction between communication (language) and representation (knowledge), ontological prisms provide a blueprint for semantic and conceptual layers set across heterogeneous representations
- Abstraction levels: leveraging its three-pronged paradigm, ontological prisms untangle the abstraction conundrum between upper (or foundational) and lower (or domain-specific) level ontologies. This allows for a smooth, declarative integration of ontological abstractions without imposing unwieldy inheritance hierarchies
- Temporality: the epistemic distinction between worlds (facts), intents (concepts), and representations (categories), combined with differentiated abstraction semantics, enables diachronic knowledge management alongside concurrent engineering processes, regardless of domain overlaps and misaligned life cycles

These advances allow for a seamless integration of knowledge engineering between agentic and enterprise systems: facts, categories, and concepts for the former, mapped to data, information, and knowledge for the latter, respectively. That knowledge-driven integration of cognitive and systems capabilities paves the way to a holistic approach to collective learning weaving together individuals, organizations, and systems.

The book is organized into three parts: principles, foundations, and architecture; cognitive functions: language, reasoning, and judgment; and systems and knowledge engineering. The third part introduces the KEOPS (Knowledge Engineering with Ontological Prisms) methodology, accompanied by a kernel developed with OWL/Prot??g??.

This organization allows for differentiated readings for graduates, engineers, and consultants, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of agentic cognition, knowledge engineering and ontology development, as well as business intelligence and decision-making systems.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fannader, Remy

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Informatik Künstliche Intelligenz
• Technische Wissenschaften Energietechnik | Elektrotechnik Elektrotechnik
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Mess- und Automatisierungstechnik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preamble xxi
About the Author xxiii

Part I 1

1 Current Approaches and Paradigm Shift 3
1.1 Ontologies and Artificial Intelligence 3
1.2 Ontologies and Knowledge 9
1.3 The Ontological Prisms Paradigm 18

2 Ontological Realms 25
2.1 Extensional Realm: Facts 26
2.2 Intensional Realm: Concepts 34
2.3 Logical Realm: Categories 41
2.4 Ontological Modalities 48

3 Ontological Prisms and Interoperability 55
3.1 Alignment and Integration 55
3.2 Interoperability of Heterogeneous Ontologies 62
3.3 Interoperability and Collective Intelligence 74

4 Ontological Prisms and Governance 79
4.1 Environments and Organizations 79
4.2 Data and Value Chains 85
4.3 Data Protection and Intellectual Property 92
4.4 Complexity Management 97

Part II 109

5 Ontologies and Language 111
5.1 Anatomy of Languages 111
5.2 Generative Language Models 115
5.3 Languages and Knowledge 121

6 Reasoning with Ontological Prisms 131
6.1 Ontologies and Reason 131
6.2 Formal Reasoning 133
6.3 Language Models and Logic 138
6.4 Empirical Reasoning 143
6.5 Reason and Knowledge 148

7 Decision-making with Ontological Prisms 155
7.1 Decision-making Dimensions 155
7.2 Problem and Solution Spaces 158
7.3 Visibility and Time Frames 162
7.4 Parties and Structure 166
7.5 Agentic Decision-making 171

Part III 183

8 Knowledge-based System Engineering 185
8.1 Systems and Organizations 185
8.2 Engineering Processes and Ontological Prisms 188
8.3 Anchoring Engineering to Ontologies 194
8.4 Requirements with Ontological Prisms 199
8.5 Engineering with Ontological Prisms (and Generative Artificial Intelligence) 209

9 The Engineering of Knowledge 223
9.1 Mapping Extensions 224
9.2 Mapping Intensions 247
9.3 Actionable Knowledge 255

10 KEOPS OWL Kernel 263
10.1 OWL/Protégé Kernel 263
10.2 Representing Territories 269
10.3 Representing Intents 279
10.4 Representing Abstractions 284

Key Points 288
Conclusion 289

Annexes 291
Annex 1 Summary of Notations 293
Annex 2 Acronyms and Glossary 295
Annex 3 Bibliography 309

Index 315

Über Autor(innen)

R?my Fannader is an IT professional with a background in artificial intelligence and economics, bringing over 35 years of consulting experience across banking, insurance, and software engineering. He has contributed to European Union research projects and published four books and more than two hundred in-depth articles on systems modeling, enterprise architecture, AI, and knowledge management.