F.10 DOLCE – Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering 

F.10.1 Overview 

Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering (DOLCE) is a  foundational ontology designed in 2002 in the context of the WonderWeb EU project, developed by Nicola Guarino and his associates at the Laboratory for Applied Ontology (LOA). As implied by its acronym, DOLCE is oriented toward capturing the ontological categories underlying natural language and human common sense.  DOLCE, however, does not commit to a strictly referentialist metaphysics related to the intrinsic nature of the world. Rather, the categories it introduces are thought of as cognitive artifacts, which are ultimately depending on human perception, cultural inprints, and social conventions. In this sense, they intend to be just descriptive (vs prescriptive) notions, which support the formal specification of domain conceptualizations. 

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_ ontology#DOLCE 

See also: http://www.loa.istc.cnr.it/dolce/overview.html

F10.2 Top-Level

The top object is labelled ‘Particular’ indicating that all instances of this and its sub-types are particulars. One implication of this is that the ontology is first order – that there are no higher order ontologies. 

F.10.3 Key characteristics 

DOLCE is a well-documented heavyweight natural language ontology aiming to capture the ontological categories underlying natural language and human common sense. 

F.10.4 Relevant extracts 

None added. 

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Continue to Appendix G: Prior ontological commitment literature