Towards a Computational Ontology of Mind

The main goal of this paper is a preliminary characterization of the categories of the realm of the mental, able to fit and integrate the foundational ontology DOLCE (a Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering); we call this module COM (Computational Ontology of Mind). The idea of COM emerges from the need of a conceptual clarification from the standpoint of formal ontology of the entities that play a role in agent technologies for information systems. Based on philosophical tradition, we have singled out a central relation in the realm of the mental: aboutness. In our proposal aboutness connects a mental state with a mental object, at a certain time, and with respect to a given intentional agent. Furthermore, we envisage a generalization of this framework to mental processes and events. Thus, in the paper we give a first analysis of these entities, mainly focused on mental objects and their characteristics. We are also specifying the basic features of mental states and intentional agents, exploiting ontological categories and relations implemented in DOLCE