Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Norms and plans as unification criteria for social collectives

  • Published:
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Based on the paradigm of Constructive Descriptions and Situations, we introduce NIC, an ontology of social collectives that includes social agents, plans, norms, and the conceptual relations between them. Norms are distinguished from plans, and their relations are formalized. A typology of social collectives is also proposed, including collection of agents, knowledge community, intentional collective, and normative intentional collective. NIC, represented as a first-order theory as well as a description logic for applications requiring automated reasoning, provides the expressivity to talk about the contexts (social, informational, circumstantial, and conceptual), in which collectives make and produce sense within the interplay of plans and norms.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Baker, C. F., Fillmore, C. J., & Lowe, J. B. (1998). The Berkeley framenet project. In Proceedings of the 1998 International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING-ACL), pp. 86–90.

  • Bartlett F. (1932). Remembering: An experimental and social study. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Boella G. and van der Torre L. (2007a). Norm negotiation in multiagent systems. International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems, 16(1): 97–122

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boella G. and van der Torre L. (2007b). The ontological properties of social roles in multi-agent systems: Definitional dependence, powers and roles playing roles. Artificial Intelligence and Law Journal, 15(3): 201–221

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boella G., Verhagen H. and van der Torre L. (2006). Introduction to normative multiagent systems. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 12(2–3): 71–79

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bottazzi E., Catenacci C., Gangemi A. and Lehmann J. (2006). From collective intentionality to intentional collectives: an ontological perspective. Cognitive Systems Research–Special Issue on Cognition and Collective Intentionality, 7: 2–3

    Google Scholar 

  • Bratman M.E. (1992). Shared cooperative activity. The Philosophical Review, 101(2): 327–341

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chi M., Glaser R. and Farr M. (1988). The nature of expertise. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Churchland P.S., Ramachandran V.S. and Sejnowski T.J. (1994). A critique of pure vision. In: Koch, C. and Davis, J. (eds) Large scale neuronal theories of the brain, pp 23–60. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Cocchiarella, N. (2004). Denoting concepts. Reference and the logic of names, classes as many, groups and plurals. http://www.formalontology.it/essays/plurals.pdf.

  • Cohen R. and Schnelle T.E. (1986). Cognition and fact–materials on Ludwik Fleck. Reidel, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Dauben J.W. (1979). Georg cantor: His mathematics and philosophy of the infinite. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Devlin K. (1993). The joy of sets: Fundamentals of contemporary set theory. Springer-Verlag, New York

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Dugac P. (1976). Richard Dedekind et les fondements des mathematiques. J. Vrin, Paris

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Fleck, L. (1936,1986). The problem of epistemology. In R. Cohen & T. Schnelle (Eds.), Cognition and fact—Materials on Ludwik Fleck (pp. 79–112). Dordrecht: Reidel.

  • Gangemi, A., Borgo, S., Catenacci, C., & Lehmann, J. (2005a). Task taxonomies for knowledge content. Deliverable D07 of the Metokis Project. http://www.loacnr.it/Papers/D07_v21a.pdf.

  • Gangemi, A., & Catenacci, C. (2006). A constructive ontology of descriptions and situations. Technical report, ISTC-CNR. http://www.loa-cnr.it/TR/ConstructiveDnS.pdf.

  • Gangemi, A., Guarino, N., Masolo, C., & Oltramari, A. (2001). Understanding top-level ontological distinctions. In H. Stuckenschmidt (Ed.), Proceedings of the IJCAI Workshop on Ontologies and Information Sharing.

  • Gangemi, A., & Mika, P. (2003). Understanding the semantic web through descriptions and situations. In R. Meersman et al. (Eds.): CoopIS/DOA/ODBASE (pp. 689–706). Springer.

  • Gangemi, A., Sagri, M. T., & Tiscornia, D. (2005b). A constructive framework for legal ontologies. In Law and the Semantic Web, Vol. LNCS 3369 (pp. 97–124). Springer.

  • Gelati J., Rotolo G., Sartor G. and Governatori G. (2004). Normative autonomy and normative co-ordination: Declarative power, representation, and mandate. Artificial Intelligence & Law Journal, 12: 53–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibbs J. (1965). Norms: The problem of definition and classification. The American Journal of Sociology, 70: 586–594

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert M. (1992). Social facts. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Grossi, D., Meyer, J., & Dignum, F. (2006). Counts-as: Classification or constitution? An answer using modal logic. In Proceedings of Deontic Logic and Artificial Normative Systems (vol. 4048), 8th International Workshop on Deontic Logic in Computer Science (ΔEON’06) (pp. 115–130), Springer LNCS.

  • Hart H. (1961). The concept of law. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Karmiloff-Smith A. (1994). Précis of ‘Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science’. Behavioral and Brain Science, 17(4): 693–706

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • King P. (2004). The metaphysics of Peter Abelard. In: Guilfoy, K. and Brower, J. (eds) The Cambridge companion to Abelard. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Köhler W. (1947). Gestalt psychology. Liveright, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn T.S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. The University of Chicago University Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakoff G. and Johnson M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehmann J. and Gangemi A. (2007). An ontology of physical causation as a basis for assessing causation in fact and attributing legal responsibility. Artificial Intelligence & Law Journal, 15: 301–321

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Light P. and Butterworth G.E. (1992). Context and cognition: Ways of learning and knowing. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Link G. (1983). The logical analysis of plurals and mass terms: A lattice-theoretical approach. In: von Stechow A. (eds) Meaning, use and interpretation of language, pp 302–323. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Marcus R.B. (1993). Classes, collections, assortments and individuals. In: Marcus, R.B. (eds) Modalities: Philosophical essays, pp 90–100. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Masolo, C., Gangemi, A., Guarino, N., Oltramari, A., & Schneider, L. (2004a). WonderWeb EU Project Deliverable D18: The WonderWeb library of foundational ontologies. http://wonderweb.semanticweb.org/deliverables/documents/D18.pdf.

  • Masolo C., Vieu L., Bottazzi E., Catenacci C., Ferrario R., Gangemi A. and Guarino N. (2004b). Social roles and their descriptions. In: Dubois, D., Welty, C., and Williams, M.A. (eds) Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Proceedings of the Ninth International conference KR 2004, pp 267–277. AAAI Press, Whistler, Canada

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy L.T. (2002). Ownership: A case study in the representation of legal concepts. Artificial Intelligence & Law Journal, 10: 135–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Minsky, M. (1975). A framework for representing knowledge. In P. Winston (Ed.), The psychology of computer vision. McGraw-Hill.

  • Moore M.S. (2002). Legal reality: A naturalist approach to legal ontology. Law and Philosophy, 21(6): 619–705

    Google Scholar 

  • Motik B. (2007). On the properties of metamodeling in owl. Journal of Logic and Computations, 17(4): 617–637

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Oberle, D., Mika, P., Gangemi, A., & Sabou, M. (2004). Foundations for service ontologies: Aligning OWL-S to DOLCE. In Proceedings of the World Wide Web Conference (WWW2004), volume Semantic Web Track.

  • OWL (2004). OWL Web ontology language family of specifications. http://www.w3.org/2004/OWL.

  • Piaget J. (1968). Six psychological studies. Vintage, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Quine W. (1980). On what there is. In From a Logical Point of View. 2nd Edn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • Reynolds C.W. (1987). Flocks, herds and schools: A distributed behavioral model. Computer Graphics, 21(4): 25–34

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Russell B. and Whitehead A.N. (1910). Principia mathematica. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Sagri, M., Tiscornia, D., & Gangemi, A. (2004). An ontology-based approach for representing “bundle-of-rights”. In M. Jarrar & A. Gangemi (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Regulatory Ontologies at OTM2004. Springer.

  • Sartor, G. (1991). Legal reasoning and normative conflicts. In J. Breuker, R. DeMulder, & J. Hage (Eds.), Legal knowledge based systems JURIX 91: Model-based legal reasoning, the foundation for Legal Knowledge Systems.

  • Searle J.R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay on the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle J.R. (1983). Intentionality. An essay in philosophy of mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle J.R. (1995). The construction of social reality. Free Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Simons P. (1987). Parts: A study in ontology. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanzione M. (1990). Epistemologie Naturalizzate. Roma, Bagatto

    Google Scholar 

  • Talmy L. (2003). Toward a cognitive semantics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Tuomela R. (1995). The importance of us: A philosophical study of basic social notions. Stanford University Press, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Tuomela R. (2003). Collective acceptance, social institutions and social reality. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 62(1): 123–165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tuomela R. and Balzer W. (2003). Social institutions, norms and practices. In Social Order in Multiagent Systems. Kluwer, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • von Neumann J. (1967). An axiomatization of set theory. In: Van Heijenoort J. (eds) From Frege to Gödel; A source book in mathematical logic, 1879–1931. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright G. (1963). Norm and action : A logical enquiry. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London

    Google Scholar 

  • von Whorf, B. (1956). Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. MIT Press.

  • Wooldridge M.J. (2000). Reasoning about rational agents. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA., London

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Zeman J.J. (1982). Peirce on Abstraction. The Monist, 65: 211–222

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology, Italian National Research Council, Rome, Italy

    Aldo Gangemi

Authors
  1. Aldo Gangemi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aldo Gangemi.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gangemi, A. Norms and plans as unification criteria for social collectives. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 17, 70–112 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-008-9038-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-008-9038-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation