Rethinking Geo-Ontologies from a Philosophical Point of View

Abstract

This article is intended as a philosophical introduction to geo-ontologies, in response to their increasing diffusion within the contemporary debate, where philosophy plays a fundamental, though still unexplored, role. The first part is concerned with the analysis of geo-ontologies, underlining their general and specific aims, and distinguishing three different disciplinary contexts which make up the geo-informatics domain: informatics, philosophy and geography. Secondly, I analyze the importance of common sense conceptualizations and their ontological structures, the connection between ontology of geography and theory of spatial representation, in terms of geographical entities, borders, theoretical tools (such as mereology, topology and theory of spatial location) and the distinction between classical and non-classical geographies. Finally, the main contemporary geo-ontologies are classified, through the analysis of their main contents and distinctive features, in geomatics/topological/geometrical, physical/natural and human ontologies.