Subclass of:

• crm:E2 Temporal Entity

Superclass of:

• sdh:C99 Epistemic Phase of a Physical Thing
• sdh:C23 Use
• sdh:C60 Thing Involved in an Epistemic Situation
• sdh:C73 Epistemic Situation of a Group

Relations:

• owl:disjointWith crm:E4 Period

Scope note:

This class models time-indexed situations as phenomena in time and physical space whose identity does not depend on intrinsic criteria but on the perspective of the observer that cuts out the situation from a more complex or long lasting phenomenon. The coherence or identity of an epistemic situation is thus provided by a specific, arbitrary choice of the observer and this class is therefore disjoint with the crm:E4 Period class whose identity is intrinsic.

The Epistemic Situation class  includes situations in reality that are sliced up both in terms of temporal duration and of the restriction of a particular aspect of complex phenomena. For example, if we consider the economic activity of a country during a civil year, and measure different aspects of it, the life of this physical and social phenomenon does not stop to exist at the 31th of December of that year, nor it is limited to economy. An epistemic situation thus cuts out a portion of a more complex phenomenon for the sake of observation and research. It is somehow constructed by simplification and choice of specifc aspects of the phenomenon.

An epistemic situation can also concern the absence of a phenomenon, like the known not-being-present of a person at an event. The phenomenon expressed by the available information is only epistemic, in the sense of knowledge about a situation not realized as such in time and space but still observable as an absence of the concerned phenomenon.

Examples:

The economic activity in France in the year 2022. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of that year in France will be espressed as an instance of the Epistemic Situation Quantiative Quality class associated to the epistemic situation.

The weather (or the meteorological situation) in Bern in the month of March 2021. The average temperature in Bern, for instance, will be expressed using an instance of the Epistemic Situation Quantiative Quality class.

In First Order Logic:

• C3(x) ⇒ E2(x)

Outgoing properties:

• sdh:P74 has epistemic situation preferred type (is epistemic situation preferred type of) (0,n:0,1) → sdh:C56 Epistemic Situation Type
• sdh:P91 involves (is involved in) (0,n:0,1) → crm:E77 Persistent Item

Incoming properties:

• sdh:C59 Quantifiable Quality of an Epistemic Situation → sdh:P76 is quantifiable quality of (has quantifiable quality) (0,n:1,1)
• sdh:C60 Thing Involved in an Epistemic Situation → sdh:P77 is involvement in (has involved things) (0,n:1,1)