Subclass of:

• sdh:C40 Intentional Set

Superclass of:

• sdh:C36 Plan

Scope note:

Social representations are defined in the social sciences as systems of values, beliefs, knowledge, etc. that serve to establish social order, guide people in their actions, enable them to communicate with each other, and structure groups and communities. They are modelled in this context as a collection of propositional objects, types and information objects that represent the content of the social representations of a given human group.

Examples:

War will probably break out with the neighbouring country

Lucia is marriageable (Alessandro Manzoni, I promessi sposi)

The Earth moves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit

The Earth is an extremely heavy body and rests at the centre of the Universe

Context notes:

This way of modelling social representations is inspired by the notion of 'description' in the Descriptions and situations ontology (WonderWeb Project, Deliverable 18). Descriptions are sets of propositions and related concepts that rediscribe states of affairs in the world according to a specific point of view. They can be expressed in oral or written form, in different languages or wording but insofar as they have the same intentional content they have the same identity. Examples of descriptions are social rules and fonctions, plans, laws, projects, scripts, techniques, etc. They are not given in 'nature', in the sense of physics or biology, but originate from social life and in the communication that is the basis of it.

In historical research, social representations (as 'descriptions') should be modelled as representing the collective intentionality of the societies being studied, note the ones of the researchers. It is therefore important to apply in modelling the principle of 'critical distance' in order to avoid anachronism.

Bibliographical notes:

Relevant documentation for conceptualizing this class:

• "Collective Intentionality" – Schweikard, David P. and Hans Bernhard Schmid, "Collective Intentionality", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/collective-intentionality/>.(Retireved 7 November 2020)
• Social representation (Wikipedia, English version, retrieved 7 November 2020)

In First Order Logic:

• C26(x) ⇒ C40(x)

Incoming properties:

• sdh:C4 Intention → sdh:P40 has context (is context of) (0,n:0,n)
• crm:E55 Type → sdh:P42 is defined by (define) (0,n:0,1)