Subclass of:

• sdh:C40 Intentional Collection

Scope note:

This class comprises sets of one or more propositions, concepts or signs that represent the content of individual or collective intentionality. These sets of propositional objects, and other related conceptual objects, are present in human minds as a conceptualization proper to and shared by intentional entities in a social context.

These intentional entitites do not necessarily act together, and are therefore not an intentional collective in the sense of crm:E74 Group but they share the same representations stemming from education, social context, professional and social engagement, media, etc.

In this perspective, representations (beliefs, hopes, desires, knowledge, and also know-how, etc.) are constitutive of human individuals, or other intentional entities, in their mental and social identity, and provide the foundation of the identity of communities and social collectives.

Examples:

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

The Earth moves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit

Lucia is marriageable (Alessandro Manzoni, I promessi sposi)

War will probably break out with the neighbouring country

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)
• crm:E55 Type → sdh:P42 is defined by (define)