Scope note

Text

This class comprises time-indexed observational situations defined as sets of phenomena in time and physical space whose identity does not depend on intrinsic criteria but on the perspective of the external observer, who carves out the epistemic situation from a more complex or prolonged number of temporal phenomena. The coherence or identity of an observational situation is thus provided by a specific, research-driven choice of the observer and this class is therefore disjoint from the crm:E4 Period class whose coherence is considered to be intrinsically defined.

The Observational Situation class includes situations in observable phenomena that are sliced up in terms of temporal duration, or of geographical extension or of the restriction to a particular aspect of more 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 observational situation thus cuts out a portion of more complex phenomena for the sake of observation and research. It is somehow constructed by simplification and choice of specifc aspects of the temporal phenomena, retaining just a specific set of them.

An observational situation can also concern the absence of a particular kind of phenomena during a particular period of time or in a particular place, such as the known non-presence of a person at an event. The observational situation is driven by an epistemic approach: it carves out a moment in time and space and captures the information of the absence of an awaited phenomenon. In this case the set of considered temporal phenomena is empty.

Language

en