Accommodating Ontologies to Biological Reality—Top-Level Categories of Cumulative-Constitutively Organized Material Entities
Figure 5
Second Order Categories of Material Entity.
Possible subcategories of the three top-level categories of material entity aggregates (I–III) that can be differentiated on grounds of distinguishing two types of relation between the entities of the aggregate (i.e. metric proximity and topological adherence) and the presence or lack of fiat boundariesimmat: (i) Clusters are not demarcated by fiat boundariesimmat and are further characterized by topological adherence relations between the entities of the aggregate (through chemical bonds or physical junctions). (ii) Groups are demarcated by fiat boundariesimmat and are further characterized by metric proximity relations between the entities of the aggregate – they lack adherence. Since also several clusters can spatially relate to one another on grounds of metric proximity, clusters can be parts of groups as well. A)–D) The four subcategories of ‘object aggregate’ – an ‘object cluster’ and three subcategories of ‘object group’, all of which either consist of objects, object clusters, or both. Note that an object cluster is only demarcated by bona fide boundaries and thus does not represent a fiat whole. E)–H) The four subcategories of ‘fiat object part aggregate’ – a ‘fiat object part cluster’ and three subcategories of ‘fiat object part group’, all of which either consist of fiat object parts, fiat object part clusters, or both. I)–K) Four out of 26 subcategories of ‘object with fiat object part aggregate’ – an ‘object with fiat object part cluster’ and three out of 25 possible subcategories of ‘object with fiat object part group’. Fiat boundarymat: demarcates fiat parts of a material entity; fiat boundaryimmat: demarcates fiat parts of an immaterial entity (i.e. a hole). (modified from [4]).