Foundations
Built on Basic Formal Ontology
The Common Core Ontologies extend Basic Formal Ontology, an ISO/IEC 21838 top-level standard. Every CCO class refines a BFO category, so the suite inherits a rigorous, widely reviewed foundation.
Three tiers, one stack
Basic Formal Ontology supplies the domain-neutral top-level categories. The Common Core Ontologies specialise those categories into reusable mid-level terms. Your domain ontology then specialises CCO for a particular field.
- Top: BFO continuants and occurrents
- Mid: CCO agents, artifacts, events, information
- Domain: your terms, extending CCO
Why inherit a top level at all
Reusing BFO means CCO does not have to defend its most general distinctions from scratch. Continuant versus occurrent, quality versus function, these are settled at the top level and inherited below, which is what keeps the whole stack reasoning consistently.
