Ontology-Driven Cultural Heritage Conservation: A Case of The Analects of Confucius

Fengxiang Wang,Jun Wang,Tong Wei

doi:10.3390/app12010287

Abstract

Confucianism, recognized as the belief system of Chinese, is one of the most important intangible cultural heritages of China. The main ideas of its founder, Confucius, are written in The Analects of Confucius. However, its scattered chapters and the obscurity of ancient Chinese have prevented many people from understanding it. In order to overcome this difficulty, it needs some modern ways to reveal the vague connotation of Confucianism. This paper aims to describe how to construct the Lunyu ontology in which all concepts are abstract within the core scope, i.e., morality of Confucianism. The key task of this project lies in identifying essential characteristics, a notion that is compliant with the ISO principles on Terminology (ISO 1087 and 704), according to which a concept is defined as a combination of essential characteristics. This paper proposed an approach in the practice of identifying essential characteristics of abstract concepts from different meanings of its Chinese terms in The Analects of Confucius. With this work, Lunyu ontology established a semantic, formal, and explicit representation system for concepts of Confucianism, and the new proposed approach provides a useful reference for other researchers.

Highlights

Cultural Heritage is a civilization’s memory of a country or a society, as well as the wealth shared by people all over the world
The main content of Confucian culture is condensed in the book named The Analects of Confucius (Chinese: Lunyu), which was written during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period (770 BCE–221 BCE)
Following the ISO principles on Terminology where “a term is a verbal designation of a concept” and “a concept is a unique combination of characteristics” (An “essential characteristic” is a characteristic of a concept and is indispensable to understanding that concept (ISO 1087)

Summary

Introduction

Cultural Heritage is a civilization’s memory of a country or a society, as well as the wealth shared by people all over the world. It records the thoughts and activities of the ancients who lived in a certain area and at a certain time. The reason to recognize it as the most essential ICH of China is that Confucianism is the cultural foundation of Chinese society since the Qin dynasty (221 BCE–207 BCE) until the beginning of the 20th century. Compared with the requirement of other cultural heritages, which is to be preserved, Confucianism needs to be represented in more modern ways such that people with different cultural backgrounds can understand it better

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