Ontological Foundations of Resilience

Amid rising global challenges, resilience is attracting increased interest across various disciplines. However, significant ambiguities, vagueness, and variations in its definitions present notable obstacles to interdisciplinary communication and practical application. These semantic issues negatively impact not only the applications that rely on these definitions but also undermine the integrity of the conceptual models built from them, rendering them unable to ensure interoperability and clarity for their intended users. Recognizing the need for a robust and clear definition of resilience, this work addresses the complexity inherent in the concept by performing an ontological analysis using the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) and creating a sound core ontology model with OntoUML, UFO’s related conceptual modeling language. This research unfolds the conceptualization of resilience by investigating its fundamental categories and related concepts. We explore essential aspects of resilience, examining whether it preexists disturbances or is developed in response to them. We also identify its relational dependencies, establish how it is actualized, and determine the circumstances under which it becomes perceptible. Following our analysis of the ontological nature of resilience, the paper establishes an ontologically well-founded definition of this concept. To illustrate the practical application of our theoretical findings, we present a specific case in the field of production management.