In information science, formal concept analysis is a principled way of deriving a concept hierarchy or formal ontology from a collection of objects and their properties. Each concept in the hierarchy represents the set of objects sharing the same values for a certain set of properties; and each sub-concept in the hierarchy contains a subset of the objects in the concepts above it. The term was introduced by Rudolf Wille in 1984, and builds on applied lattice and order theory that was developed by Birkhoff and others in the 1930s.
Formal concept analysis finds practical application in fields including data mining, text mining, machine learning, knowledge management, semantic web, software development, and biology.
Read more about Formal Concept Analysis: Overview and History, Motivation and Philosophical Background
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“It is in the nature of allegory, as opposed to symbolism, to beg the question of absolute reality. The allegorist avails himself of a formal correspondence between “ideas” and “things,” both of which he assumes as given; he need not inquire whether either sphere is “real” or whether, in the final analysis, reality consists in their interaction.”
—Charles, Jr. Feidelson, U.S. educator, critic. Symbolism and American Literature, ch. 1, University of Chicago Press (1953)
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