PUTTING FUNCTIONAL KNOWLEDGE ON FIRMER GROUND

In this paper we focus on the concept and representation of function in the context of the multimodeling approach. The main contribution of the paper is to discuss the nature of functional knowledge and to disambiguate this type of knowledge from other types, such as teleology, behavior, and structure. Moreover, a general and theoretically sound framework for integration of these types of knowledge into a coherent system is proposed. Existing approaches to the definition and the representation of function are compared and their major limitations are highlighted. The concept of function and its representation in the multimodeling approach are illustrated. An example of functional representation concerning a household electric buzzer is discussed and the relations between functional knowledge and teleological, behavioral and structural knowledge are presented. The main contributions of our approach in the domain of diagnostic reasoning are summarized, and the paper concludes by mentioning current research work.