Category-theoretical Semantics of the Description Logic ALC (extended version)

Abstract: Category theory can be used to state formulas in First-Order Logic without using set membership. Several notable results in logic such as proof of the continuum hypothesis can be elegantly rewritten in category theory. We propose in this paper a reformulation of the usual set-theoretical semantics of the description logic $\mathcal{ALC}$ by using categorical language. In this setting, ALC concepts are represented as objects, concept subsumptions as arrows, and memberships as logical quantifiers over objects and arrows of categories. Such a category-theoretical semantics provides a more modular representation of the semantics of $\mathcal{ALC}$ and a new way to design algorithms for reasoning.