A framework for organization and representation on concept knowledge in autonomous agents

In this paper the problems of organization and representation of concept
knowledge are addressed from an autonomous agent perspective. The first part of the
paper discusses the question of why an autonomous agent needs concepts at all and
what other uses it can make of them. After the necessary and/or desirable functions
of concepts have been identified, previous attempts to represent concepts are briefly
surveyed to see if they support these functions. The result of the survey is negative in
the sense that none of these single and simple representations are powerful enough to
meet the discussed requirements. Moreover, this result indicates that, to support all the
necessary and/or desirable functions, a structured composite representation is needed.
Such a structure is then suggested, followed by a short discussion concerning which
kinds of representations are adequate for the different parts of the structure.