The goal of AI research is the simulation and approximation of human intelligence by computers. To a large extent this comes down to the development of computational reasoning services that allow machines to solve problems. Robots are the stereotypical example: imagine what a robot needs to know before it is able to interact with the world the way we do? It needs to have a highly accurate internal representation of reality. It needs to turn perception into action, know how to reach its goals, what objects it can use to its advantage, what kinds of objects exist, etc. The field of knowledge representation (KR) tries to deal with the problems surrounding the incorporation of some body of knowledge (in whatever form) in a computer system, for the purpose of automated, intelligent reasoning. In this sense, knowledge representation is the basic research topic in AI. Any artificial intelligence is dependent on knowledge, and thus on a representation of that knowledge. The history of knowledge representation has been nothing less than turbulent. The roller coaster of promise of the 50's and 60's, the heated debates of the 70's, the decline and realism of the 80's and the ontology and knowledge management hype of the 90's each left a clear mark on contemporary knowledge representation technology and its application.