Interrogation is the structured practice of systematic questioning by an authorized questioner to extract or verify information from a subject under defined procedural rules. It is distinguished from casual inquiry by (a) a formal role division (interrogator vs. subject), (b) procedural constraints (what questions may be asked, how answers are recorded, what counts as admissible), and (c) an institutional context (legal proceedings, investigations, intelligence gathering, military detention). The persistence mechanism is institutional codification: legal statutes, professional protocols, training curricula, and organizational SOPs that reproduce the practice across individuals and time. Without these institutional supports, interrogation collapses into unstructured questioning. [formal: interrogatio | substrate: behavior | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
interrogation
Interrogation is the structured practice of systematic questioning by an authorized questioner to extract or verify information from a subject under defined procedural rules. It is distinguished from casual inquiry by (a) a formal role div…
Definition
Why it is in scope
The structured institutional practice of systematic questioning to extract or verify information from a subject. Human-made in that it is a defined procedure with rules, protocols, and contexts (legal, investigative, military) — not mere asking, but a formalized method of inquiry with conventions about who asks, how, when, and what may be done with answers.
Names and aliases
- interrogationen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrcnandx00i113vzo755cmr0DEPENDS_ON →
Interrogation is the systematic asking of questions to obtain information. Removal test: remove questions and interrogation stops operating — it has no function without the concept of a question. Object-level dependency, not meta-level.
- cmrviak1701982cei7dl4hieqINSTANCE_OF →
Interrogation IS a specific kind of inquiry — the systematic questioning to obtain information. Competent speakers say interrogation is a type of inquiry. Nearest kind is inquiry.
Relations to this entry
- cms4y3aiv007xi9iqpyof5mii← INSTANCE_OF
Cross-examination is a specific kind of interrogation — questioning a witness under adversarial conditions to test credibility. Law 9: specific→general.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 24, 2026, 4:39 AM UTC
- Content hash
- c4a55c9b846c89bc7e709433fb72c508ff31ccf34f3735dd51f21b3e959ada2e