Difference between revisions of "Ontology" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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{{Otheruses4|ontology in philosophy|the term in computer science|ontology (computer science)}}
 
{{Otheruses4|ontology in philosophy|the term in computer science|ontology (computer science)}}
  
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Ontology is one of major branches of [[philosophy]], which studies questions of being or existence. It is a central part of [[Metaphysics]]. Conceptual division of this branch of philosophy was established by [[Aristotle]]. He distinguished "a science of that studies being in so far as it is being" (Metaphysics, IV.1; 1003a21) and called it the "First Philosophy." [[Thomas Aquinas]] (1224/5 - 1274) further developed it within [[Christianity|Christian]] context and the issues were continually discussed by [[Scholasticism|Scholastics]]. The term "ontology" is, however, a modern coinage by [[Jacob Lorhard]] (Lorhardus) (1591 - 1609) and [[Rudolf Goclenius|Rudolph Göckel]] (Goclenius) (1547 - 1628), created by a compound of "on" ([[Greek language|Greek]] {{polytonic|ὤν}}, genitive {{polytonic|ὄντος}}: ''of being'' (part. of {{polytonic|εἶναι}}: ''to be'')) and "-logy" or "logos" ([[-logy|-λογία]]: ''science'', ''study'', ''theory''). [[Christian von Wolff]] (1679-1754) further developed it. [[Kant]], however,
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Ontology is one of major branches of [[philosophy]], which studies questions of being or existence. It is a central part of [[Metaphysics]]. The questions include wide range of issues on being such as: the meaning of being or what it means "to be" for each of such beings as physical entities, [[soul]]s, [[God]], values, numbers, time, space, imaginary objects, and others; what is real existence; why something exits rather than nothing, and so on.  
  
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, and [[Hegel]] and [[Nicolai Hartmann]] contributed to its development in their own ways.
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Thee conceptual division of this branch of philosophy was established by [[Aristotle]]. He distinguished "a science of that studies being in so far as it is being" (Metaphysics, IV.1; 1003a21) and called it the "First Philosophy." [[Thomas Aquinas]] (1224/5 - 1274) further developed it within [[Christianity|Christian]] context and the issues were continually discussed as the central issue in philosophy by [[Scholasticism|Scholastics]]. The term "ontology" is, however, a modern coinage by [[Jacob Lorhard]] (Lorhardus) (1591 - 1609) and [[Rudolf Goclenius|Rudolph Göckel]] (Goclenius) (1547 - 1628), created by a compound of "on" ([[Greek language|Greek]] {{polytonic|ὤν}}, genitive {{polytonic|ὄντος}}: ''of being'' (part. of {{polytonic|εἶναι}}: ''to be'')) and "-logy" or "logos" ([[-logy|-λογία]]: ''science'', ''study'', ''theory'').  
  
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Although [[Christian von Wolff]] (1679-1754) further developed it, ontology was superseded by [[epistemology]] by major modern philosophers from [[Descartes]] to [[Kant]]. In the twentieth century, [[Nicolai Hartmann]], [[Martin Heidegger]], and [[Neo-Thomism|Neo-Thomists]] shed new light  on ontology and revived its popularity. In the tradition of [[Analytic philosophy]], questions of being is approached through linguistic analysis.
  
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== Questions of ontology==
  
  
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== Some basic questions ==
 
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Ontology has one basic question: "What exists?" Different [[philosophers]] provide different answers to this question.
 
  
 
One common approach is to divide the extant entities into groups called "categories." However, these lists of categories are also quite different from one another. It is in this latter sense that ontology is applied to such fields as [[theology]], [[information science]] and [[artificial intelligence]].
 
One common approach is to divide the extant entities into groups called "categories." However, these lists of categories are also quite different from one another. It is in this latter sense that ontology is applied to such fields as [[theology]], [[information science]] and [[artificial intelligence]].
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* What features are  essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a given object? What are an object's [[properties]] or relations and how are they related to the object itself?  
 
* What features are  essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a given object? What are an object's [[properties]] or relations and how are they related to the object itself?  
 
* Why are we here? Why does anything exist, rather than nothingness? (Though, according to some, these questions may be more in the realm of [[Cosmology (metaphysics)|cosmology]].)
 
* Why are we here? Why does anything exist, rather than nothingness? (Though, according to some, these questions may be more in the realm of [[Cosmology (metaphysics)|cosmology]].)
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== Concepts ==
 
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Quintessential ontological [[concept]]s include:
 
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* [[Universal (metaphysics)|Universals]]
 
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* [[Substance theory|Substance]]
 
  
 
== Early history of ontology ==
 
== Early history of ontology ==
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Ontological questions have also been raised and debated by thinkers in the ancient civilizations of India and China, in some cases perhaps predating the Greek thinkers who have become associated with the concept.<ref>[http://formalontology.it/history.htm A history of philosophical development]</ref>
 
Ontological questions have also been raised and debated by thinkers in the ancient civilizations of India and China, in some cases perhaps predating the Greek thinkers who have become associated with the concept.<ref>[http://formalontology.it/history.htm A history of philosophical development]</ref>
  
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== Subject, relationship, object ==
 
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"What exists," "What is," "What am I," "What is describing this to me," all exemplify questions about being, and highlight the most basic problems in ontology: finding a subject, a relationship, and an object to talk about. During the [[the Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] the view of [[René Descartes]] that "[[cogito ergo sum]]" ("I think therefore I am") had generally prevailed, although Descartes himself did not believe the question worthy of any deep investigation. However, Descartes was very religious in his [[philosophy]], and indeed argued that "cogito ergo sum" proved the existence of [[God]]. Later theorists would note the existence of the "[[Cartesian Other]]" &mdash; asking "who is reading that sentence about thinking and being?" &mdash; and generally concluded that it must be God. 
 
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This answer, however, became increasingly unsatisfactory in the [[20th century]] as the [[philosophy of mathematics]] and the [[philosophy of science]] and even [[particle physics]] explored some of the most fundamental barriers to knowledge about being.  Sociological theorists, most notably [[George Herbert Mead]] and [[Erving Goffman]], saw the Cartesian Other as a "Generalized Other," the imaginary audience that individuals use when thinking about the self.  The Cartesian Other was also used by Freud, who saw the [[Ego, superego, and id|superego]] as an abstract regulatory force.
 
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</b>
 
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== Body and environment ==
 
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Schools of [[metaphysical subjectivism|subjectivism]], [[metaphysical objectivism|objectivism]] and [[relativism]] existed at various times in the 20th century, and the [[postmodernism|postmodernists]] and [[embodied philosophy|body philosophers]] tried to reframe all these questions in terms of bodies taking some specific [[philosophy of action|action]] in an environment. This relied to a great degree on insights derived from scientific research into animals taking instinctive action in natural and artificial settings &mdash; as studied by [[biology]], [[ecology]], and [[cognitive science]].
 
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The processes by which bodies related to environments became of great concern, and the idea of [[being]] itself became difficult to really define. What did people mean when they said "A is B," "A must be B," "A was B"...? Some linguists advocated dropping the verb "to be" from the English language, leaving "[[E-Prime|E&nbsp;Prime]]," supposedly less prone to bad abstractions. Others, primarily philosophers, tried to dig into the word and its usage. [[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]] attempted to distinguish ''being'' and ''existence''.
 
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== Anselm's Ontological Argument for the existence of God ==
 
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Issues of an ontological nature become of concern regarding discussions about possible  descriptions of God. Anselm's description of God is of  "that which nothing greater can be conceived." Anselm argues the '[[A priori and a posteriori (philosophy)|a priori]]' argument for the existence of God, stating that if God is "that which nothing greater can be conceived" of, he would have to exist for this description to be correct. Something which exists is greater than that which is imagined. God would necessarily, according to Anselm, exist, as we could possibly imagine something to be greater than God, which would therefore be impossible. Anselm's argues that as things which exist are greater than those which are imagined, God would have to, therefore exist for his description to be accurate.
 
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The counter-argument states that, just because one cannot think of something greater than God does not mean that there ''is'' nothing greater, except by arbitrary definition: "God = That which nothing greater can be conceived."
 
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This is a circular argument, using a definition that limits the possible answers (thus limiting God, which is then problematical); the cognitive powers of mind transcend actual reality all the time (contrary to the concept that something real is greater than something imagined).
 
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One might also take the stance that God is something that  is beyond [[Conception]]; World Religions in common practice define their God(s) as: ''without beginning or end'', or ''Not Born, and therefore, Not Mortal''.
 
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== Being and non-being ==
 
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{{section-stub}}
 
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Many forms of [[existentialism]] regard ''[[being]]'' as a fundamental central concept. [[Heidegger]] had much to say on the matter of being.  The [[verb]] [[to be]] has many different meanings in different contexts and can therefore be rather [[ambiguity|ambiguous]].  Because "to be" has so many different meanings, there are, accordingly, many different [[ways of being]].<ref>[http://formalontology.it/being.htm A Discourse on Being]</ref>.
 
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Descartes argues that God is a 'supremely perfect being' and that existence is a perfection so therefore God must exist. This also links to Descartes ''cogito ergo sum'' 'I think therefore I am' stating that we are thinking things and therefore exist in some unarguable form.
 
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== Becoming ==
 
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{{section-stub}}
 
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The first formal development of this notion within [[philosophy]] began with the [[pre-Socratic]] [[Heraclitus]], where he posited ''agon'' ("strife of opposites") as the ontological basis of all reality in terms of this endless transformative conflict, which was later contrasted and dominated by the [[Parmenides|Parmenidean]], or [[Platonic]], notion of Being, until more recent philosophers began a reversion of this trend.
 
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Notably and the first to make such an advocation since Heraclitus was the nineteenth century German philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], who used the expression "the innocence of becoming," a fundamental element of his philosophical thought grounded in the "will to power as ''pathos''," as a  means to describe the aesthetic qualities of existence, which pervades his thinking, including but not limited to ideas such as his "Dionysian world," "eternal recurrence," "amor fati," and "decadence." It was with this a-teleological view that he attempted to disgregate all views pertaining to the human condition, where "thingness" is ultimately characterized as a mere "hypothesis" in Nietzsche's phrase, and such a view, pertaining to the "inequality" of all "things," carries deep implications for ethics and the nature of knowledge.
 
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Likewise, in his [[Science of Logic | Logic]], [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel | Hegel]] uses Becoming as a mediating force in his [[Dialectic | dialectical]] model of ontology. In this model, Being is, on the one hand, opposing to Non-Being and, on the other hand, "is the same as Non-Being." Becoming acts therefore as the process by which Being comes into itself, or "becoming is the unity of being and not-being." [http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/hegel/1015.pdf]
 
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=== Process philosophy ===
 
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{{main|Process philosophy}}
 
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Process philosophy as developed by [[Alfred North Whitehead]] (1861-1947) and [[Charles Hartshorne]] (1897-2000) is school of thought which maintains that reality is ''always'' in a process of "becoming."
 
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== Social science ==
 
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Social scientists adopt one of four main ontological approaches: [[critical realism|realism]] (the idea that facts are out there just waiting to be discovered), [[empiricism]] (the idea that we can observe the world and evaluate those observations in relation to facts), [[positivism]] (which focuses on the observations themselves, attentive more to claims about facts than to facts themselves), and [[postmodernism]] (which holds that facts are fluid and elusive, so that we should focus ''only'' on our observational claims).
 
  
 
== Prominent ontologists ==
 
== Prominent ontologists ==

Revision as of 00:55, 5 November 2007

This article is about ontology in philosophy. For the term in computer science, see ontology (computer science).

Ontology is one of major branches of philosophy, which studies questions of being or existence. It is a central part of Metaphysics. The questions include wide range of issues on being such as: the meaning of being or what it means "to be" for each of such beings as physical entities, souls, God, values, numbers, time, space, imaginary objects, and others; what is real existence; why something exits rather than nothing, and so on.

Thee conceptual division of this branch of philosophy was established by Aristotle. He distinguished "a science of that studies being in so far as it is being" (Metaphysics, IV.1; 1003a21) and called it the "First Philosophy." Thomas Aquinas (1224/5 - 1274) further developed it within Christian context and the issues were continually discussed as the central issue in philosophy by Scholastics. The term "ontology" is, however, a modern coinage by Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus) (1591 - 1609) and Rudolph Göckel (Goclenius) (1547 - 1628), created by a compound of "on" (Greek ὤν, genitive ὄντος: of being (part. of εἶναι: to be)) and "-logy" or "logos" (-λογία: science, study, theory).

Although Christian von Wolff (1679-1754) further developed it, ontology was superseded by epistemology by major modern philosophers from Descartes to Kant. In the twentieth century, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, and Neo-Thomists shed new light on ontology and revived its popularity. In the tradition of Analytic philosophy, questions of being is approached through linguistic analysis.

Questions of ontology

One common approach is to divide the extant entities into groups called "categories." However, these lists of categories are also quite different from one another. It is in this latter sense that ontology is applied to such fields as theology, information science and artificial intelligence.

Further examples of ontological questions include:

  • What is existence? Is existence a property? What does it mean to say something exists or does not exist? Is existence properly a predicate? Are sentences expressing the existence or non-existence of something properly called propositions?
  • What is a physical object? Can one give an account of what it means to say that a physical object exists?
  • What could it mean to say that non-physical objects (such as times, numbers, souls, deities, values, imaginative objects) exist?
  • What constitutes the identity of an object? When does an object go out of existence, as opposed to changing?
  • What features are essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a given object? What are an object's properties or relations and how are they related to the object itself?
  • Why are we here? Why does anything exist, rather than nothingness? (Though, according to some, these questions may be more in the realm of cosmology.)

Early history of ontology

The concept of ontology is generally thought to have originated in early Greece. Before Socrates, questions of being, stasis and change occupied Parmenides and Heraclitus. Parmenides is associated with the view that being must be affirmed and non-being avoided and denied. This is also expressed by Parmenides in the dictum "ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι" or "It is, namely, being." Parmenides denied that there is any real change in the universe, and Heraclitus is diammetrically opposed to Parmenides in his affirmation of change as the ultimate nature of things.

After Socrates, ontology was very important for Plato and Aristotle. While the etymology is Greek, the oldest extant record of the word itself is the Latin form ontologia, which appeared in 1661, in the work Ogdoas Scholastica by Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus) and in 1631 in the Lexicon philosophicum by Rudolph Göckel (Goclenius). The first occurrence in English of "ontology" as recorded by the OED appears in Bailey’s dictionary of 1721, which defines ontology as ‘an Account of being in the Abstract’. However its appearance in a dictionary indicates it was in use already at that time. It is likely the word was first used in its Latin form by philosophers based on the Latin roots, which themselves are based on the Greek.

Students of Aristotle first used the word 'metaphysica' (literally "after the physics" because these works were placed after his works on physics) to refer to the work their teacher described as "the science of being qua being." The word 'qua' means 'in the capacity of'. According to this theory, then, ontology is the science of being inasmuch as it is being, or the study of beings insofar as they exist. Take anything you can find in the world, and look at it, not as a puppy or a slice of pizza or a folding chair or a president, but just as something that is. More precisely, ontology concerns determining what categories of being are fundamental and asks whether, and in what sense, the items in those categories can be said to "be."

Ontological questions have also been raised and debated by thinkers in the ancient civilizations of India and China, in some cases perhaps predating the Greek thinkers who have become associated with the concept.[1]


Prominent ontologists

See also

References
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  1. ↑ A history of philosophical development

External links


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