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Ontology

In philosophy, '''ontology''' (from the Greek language|Greek , genitive : ''of being'' (part. of : ''to be'') and -logy|-λογία: ''science'', ''study'', ''theory'') is a branch of metaphysics, often considered the most fundamental. It is the study of the nature of being, existence, or reality in general and of its category of being|basic categories and their relations, with particular emphasis on determining what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how these can be grouped and related within ''an'' ontology (typically, a hierarchy subdivided according to similarities and differences). Though distinguished from epistemology, as theories of knowledge typically involve some assumptions about existence and what exists, these can be seen as complementary disciplines. Students of Aristotle first used the word Metaphysics (Aristotle)|'metaphysica' (literally "after the physical") to refer to what their teacher described as "the science of being ''qua'' being" - later known as ontology. '' 'Qua' '' means 'in the capacity of': hence, ontology is inquiry into Being|being in ''so much as'' it is being, or into being ''in general'', beyond any particular thing which is or exists; and the study of Object (philosophy)|beings insofar as they exist, and not insofar as, for instance, particular Fact|facts obtain about them or particular Property (metaphysics)|properties to them. 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 specifically, ontology concerns determining what ''category of being|categories of being'' are fundamental and asks whether, and in what sense, the items in those categories can be said to "be". Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all nouns refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, but that some provide a kind of shorthand for reference to a collection of either Object (philosophy)|objects or Event (philosophy)|events. In this latter view, ''mind'', instead of referring to an entity, refers to a collection of ''mental events'' experienced by a person; ''society'' refers to a collection of persons with some shared characteristics, and ''geometry'' refers to a collection of a specific kind of intellectual activity. Between these poles of Platonic realism|realism and Nominalism|nominalism, there are also a variety of Moderate realism|other positions; but any ontology must give an account of which words refer to entities, which do not, why, and what categories result. When one applies this process to nouns such as ''electrons'', ''energy'', ''contract'', ''happiness'', ''time'', ''truth'', ''causality'', and ''god'', ontology becomes fundamental to many branches of philosophy.

Some basic questions

The principal question of ontology is "What really exists?" or "What is there?" Different philosophers have provided different answers to this question. One common approach is to divide the extant entities into groups called category of being|categories. However, such lists of categories also differ widely from one another, and it is through the co-ordination of different categorial schemes that ontology relates to such fields as theology, library and information science|library science and artificial intelligence. Further examples of ontological questions include:
- What is existence?
- Is existence a property?
- Why does something exist rather than nothing?
- What constitutes the ''Identity (philosophy)|identity'' of an object?
- What is a physical object?
- What features are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a given object?
- Can one give an account of the existence of physical objects|what it means to say that a physical object exists?
- What are an object's properties or relations and how are they related to the object itself?
- When does an object go ''out'' of existence, as opposed to merely ''change|changing''?

Concepts

Early history of ontology

Etymology

While the etymology is Greek, the oldest extant record of the word itself is the Latin form ''ontologia'', which appeared in 1606, in the work ''Ogdoas Scholastica'' by Jacob Lorhard (''Lorhardus'') and in 1613 in the ''Lexicon philosophicum'' by Rudolf 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’ - though, of course, such an entry indicates the term was already in use at the 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.

Origins

Ontology is generally thought to have originated in early Greece; though 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.

Parmenides to the Stoics

Parmenides was amongst the first to propose an ontological characterisation of the fundamental nature of reality, in his ''Poem''. This asserts that existence is what exists, and that there is nothing which does not exist. Hence, there can be neither void nor vacuum; and true reality can neither come into nor leave existence, but is limitless, eternal, uniform, and unchanging. Parmenides thus holds that change, as experienced in everyday sensation, is illusory; and, arguably, that everything is one (Monism). Plato developed this distinction between true reality and illusion, in arguing that what is real are eternal and unchanging Theory of Forms|Forms or Ideas (a precursor to Universal (metaphysics)|universals), of which things experienced in sensation are at best merely copies, and real only in so far as they copy (‘participate in’) such Forms. In general, Plato presumes that all nouns (e.g., ‘Beauty’) refer to real entities, whether sensible bodies or insensible Forms. Hence, in Sophist (dialogue)|''The Sophist'' Plato argues that Being is a Form in which all existent things participate and which they have in common (though it is unclear whether ‘Being’ is intended in the sense of Existence|existence, Copula (linguistics)|copula, or Identity (philosophy)|identity); and argues, against Parmenides, that Forms must exist not only of Being, but also of Negation and of non-Being (or Difference). Ontology as an explicit discipline was inaugurated by Aristotle, in his Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaphysics, as the study of that which is common to all things which exist, and of the categorisation of the diverse senses in which things can and do exist. What exists, in so far as Aristotle concludes, are a plurality of independently existing Substance theory|substances – roughly, Physical body|physical objects – on which the existence of Categories (Aristotle)|other things, such as qualities or relations, may depend; and of which substances consist both of a form (e.g. a shape, pattern, or organisation), and of a matter formed (Hylomorphism). Against Plato, whilst Aristotle holds that Aristotle's theory of universals|universals exist, these do not have an existence over and above the Particular|particular things which instantiate them. Also influential is the Materialism|materialist Atomism|atomism proposed and developed by Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, which conceives of reality as composed of an infinity of indivisible, inchangeable corpuscles or Atoms|atoms (''atomon'', lit. ‘uncuttable’), the motion and formations of which dissolve and reform in the void of space to produce the diverse flux of experience. A similar materialist ontology was also proposed by the Stoicism|Stoics.

Subject, relationship, object

"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" — asking "who is reading that sentence about thinking and being?" — and generally concluded that it must be God. 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 Sigmund Freud, who saw the Ego, superego, and id|superego as an abstract regulatory force, and Emile Durkheim who viewed this as a psychologically manifested entity which represented God in society at large.

Body and environment

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 — as studied by biology, ecology, and cognitive science. 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 Prime", supposedly less prone to bad abstractions. Others, mostly philosophers, tried to dig into the word and its usage. Martin Heidegger| Heidegger attempted to distinguish ''being'' and ''existence''.

Being

Existentialism regards ''being'' as a fundamental central concept. It is anything that can be said to 'be' ''in various senses of the word 'be'.'' The verb to be has many different meanings and can therefore be rather ambiguity|ambiguous. Because "to be" has so many different meanings, there are, accordingly, many different ways of being. In Systems-Theory, 'being' corresponds with the 'system-state' and Systems-Engineering(not system-administration...) is the engineering-grade/wise onthology, which identifies to the architects the existence of systems and defines their boundaries to them.

Social science

Social scientists adopt one of four main ontological approaches: 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 post-modernism (which holds that facts are fluid and elusive, so that we should focus ''only'' on our observational claims).