Ontology Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Thing ontologies vs fact ontologies=== ''Thing ontologies'' and ''fact ontologies'' are one-category ontologies: they both hold that all fundamental entities belong to the same category. They disagree on whether this category is the category of things or of facts.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bergmann |first=Gustav |title=Ineffability, Ontology, and Method |journal=Philosophical Review |date=1960 |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=18–40 |doi=10.2307/2182265 |jstor=2182265 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BERIOA}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Rosenkrantz |first=Gary S. |title=Of Facts and Things |journal=International Journal of Philosophical Studies |date=2018 |volume=26 |issue=5 |pages=679–700 |doi=10.1080/09672559.2018.1542277 |s2cid=149893677 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/ROSOFA}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Esfeld |first=Michael |title=The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/ESFTAN |chapter='Thing' and 'Non-Thing' Ontologies}}</ref> A slogan for fact ontologies comes from [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]]: "The world is the totality of facts, not of things".<ref>{{cite book |last=Wittgenstein |first=Ludwig |title=Tractatus Logico-philosophicus |date=2001 |publisher=Routledge |page=5}}</ref> One difficulty in characterizing this dispute is to elucidate what things and facts are, and how they differ from each other. Things are commonly contrasted with the properties and relations they instantiate.<ref name=Bradley>{{cite web |last1=Rettler |first1=Bradley |last2=Bailey |first2=Andrew M. |title=Object |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/object/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2017}}</ref> Facts, on the other hand, are often characterized as having these things and the properties/relations as their constituents.<ref name="Armstrong">{{cite book |last=Armstrong |first=D. M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pbGI46EoQKEC |title=Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics |date=29 July 2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0191615429 |location=Oxford, England |language=en-uk |chapter=4. States of Affairs}}</ref> This is reflected in a rough linguistic characterization of this difference where the subjects and objects of an assertion refer to things while the assertion as a whole refers to a fact.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Skyrms |first=Brian |title=Tractarian Nominalism |journal=Philosophical Studies |date=1981 |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=199–206 |doi=10.1007/BF00353791 |s2cid=170360466 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/SKYTN}}</ref> [[Reism]] is one form of thing ontology.<ref name="Woleński">{{Citation |last=Woleński |first=Jan |title=Reism |date=2020 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/reism/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |access-date=2021-07-28 |edition=Summer 2020 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}.</ref> [[Franz Brentano]] developed a version of reism in his later philosophy. He held that only concrete particular things exist. Things can exist in two forms: either as spatio-temporal bodies or as temporal souls. Brentano was aware of the fact that many common-sense expressions seem to refer to entities that do not have a place in his ontology, like properties or intentional objects. This is why he developed a method to paraphrase these expressions in order to avoid these ontological commitments.<ref name="Woleński"/> [[D. M. Armstrong]] is a well-known defender of fact ontology. He and his followers refer to facts as states of affairs.<ref name=Armstrong/> States of affairs are the basic building blocks of his ontology: they have particulars and universals as their constituents but they are primary in relation to particulars and universals. States of affairs have ontologically independent existence while "[u]npropertied particulars and uninstantiated universals are false abstractions".<ref name=Armstrong/> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page