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! === 20th century === Dominant approaches to ontology in the 20th century were phenomenology, linguistic analysis, and naturalism. ''Phenomenological ontology'', as exemplified by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, relies for its method on the description of experience. ''Linguistic analysis'' assigns to language a central role for ontology, as seen, for example, in Rudolf Carnap's thesis that the truth value of existence-claims depends on the linguistic framework in which they are made. ''Naturalism'' gives a prominent position to the natural sciences for the purpose of finding and evaluating ontological claims. This position is exemplified by Quine's method of ontology, which involves analyzing the ontological commitments of scientific theories.<ref name="Dahlstrom"/><ref name="Sandkühler"/> [[Edmund Husserl]] sees ontology as a ''science of essences''.<ref name="Dahlstrom"/> ''Sciences of essences'' are contrasted with ''factual sciences'': the former are knowable [[a priori|''a priori'']] and provide the foundation for the later, which are knowable [[a posteriori|''a posteriori'']].<ref name="Sandkühler"/><ref name="Gander"/> Ontology as a science of essences is not interested in ''actual facts'', but in the essences themselves, whether they ''have instances or not''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Føllesdal |first=Dagfinn |title=A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism |date=2006 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd |isbn=978-0470996508 |pages=105–114 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470996508.ch8 |language=en |chapter=Husserl's Reductions and the Role They Play in His Phenomenology|doi=10.1002/9780470996508.ch8 }}</ref> Husserl distinguishes between ''formal ontology'', which investigates the essence of ''objectivity in general'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Drummond |first=John J. |title=Historical Dictionary of Husserl's Philosophy |date=2009 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/DRUHDO |chapter=Formal ontology}}</ref> and ''regional ontologies'', which study ''regional essences'' that are shared by all entities belonging to the region.<ref name="Dahlstrom">{{cite book |last=Dahlstrom |first=D. O. |title=New Catholic Encyclopedia |date=2004 |publisher=Gale |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy/philosophy-terms-and-concepts/ontology |chapter=Ontology}}</ref> Regions correspond to the highest [[genera]] of [[Abstract and concrete|concrete entities]]: material nature, personal consciousness, and interpersonal spirit.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Poli |first=Roberto |title=Husserl's Conception of Formal Ontology |journal=History and Philosophy of Logic |date=1993 |volume=14 |pages=1–14|doi=10.1080/01445349308837207 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Moran |first1=Dermot |last2=Cohen |first2=Joseph |title=The Husserl Dictionary |date=2012 |publisher=Continuum |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MORTHD |chapter=Regional ontology}}</ref> Husserl's method for studying ontology and sciences of essence in general is called [[eidetic variation]].<ref name="Gander">{{cite book |last=Gander |first=Hans-Helmuth |title=Husserl Lexikon |publisher=Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/GANHL |chapter=Ontologie|year=2009 }}</ref> It involves imagining an object of the kind under investigation and varying its features.<ref>{{cite book |last=Drummond |first=John J. |title=Historical Dictionary of Husserl's Philosophy |date=2009 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/DRUHDO |chapter=Eidetic variation}}</ref> The changed feature is ''inessential'' to this kind if the object can survive its change, otherwise it belongs to the ''kind's essence''. For example, a triangle remains a triangle if one of its sides is extended, but it ceases to be a triangle if a fourth side is added. Regional ontology involves applying this method to the essences corresponding to the highest genera.<ref>{{cite web |last=Spear |first=Andrew D. |title=Husserl, Edmund: Intentionality and Intentional Content |url=https://iep.utm.edu/huss-int/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=22 December 2020}}</ref> Central to [[Martin Heidegger]]'s philosophy is the notion of ''ontological difference'': the difference between ''being'' as such and specific entities.<ref name="Wheeler">{{cite web |last=Wheeler |first=Michael |title=Martin Heidegger |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Schalow |first=Frank |title=Historical Dictionary of Heidegger's Philosophy |date=2010 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHHDO-2 |chapter=Ontological difference}}</ref> He accuses the philosophical tradition of being ''forgetful'' of this distinction, which has led to the mistake of understanding ''being'' as such as a kind of ultimate entity, for example as "idea, energeia, substance, monad or will to power".<ref name="Dahlstrom"/><ref name="Wheeler"/><ref name="Korab-Karpowicz">{{cite web |last=Korab-Karpowicz |first=W. J. |title=Heidegger, Martin |url=https://iep.utm.edu/heidegge/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> Heidegger tries to rectify this mistake in his own "fundamental ontology" by focusing on the ''meaning of being'' instead, a project which is akin to contemporary [[meta-ontology]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Inwood |first=Michael |title=A Heidegger Dictionary |date=1999 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/INWAHD-3 |chapter=Ontology and fundamental ontology}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Inwagen |first=Peter Van |title=Meta-Ontology |journal=Erkenntnis |date=1998 |volume=48 |issue=2–3 |pages=233–250 |doi=10.1023/A:1005323618026 |s2cid=267942448 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/VANM-3}}</ref> One method to achieve this is by studying the human being, or [[Dasein]], in Heidegger's terminology.<ref name="Sandkühler"/> The reason for this is that we already have a ''pre-ontological understanding'' of ''being'' that shapes how we experience the world. [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|Phenomenology]] can be used to make this implicit understanding explicit, but it has to be accompanied by [[Hermeneutics#Heidegger (1889–1976)|hermeneutics]] in order to avoid the distortions due to the ''forgetfulness of being''.<ref name="Wheeler"/> In his later philosophy, Heidegger attempted to reconstruct the "history of being" in order to show how the different epochs in the history of philosophy were dominated by different conceptions of ''being''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Inwood |first=Michael |title=A Heidegger Dictionary |date=1999 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/INWAHD-3 |chapter=History of being}}</ref> His goal is to retrieve the ''original experience of being'' present in the [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|early Greek thought]] that was covered up by later philosophers.<ref name="Korab-Karpowicz"/> [[Nicolai Hartmann]] is a 20th-century philosopher within the [[Continental philosophy|Continental tradition of philosophy]]. He interprets ontology as [[Aristotle]]'s science of being qua being: the science of the most general characteristics of entities, usually referred to as categories, and the relations between them.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hartmann |first=Nicolai |title=Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie |date=1935 |publisher=W. De Gruyter |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HARZGD-4 |chapter=1. Kapitel. Die ontologische Grundfrage}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Aristotle |last2=Reeve |first2=C. D. C. |title=Metaphysics |publisher=Hackett Publishing |isbn=978-1624664410 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=prGgCwAAQBAJ |language=en |chapter=Book Epsilon|year=2016 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Spiegelberg |first=Herbert |title=The Phenomenological Movement a Historical Introduction |date=1963 |publisher=M. Nijhoff |pages=309–310 |edition=3rd |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/SPITPM-6}}</ref> According to Hartmann, the most general categories are ''moments of being'' (existence and essence), ''modes of being'' (reality and ideality), and ''modalities of being'' (possibility, actuality, and necessity). Every entity has both ''existence'' and ''essence''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hartmann |first=Nicolai |title=Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie |date=1935 |publisher=W. De Gruyter |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HARZGD-4 |chapter=12. Kapitel. Die Trennung von Dasein und Sosein}}</ref> ''Reality'' and ''ideality'', by contrast, are two disjunctive categories: every entity is either real or ideal. Ideal entities are universal, returnable and always existing, while real entities are individual, unique, and destructible.<ref name="Cicovacki">{{cite book |last=Cicovacki |first=Predrag |title=The Analysis of Wonder: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann |date=2014 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing US |isbn=978-1623569747 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IXnHAgAAQBAJ |language=en |chapter=I.3 Modifications of Being}}</ref> Among the ideal entities are mathematical objects and values.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mohanty |first=J. N. |title=Phenomenology. Between Essentialism and Transcendental Philosophy |date=1997 |publisher=Northwestern University Press |chapter=Chapter 3: Nicolai Hartmann's Phenomenological Ontology}}</ref> The ''modalities of being'' are divided into the absolute modalities (actuality and non-actuality) and the relative modalities (possibility, impossibility, and necessity). The relative modalities are ''relative'' in the sense that they depend on the absolute modalities: something is possible, impossible, or necessary because something else is actual. Hartmann asserts that reality is made up of four [[Integrative level|levels]] (''inanimate'', ''biological'', ''psychological'', and ''spiritual'') that form a hierarchy.<ref name="Poli"/><ref name="Hartmann"/> [[Rudolf Carnap]] proposed that the truth value of ontological statements about the existence of entities depends on the linguistic framework in which these statements are made: they are [[Internal-external distinction|internal]] to the framework.<ref name="Hofweber"/><ref name="Dahlstrom"/> As such, they are often trivial in that it just depends on the rules and definitions within this framework. For example, it follows analytically from the rules and definitions within the mathematical framework that numbers exist.<ref name="Leitgeb"/> The problem Carnap saw with traditional ontologists is that they try to make framework-independent or ''external'' statements about what ''really'' is the case.<ref name="Sandkühler"/><ref>{{cite web |last1=Leitgeb |first1=Hannes |last2=Carus |first2=André |title=Rudolf Carnap > H. Tolerance, Metaphysics, and Meta-Ontology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/carnap/tolerance-metaphysics.html |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> Such statements are at best ''pragmatic considerations'' about which framework to choose, and at worst outright ''meaningless'', according to Carnap.<ref>{{cite web |last=Murzi |first=Mauro |title=Carnap, Rudolf |url=https://iep.utm.edu/carnap/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=23 December 2020}}</ref> For example, there is no matter of fact as to whether [[Realism (philosophical)|realism]] or [[idealism]] is true: their truth depends on the adopted framework.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Blatti |first1=Stephan |last2=Lapointe |first2=Sandra |title=Ontology After Carnap |publisher=Oxford University Press UK |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/SANOAC-5 |chapter=Introduction|year=2016 }}</ref> The job of philosophers is not to discover which things exist by themselves but is a kind of "conceptual engineering" to create interesting frameworks and to explore the consequences of adopting them.<ref name="Hofweber"/><ref name="Leitgeb">{{cite web |last1=Leitgeb |first1=Hannes |last2=Carus |first2=André |title=Rudolf Carnap |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/carnap/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=23 December 2020 |date=2020}}</ref> Since there is no framework-independent notion of truth, the choice of framework is guided by practical considerations like expedience or fruitfulness .<ref>{{cite book |last=Craig |first=Edward |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=1996 |publisher=Routledge |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BEAREO |chapter=Carnap, Rudolf}}</ref> The notion of [[ontological commitment]] plays a central role in [[Willard Van Orman Quine]]'s contributions to ontology.<ref>{{cite book |last=Craig |first=Edward |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=1996 |publisher=Routledge |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BEAREO |chapter=Ontological commitment}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ontology |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/ontology-metaphysics |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=13 December 2020 |language=en}}</ref> A theory is ontologically committed to an entity if that entity must exist in order for the theory to be true.<ref name="Bricker">{{cite web |last=Bricker |first=Phillip |title=Ontological Commitment |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-commitment/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=13 December 2020 |date=2016}}</ref> Quine proposed that the best way to determine this is by translating the theory in question into [[first-order predicate logic]]. Of special interest in this translation are the logical constants known as [[existential quantification|existential quantifiers]], whose meaning corresponds to expressions like "there exists..." or "for some...". They are used to [[First-order logic#Free and bound variables|bind the variables]] in the expression following the quantifier.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Magnus |first1=P. D. |last2=Ichikawa |first2=Jonathan Jenkins |title=Forall X |date=2020 |publisher=Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MAGFXU |chapter=V. First-order logic|edition=UBC }}</ref> The ontological commitments of the theory then correspond to the variables bound by existential quantifiers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schaffer |first=Jonathan |title=Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=347–383 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHOWG |chapter=On What Grounds What|year=2009 }}</ref> This approach is summed up by Quine's famous dictum that "[t]o be is to be the value of a variable".<ref name="Quine">{{cite journal |last=Quine |first=Willard Van Orman |title=On What There Is |journal=Review of Metaphysics |date=1948 |volume=2 |issue=5 |pages=21–38 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/QUIOWT-7}}</ref> This method by itself is not sufficient for ontology since it depends on a theory in order to result in ontological commitments. Quine proposed that we should base our ontology on our best scientific theory.<ref name="Bricker"/> Various followers of Quine's method chose to apply it to different fields, for example to "everyday conceptions expressed in natural language".<ref>{{cite book |last=Inwagen |first=Peter van |title=Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Volume 1 |date=2004 |publisher=Clarendon Press |pages=107–138 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/VANATO-2 |chapter=A Theory of Properties}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kapelner |first=Zsolt-kristof |title=Reconciling Quinean and neo-Aristotelian Metaontology |date=2015 |url=http://www.etd.ceu.hu/2015/kapelner_zsolt-kristof.pdf |chapter=3. Quinean Metaontology}}</ref> 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. 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