Ontology of Being

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
Belindi
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Belindi »

AverageBozo wrote: October 15th, 2021, 11:56 am The existence of being. This sounds like a reach to me. While it’s true that we may experience classifications of beings differently, we experience everything in the real world through the same five senses. Why is it necessary even to have so many classes of ontology?
There are different ethics that attach to different ontologies. Cartesian dualism is infamous for cruelty to animals, and devaluing physical bodies. Materialism /physicalism is limited in its approach to subjective feelings and beliefs. Idealism/immaterialism may without due care cause snobbishness about science and the dear old physical world we mostly all inhabit. Dual -aspect monism (Spinoza)may imply emotional flatness although it's tops about freedom and amenable to modern psychiatry. Existentialism has no disadvantages I can think of. Heidegger's 'Being-there' ontology is the most appealing to common sense although you would not think so if you ever try to read Heidegger. Panpsychism is good and very ethical but requires a lot of imagination.
AverageBozo
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by AverageBozo »

Steve3007 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 12:01 pm
The existence of being. This sounds like a reach to me.
Since ontology is about what exists, the title "Ontology of Being" really just means "Ontology of what ontology studies". It should probably have just been titled "My Ontology".
Yes, I see.
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by AverageBozo »

Belindi wrote: October 15th, 2021, 12:18 pm
AverageBozo wrote: October 15th, 2021, 11:56 am The existence of being. This sounds like a reach to me. While it’s true that we may experience classifications of beings differently, we experience everything in the real world through the same five senses. Why is it necessary even to have so many classes of ontology?
There are different ethics that attach to different ontologies. Cartesian dualism is infamous for cruelty to animals, and devaluing physical bodies. Materialism /physicalism is limited in its approach to subjective feelings and beliefs. Idealism/immaterialism may without due care cause snobbishness about science and the dear old physical world we mostly all inhabit. Dual -aspect monism (Spinoza)may imply emotional flatness although it's tops about freedom and amenable to modern psychiatry. Existentialism has no disadvantages I can think of. Heidegger's 'Being-there' ontology is the most appealing to common sense although you would not think so if you ever try to read Heidegger. Panpsychism is good and very ethical but requires a lot of imagination.
Yes, fair enough. I just think that chsw’s classes are overkill.
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Belindi »

AverageBozo wrote: October 15th, 2021, 2:52 pm
Steve3007 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 12:01 pm
The existence of being. This sounds like a reach to me.
Since ontology is about what exists, the title "Ontology of Being" really just means "Ontology of what ontology studies". It should probably have just been titled "My Ontology".
Yes, I see.
Theories of existence.
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Chasw
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Chasw »

Steve3007 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 12:01 pm
The existence of being. This sounds like a reach to me.
Since ontology is about what exists, the title "Ontology of Being" really just means "Ontology of what ontology studies". It should probably have just been titled "My Ontology".
These days, the term ontology is widely used in disciplines outside of philosophy. I personally have heard it uttered in info tech circles, referring to a important list using the following common definition: "A set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them." My IT colleagues were unfamiliar with the metaphysical use of the term, but I got the impression their use of it made the them sound erudite. Better than simply calling their work product a list.

So, if we consider the concept of Being, i.e., the universal phenomenal state where entities exist, rather than nothing exists, then to properly describe the nature of that state, one is naturally drawn to use of an ontology, a breakdown of the qualities of Being into useful categories. In the full article, I start with the title Four Categories of Being, categories being roughly synonymous with ontology. - CW
The central question of human existence is not why we are here, but rather why we behave the way we do - http://onhumanaffairs.blogspot.com/
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Steve3007 »

Chasw wrote:These days, the term ontology is widely used in disciplines outside of philosophy. I personally have heard it uttered in info tech circles, referring to a important list using the following common definition: "A set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them."
Yes, I've read of a similar usage myself. That's why in this post I didn't disagree with you in your description of what an ontology is, even though your description might be worded slightly unusually if using a philosophical sense of that word.

I guess it's fairly clear how that definition links to the philosophical definition. The philosophical definition (as I understand it) of "one's ontology" is the types of things one believes to really exist (really, as opposed to existing as abstract concepts in minds). So, for example, the ontology of a strict materialist is the belief that just one type of thing exists and that type of thing is matter (and the inter-relationships and properties of that matter).
So, if we consider the concept of Being, i.e., the universal phenomenal state where entities exist, rather than nothing exists, then to properly describe the nature of that state, one is naturally drawn to use of an ontology, a breakdown of the qualities of Being into useful categories. In the full article, I start with the title Four Categories of Being, categories being roughly synonymous with ontology.
Yes. So that is your ontology. That's why I thought a good title for this topic would have been "My Ontology". As I've said in earlier posts, I don't understand how your ontology works, for reasons given in those posts.
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Belindi wrote: October 15th, 2021, 11:45 am You have insight into your own emotional reactions and that fact too confers a freedom that some men lack.
Yes, self-knowledge confers considerable benefits in one's thinking. If I can allow for my own mental pros and cons, I can learn and understand more, more easily. Conversely, the more I euphemise my own abilities (in my own mind) to sound like what I'd like them to be, the less I learn, and what I do learn is harder won. Good point, Belindi!
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Belindi
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Belindi »

Pattern-chaser wrote: October 16th, 2021, 9:51 am
Belindi wrote: October 15th, 2021, 11:45 am You have insight into your own emotional reactions and that fact too confers a freedom that some men lack.
Yes, self-knowledge confers considerable benefits in one's thinking. If I can allow for my own mental pros and cons, I can learn and understand more, more easily. Conversely, the more I euphemise my own abilities (in my own mind) to sound like what I'd like them to be, the less I learn, and what I do learn is harder won. Good point, Belindi!
Thanks Pattern-chaser. But it's not my point. It's either one of Spinoza's points, or it follows from one of his points. I don't quite remember which. It's to do with the far reaching and freedom -friendly benefits of applied reason.
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Re: Ontology of Being

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Steve3007 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 12:01 pmSince ontology is about what exists, the title "Ontology of Being" really just means "Ontology of what ontology studies". It should probably have just been titled "My Ontology".
There is no ontology of nonbeing. The study of nonbeing is called meontology.

By the way, here's a new book:

* Sara Bernstein & Tyron Goldschmidt, Eds. Non-Being: New Essays on the Metaphysics of Nonexistence.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Consul
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Consul »

Chasw wrote: October 15th, 2021, 6:55 pmThese days, the term ontology is widely used in disciplines outside of philosophy. I personally have heard it uttered in info tech circles, referring to a important list using the following common definition: "A set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them." My IT colleagues were unfamiliar with the metaphysical use of the term, but I got the impression their use of it made the them sound erudite. Better than simply calling their work product a list.
"Ontology" is used both as a noncount noun and as a count noun: On the one hand, the noncount noun "ontology" is the name of a philosophical discipline; and on the other hand, the count noun "ontology" refers to the existential posits of a theory, i.e. to those entities to which those accepting a theory are ontologically committed. So different theories have different ontologies. Moreover, we find the term "ontology" in computer/information science too, where an ontology is a conceptual model or taxonomy.

QUOTE>
"‘Ontology’ is used in two senses in metaphysics. First, when someone talks about ‘my ontology’ or ‘Armstrong’s ontology’, or whatever, she just means whatever entities she, or Armstrong, is committed to. Hence, if someone says, ‘ghosts are no part of my ontology’, she just means that she is not ontologically committed to ghosts – that is, that, according to her theory, there are no such things as ghosts.

(Beebee, Helen, Nikk Effingham and Philip Goff. Metaphysics: The Key Concepts. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011. p. 152)

"The ontology of a theory is the catalogue of things and types of things the theory deems to exist."

(Dennett, Daniel C. Consciousness Explained. New York: Back Bay/Little, Brown & Co., 1991. p. 36)

"Ontology. A description of some concepts and their relationships, for the purpose of defining the ideas sufficiently to allow a computer to represent them and reason about them. Thus an agent's ontology specifies the basic building blocks of knowledge that defines what it can perceive and reason about. This is a kind of model and, as such, is very useful to define what agents of learning programs can know and what they can communicate. Ontologies are usually compiled for a particular 'domain', e.g. the domains of wind engineering, medical diagnosis, or office interior navigation, but they are more formal than domain knowledge."

(Daintith, John, and Edmund Wright, eds. Oxford Dictionary of Computing. 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. pp. 353-4)

"Ontology and Information Science:

In a related development, also hardly noticed by philosophers, the term 'ontology' has gained currency in recent years in the field of computer and information science (Welty & Smith 2001). The big task for the new 'ontology' derives from what we might call the Tower of Babel problem. Different groups of data- and knowledge-base system designers have their own idiosyncratic terms and concepts by means of which they build frameworks for information representation. Different databases may use identical labels but with different meanings; alternatively the same meaning may be expressed via different names. As ever more diverse groups are involved in sharing and translating ever more diverse varieties of information, the problems standing in the way of putting this information together within a single system increase geometrically. Methods must be found to resolve the terminological and conceptual incompatibilities which then inevitably arise.

Initially, such incompatibilities were resolved on a case-by-case basis. Gradually, however, it was recognized that the provision, once and for all, of a common reference ontology – a shared taxonomy of entities – might provide significant advantages over such case-by-case resolution, and the term 'ontology' came to be used by information scientists to describe the construction of a canonical description of this sort. An ontology is in this context a dictionary of terms formulated in a canonical syntax and with commonly accepted definitions designed to yield a lexical or taxonomical framework for knowledge representation which can be shared by different information-systems communities. More ambitiously, an ontology is a formal theory within which not only definitions but also a supporting framework of axioms is included (perhaps the axioms themselves provide implicit definitions of the terms involved).

The methods used in the construction of ontologies thus conceived are derived on the one hand from earlier initiatives in database management systems. But they also include methods similar to those employed in philosophy (as described in Hayes 1985), including the methods used by logicians when developing formal semantic theories."
(pp. 158-9)

"The newly fashionable usage of 'ontology' as meaning just 'conceptual model' is by now firmly entrenched in many information-systems circles. Gruber is to be given credit for having crystallized the new sense of the term by relating it to the technical definition of 'conceptualization' introduced by Genesereth and Nilsson in their Logical Foundation of Artificial Intelligence (1987). In his 1993 article Gruber defines an ontology as 'the specification of a conceptualization'. Genesereth and Nilsson conceive conceptualizations as extensional entities (they are defined in terms of sets of relations), and their work has been criticized on the grounds that this extensional understanding makes conceptualizations too remote from natural language, where intensional contexts predominate (see Guarino, Introduction to 1998). For present purposes, however, we can ignore these issues, since we shall gain a sufficiently precise understanding of the nature of 'ontology', as Gruber conceives it, if we rely simply on the account of conceptualizations which he himself gives in passages such as the following:

'A conceptualization is an abstract, simplified view of the world that we wish to represent for some purpose. Every knowledge base, knowledge-based system, or knowledge-level agent is committed to some conceptualization, explicitly or implicitly.' (Gruber 1995)

The idea is as follows. As we engage with the world from day to day we participate in rituals and we tell stories. We use information systems, databases, specialized languages, and scientific instruments. We buy insurance, negotiate traffic, invest in bond derivatives, make supplications to the gods of our ancestors. Each of these ways of behaving involves, we can say, a certain conceptualization. What this means is that it involves a system of concepts in terms of which the corresponding universe of discourse is divided up into objects, processes, and relations in different sorts of ways. Thus in a religious ritual setting we might use concepts such as 'salvation' and 'purification'; in a scientific setting we might use concepts such as 'virus' and 'nitrous oxide'; in a story-telling setting we might use concepts such as 'leprechaun' and 'dragon'. Such conceptualizations are often tacit; that is, they are often not thematized in any systematic way. But tools can be developed to specify and to clarify the concepts involved and to establish their logical structure, and in this way we are able to render explicit the underlying taxonomy. We get very close to the use of the term 'ontology' in Gruber’s sense if we define an ontology as the result of such clarification – as, precisely, the specification of a conceptualization in the intuitive sense described in the above.
Ontology now concerns itself not with the question of ontological realism, that is with the question whether its conceptualizations are true of some independently existing reality. Rather, it is a strictly pragmatic enterprise. It starts with conceptualizations, and goes from there to the description of corresponding domains of objects (also called 'concepts' or 'classes'), the latter being conceived as nothing more than nodes in or elements of data models devised with specific practical purposes in mind."
(pp. 161-2)

(Smith, Barry. "Ontology". In The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information, edited by Luciano Floridi, 155-165. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.)
<QUOTE
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Steve3007
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Re: Ontology of Being

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Consul wrote:There is no ontology of nonbeing. The study of nonbeing is called meontology
Interesting. A prefix (me-) for denoting subjects which cover everything that the subject after the prefix misses out. So I guess mecookery would be the study of everything that cookery doesn't cover. Table tennis, for example. Menothing could be the study of everything!
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by chewybrian »

Steve3007 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 10:24 am
chewybrian wrote:I don't see how it could be otherwise, unless I attribute decision making capacities to raindrops or sewing machines. If all material things are bound by cause and effect, and I am material, then what else could I think?...
But materialism, as an ontological position (a position as to what things really exist, and what is the case about the real world) doesn't necessarily go with the opinion that all material things are bound by cause and effect. My view on causality (as I said in a topic I started a few days ago) is that it is a general principle that we propose based on our observations of specific instances. i.e. a principle arrived at via inductive reasoning. That would mean that "bound by" would be the wrong term to use. It would be a descriptive principle, not the prescriptive one that "bound by" implies.
I had to think about this one for a while. I'd say we could agree that the models or systems are incompatible if we try to make both of them describe the entire universe. Neither determinism nor libertarian free will can work within the closed system of the opposing view. They can not both be complete and perfect models of reality at the same time, as each negates the other. One of them is wrong, or they are both wrong, by definition and simple logic.

However, you might argue that they both accurately describe portions of reality. If we limit their bounds to what they seem to accurately describe, then they could both be said to be accurate models of portions of reality. But, that does not make them compatible. If we try to force one or the other system to describe everything, the results seem unsatisfactory. Our adherence to either model feels forced. We are trying too hard to believe the model must be perfect. However, if we accept the limitations of both, we are left with a most obvious conclusion: that they describe two different categories of reality with different attributes.

Of course, reality is never bound by any of our models, and the most reasonable position is that we have been wrong many times in the past and are most likely still not getting the big picture. But, dualism seems to reconcile determinism(within the scope of material things), free will(within the scope of subjectivity) and reality better than any other view I've seen. What I've never seen is a serious model of compatibilism, which to me is a non-starter and impossible by the very definition of the terms and models it (allegedly) reconciles.
Steve3007 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 10:26 am
chewybrian wrote:p.s. We know the locations of brain activities that correlate with certain types of thoughts or feelings, but we don't have a hard location for the experience itself.
It depends on what you mean by "hard". It depends on the length of the error bars. I know, as well as I know anything, that everything associated with my personality happens in the middle of my head, plus or minus, let's say, 8 inches.
We don't know where your experience is or what it is in any objective terms. You know it subjectively and that's it. Your assumption is fair enough, but I don't see that it rises beyond the level of a reasonable opinion.
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Steve3007 »

chewybrian wrote:I had to think about this one for a while. I'd say we could agree that the models or systems are incompatible if we try to make both of them describe the entire universe. Neither determinism nor libertarian free will can work within the closed system of the opposing view. They can not both be complete and perfect models of reality at the same time, as each negates the other. One of them is wrong, or they are both wrong, by definition and simple logic.
I don't think determinism and free will are incompatible. I've discussed that in some previous topics.

But the point I was making in the previous post that you quoted was not about determinism versus free will. It was that the ontological position called materialism doesn't necessarily go with a believe that causality is universally applicable. Materialism is not the same thing as determinism. There are some materialists who believe that some events have no prior causes. (There's at least one who posts on this site.)
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Consul »

Consul wrote: October 17th, 2021, 12:24 amThe study of nonbeing is called meontology.
Well, there's not much to study, is there? :wink:
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
Steve3007
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Re: Ontology of Being

Post by Steve3007 »

Consul wrote:Well, there's not much to study, is there? :wink:
Yeah, if you're reading a book about meontology and somebody asks "what are you reading about?" you can honestly reply "nothing". :D
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