Ontology

In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being <part. of εἶναι:
to be> and -λογία: science, study, theory) is the study of the nature of being, existence,
reality and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of
philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what
entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related
within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.
 Being,
Some philosophers deny that the concept of "being" has any meaning at all, since we
only define an object's existence by its relation to other objects, and actions it
undertakes. The term "I am" has no meaning by itself; it must have an action or relation
appended to it. This in turn has led to the thought that "being" and nothingness are
closely related, developed in existential philosophy.
 Existence
The word 'exist' is certainly a grammatical predicate, but philosophers have long
disputed whether it is also a logical predicate. Some philosophers claim that it
predicates something, and has the same meaning as 'is real', 'has being', 'is found in
reality', 'is in the real world' and so on. Other philosophers deny that existence is
logically a predicate, and claim that it is merely what is asserted by the etymologically
distinct verb 'is', and that all statements containing the predicate 'exists' can be reduced
to statements that do not use this predicate. For example, 'A Four-leaved clover exists.'
can be rephrased as 'There is a clover with four leaves.'
 Reality
In everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist". The term reality,
in its widest sense, includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or
comprehensible. Reality in this sense may include both being and nothingness, whereas
existence is often restricted to being (compare with nature). In other words, "reality", as
a philosophical category, includes the formal concept of "nothingness" and articulations
and combinations of it with other concepts (those possessing extension in physical
objects or processes for example).
Examples of ontological questions include: What is existence? Is existence a property?
Which entities are fundamental? How do the properties of an object relate to the object
itself? What features are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a
given object? What is a physical object? Can one give an account of what it means to
say that a physical object exists? What constitutes the identity of an object? When does
an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing? Why does anything exist
rather than nothing? (This overlaps with questions in cosmology.)
 Concepts
Quintessential ontological concepts include:
1. Universals
are what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other
words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or
exemplified by many particular things. For example, suppose there are two chairs in a
room, each of which is green. These two chairs both share the quality of greenness or
the quality of being green. Metaphysicians call this quality that they share a "universal",
because it can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. There are three
major kinds of qualities or characterisitcs: types or kinds (e.g. mammal), properties (e.g.
short, strong), and relations (e.g. father of, next to). These are all different types of
universal.
2. Particulars
are concrete entitles exsiting in space and time as opposed to abstractions. There are,
however, theories of abstract particulars or tropes. For example, Socrates is a particular
(there's only one Socrates-the-teacher-of-Plato and one cannot make copies of him, e.g.,
by cloning him, without introducing new, distinct particulars). Redness, by contrast, is
not a particular, because it is abstract and multiply-instantiated (my bicycle, this apple,
and that woman's hair are all red). Particulars include only individuals of a certain kind:
as a first approximation individuals with a definite place in space and time, such as
persons and material objects or events, or which must be identified through such
individuals, like smiles or thoughts.
3. Substance
is a core concept of ontology and metaphysics. Indeed, philosophies may be divided
into monist philosophies, and dualist or pluralist philosophies. Monistic views, often
associated with immanence, hold that there is only one substance, sometimes called
God or Being. Dualist and pluralist views hold that two or more types of substances do
exist, and that these can be placed in an ontological hierarchy. Platonism or
Aristotelianism considers that there are various substances, while stoicism and Spinoza
hold that there is only one substance.
4. Abstract objects
One well-known proposal is that an object is abstract if and only if it lacks a location in
space. Thus justice is abstract because it has no spatial location. Another popular
proposal for drawing the abstract-concrete distinction has it that an object is abstract if it
lacks any causal powers. A causal power is an ability to affect something causally. Thus
the empty set is abstract because it cannot act on other objects.
5. Concrete objects
Concrete thinking involves facts and descriptions about everyday, tangible objects,
6. Essence
is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it
fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity.
Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has
contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. The concept
originates with Aristotle, who used the Greek expression 'the what it was to be', or
sometimes the shorter phrase 'the what it is,' for the same idea. This phrase presented
such difficulties for his Latin translators that they coined the word essentia to represent
the whole expression.
7. Accidents
are the perceptible qualities of an object such as its color, texture, size, shape, etc.; as he
states, things which are not substance are accidents
Ontological approaches
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),
 post-modernism (which holds that facts are fluid and elusive, so we should focus
only on our observational claims).

Famous Quotes

Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve
Erich Fromm
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is
not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
Henry Louis Mencken
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself
endlessly.
Henri Bergson
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
Laertius Diogenes
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Bertrand Russell