Questions tagged [ontology]
Ontology is the study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.
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Philosophy and Mental Health [closed]
I have heard a story of a Peace Pilgrim, an American pilgrim and ascetic, who managed to heal one sick man through conversation. The man was suffering from general degeneration of health and doctors ...
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Relationism, Substantivalism, and Simultaneity?
I've been breaking my head open lately over special relativity and its conception of spacetime's dynamical as well as kinematical features. One thing that has stuck in my head is that of whether the ...
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A test for objectivity?
One could define the objective world that we believe to exist independent of us, as that part of our experience that is simultaneously experienced by other observers as well(And this common ...
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What is the difference between essence and substance? [closed]
I am wondering whether the substance of the object can be called its essence because it is an indispensable quality of the object?
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Are all pancomputationalist models for the universe compatible with informational realism?
Pancomputationalist theories are a group of physical theories that try to describe the universe itself as a computer or an informational (processing) structure.
Informational (structural) realism is ...
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What is the meaning of “epistemic”, “epistemological” and “ontological” in this context?
I was reading The Outer Limits of Reason: What Science, Mathematics, and Logic Cannot Tell Us by Noson S. Yanofsky and in some paragraphs of this books, The writer uses the words "epistemic",...
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Something that has an end must have a beginning?
In the ancient Hebrew book (http://dafyomireview.com/article.php?docid=398#ch5), Gate of the Unity of God, dealing with logical proof of creation of the world. The following premise is established:
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Does the present only exist to the extent that it leaves traces in the future?
Under what conditions can we conclude from the position that the past only exists to the extent it leaves traces in the present to the position that the present only exists to the extent it leaves ...
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Why did Nietzsche call Spinoza his 'precursor'?
In a letter Nietzsche made the following comment about Spinoza;
"I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor, and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza: that I should have turned ...
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What is the difference between metaphysics and ontology?
I know that ontology is a sub-field of metaphysics. But I can't see the difference between them. I mean ontology is defined as "The study of being and existence", and metaphysics is defined as "...
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Is Not-Being identical with Nothing?
Anne-Marie Schimmel writes in Mystical dimensions of Islam
Sufism comes close to it [Shankara Advaita Philosophy] in some of the forms developed by the Ibn-Arabi school. Here the Numen is concieved ...
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Platonism and causality
The Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy states that -
"Because abstract objects are wholly non-spatiotemporal, it follows that they are also entirely non-physical (they do not exist in the physical ...
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Can mathematics and physics be thought of as branches of philosophy?
I think that they can be viewed like that, with some suitable definition of philosophy.
Then mathematics could be defined as one of the branches of philosophy in which theories are built on ...
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Causality vs. implication
Implication is said to be more general than causality since, for example, being a dog implies being a mammal but it doesn't cause it. Is there a formalization of the difference between implication and ...
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Explanation of a quote from Spinoza
Notandum, dari necessario unius cujusque rei existentis certam aliquam CAUSAM, propter quam existit. Et notandum, hanc causam, propter quart aliqua res existit, vel debere contineri in ipsa natura et ...
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How do philosophers formally characterise mathematical objects?
In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article, 'Platonism in the Philosophy of Mathematics', the following formalisation is given for the existence of a mathematical object:
Existence can be ...
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Does a negative claimant have a burden of proof?
I have often heard it said that the burden of proof is on the positive claimant but not on the one making a negative claim. A person claiming, "God exists" has a burden of proof but not a person ...
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Difference between Carnap and Quine's views
Could someone explain to me, in easy language, what the main differences are between Carnap and Quine's views regarding internal / external questions and realism? Quine called Carnap a Platoist, yet I ...
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What is res in res cogitans or res extensa?
Substance is that which has no dependent relation on any other; and unlike an atom, is infinitely differentiable - it has parts; and those parts thus distinguished have relations amongst themselves; ...
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Comparisons between two notions of existence
I have the following, rather naive question:
To what extent can the a priori existence of mathematical objects be reasonably compared with the seemingly a posteriori existence of objects established ...
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What types of theories are there?
How do I describe the difference between a theory that is purely descriptive in nature, vs one that is predictive? I.e. the former gives a rigorous description of the physical state of a system, while ...
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Why are concepts without intuitions blind?
I think at this point I understand all the transcendental arguments of CPR except this one - and probably this could considerably change my understanding of Kant as a whole.
Here is my confusion.
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Are mental objects timeless?
Let's suspend for a moment the How? of the body mind problem and suppose an ontological paradigm where there are two classes of objects: mental and physical. Also that physical objects are spatially ...
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What is the difference between the spiritual and the metaphysical
According to this (old) page, metaphysics is the study of things beyond anything humans can perceive. Because of this fact, metaphysics is relatively faith-based discipline and, compared to science, ...
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In what way does the following solve the Substance/finite modes problem in Spinoza?
Critics of Spinoza's concept of the 'immanence' of substance maintain that if everything in the universe is a manifestation of 'deus/sive natura/ sive substantia' then Spinoza cannot account for the ...
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What were Plato's views on substance?
Forms are Plato’s substances, for everything derives its existence
from Forms. In this sense of ‘substance’ any realist philosophical
system acknowledges the existence of substances. Probably the ...
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Duns Scotus : how can the “ concept of being” be univocal without there being a nature common to God and to creatures?
Source : Paul Vincent Spade, Survey Of Medieval Philoosphy (https://pvspade.com/Logic/index.html)
Dunst Scotus is said to hold the thesis of univocity of being: i.e. the thesis according to which the ...
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What are some examples of things that are ontologically parasitic
To be ontologically parasitic, a thing must exist only in reference to another thing.
For example, in the excellent video "How Many Holes Does a Human Have?", holes are identified as ontologically ...
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How definition relates to abstract/concrete objects?
I am having a hard time to understand what a definition does. Is it an abbreviation we use instead of using too many words? But then why mathematicians define mathematical objects? Does it mean they "...
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How do concepts like “change” and “structure” fit with the object - property distinction?
I've been pondering about the distinction between the object/concrete/particular vs property/abstract/universal.... (side note: I used to think that properties are more "general" than objects, but ...
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Life from Non-living Stuff [closed]
The most amazing thing about a living system is that it is made up of non-living atoms and molecules!!!
This beautiful thought just got me awestruck, the abstract feelings that we have are just some ...
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Are facts objects of some kind?
What is a fact, exactly? A table, for instance, is an object located within a particular region of space. But what about facts? Are they one kind of object, and if so, what kind of objects are they?
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Help Understanding an Argument For Temporal Parts
The following argument is presented from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy regarding the existence of perdurantism (temporal parts):
A third argument from STR to perdurantism does not rely on ...
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What happened to ( aristotelian) substantial forms in cartesian ontology? On which ground ( metaphysical or physical) are they rejected?
In aristotelian philosophy, there are no bare particulars ( contrary to what is the case in Plato, according to P.V. Spade) but internally structured ( substantial) particulars in which 2 "parts"/...
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Are we living in a simulation? The evidence
I am not questioning whether the simulation topic is outside science. I am asking what evidence there is or could be to resolve whether we are or not.
Living in a simulation has been a topic for ...
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How can the physical world be an abstract mathematical structure a la Tegmark?
This is Tegmark's short formulation of the "mathematical universe" (paraphrased by detractors as "reality made of math"), and he goes out of his way to stress that he means the "is" literally:"Whereas ...
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Are all concepts polar ?
Do all concepts operate in pairs such that in order to define one member of the pair we need to specify its opposite ? For instance, we cannot define 'nothing' without understanding - being able to ...
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What is the ontological status of the laws of logic? [duplicate]
Are the laws of logic abstract objects that exist independently of physical things? Are they the same in all possible worlds? Are they man-made constructs, nothing more than ideas in our minds? Or ...
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What is the most internally-consistent theory of forms?
I'm trying to construct a fictional reality out of the Socratic-era (ideally) theories of Forms, but every philosopher's attempt seems to have at least one fatal flaw (and most of them several big ...
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Is there any philosophy which proposes that whatever you believe or imagine is true or exists?
Every day, we have conflicts with almost everyone about what we think and what we believe (there are religious conflicts, conflicts of opinions...). Also, there are people who think about alternative ...
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The notion of a point vs space as the most primitive notion?
I hear the notion of a point being the most primitive notion in geometry. But to talk about a point, one needs to think of a space of some sort. Only then, the point can be understood as a position ...
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Do unverifiable statements provide any knowledge?
I believe the following three examples are equally self-contradictory:
A: Nothingness is blue
B: Objects don't exist when we are not looking at them
C: There exists a parallel universe that never ...
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Is it reasonable to conflate being and truth?
Let x be something that exists unequivocally. Then "x exists" is true, but does it make sense to say x itself is true?
And vice versa - the proposition "x exists" is true, but is there a sense in ...
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Is the indescribable a paradox?
The indescribable is that which has no description; yet the term indescribable describes this.
Is this a properly paradox? Or can we say that the word 'indescribable' is a label and has no positive ...
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How Does One Define a Keyboard?
Suppose we have 3 keyboards and we take out all the switches. Would we call these objects still "keyboards"? Someone could argue that these objects don't have switches so they can't be called "...
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Are there philosophies that call for things which are not mind nor matter?
Physicalism is the idea that everything is matter. Idealism is the idea that everything is made up of a mental substance. Dualism claims that there are both matter and mind in the universe.
It ...
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What is the difference between “to exist” vs “to be real”?
What does it mean to say something exists and something is real? And what is the difference if there is any? For example, take a software program. Is it more fitting to say that it exists or that it ...
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What exactly are emotions ontologically?
We put categories on things that we see outside in the world. We say an explosion is an event, a happening in time and space. We say stuff is made out of matter. Yet we all know that emotions exist ...
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Jarrett’s Argument against an intuitive interpretation of P4, Part I of Spinoza’s Ethics
On first sight, an intuitive way of understanding proposition 4, part I, of Spinoza’s Ethics, is the following:
For all x and for all y, if not x=y, then either (there is a z and a z' such that z ...
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Can we know anything about the “outside”, if we are in a simulation?
Please note this question isn't about "simulation" as such. It is cast in this way to illustrate a particular sub-to-super ontology relationship:
Given that all we see or seem, are the product of ...
