Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of being.

Ontology is the branch of philosophy that studies being.

More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.

Philosophical questions about the nature of reality or existence or being are considered under the rubric of ontology, which is a major branch of metaphysics in the Western philosophical tradition.

More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.

In ontology, the different kinds or ways of being are called categories of being; or simply categories.

More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. In the prologue or proem to his poem On Nature he describes two views of existence; initially that nothing comes from nothing, and therefore existence is eternal.

In philosophy, it refers to the ontological property of being.

While the etymology is Greek, the oldest extant record of the word itself, the New Latin form ontologia, appeared in 1606 in the work Ogdoas Scholastica by Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus) and in 1613 in the Lexicon philosophicum by Rudolf Göckel (Goclenius).

Gockel also had extensive backing and significant contributions to the field of ontology.

Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood positing that a substance is distinct from its properties.

While the etymology is Greek, the oldest extant record of the word itself, the New Latin form ontologia, appeared in 1606 in the work Ogdoas Scholastica by Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus) and in 1613 in the Lexicon philosophicum by Rudolf Göckel (Goclenius).

In 1606 he published Ogdoas scholastica, which contains the word "ontologia" – probably appearing for the first time ever in a book.

More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. In the 5th century BC, Anaxagoras and Leucippus replaced the reality of Being (unique and unchanging) with that of Becoming and therefore by a more fundamental and elementary ontic plurality.

In the philosophical study of ontology, the concept of becoming originated in ancient Greece with the philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, who in the sixth century BC, said that nothing in this world is constant except change and becoming (i.e., everything is impermanent.

As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit.

Materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology.

In the Greek philosophical tradition, Parmenides ( late sixth or early fifth century BCE) was among the first to propose an ontological characterization of the fundamental nature of existence.

It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric and aesthetics.

Ontological dualism makes dual commitments about the nature of existence as it relates to mind and matter, and can be divided into three different types:

In the Greek philosophical tradition, Parmenides ( late sixth or early fifth century BCE) was among the first to propose an ontological characterization of the fundamental nature of existence. In the prologue or proem to his poem On Nature he describes two views of existence; initially that nothing comes from nothing, and therefore existence is eternal.

Parmenides has been considered the founder of metaphysics or ontology and has influenced the whole history of Western philosophy.

In the 5th century BC, Anaxagoras and Leucippus replaced the reality of Being (unique and unchanging) with that of Becoming and therefore by a more fundamental and elementary ontic plurality.

In philosophical ontology, ontic (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: "of that which is") is physical, real, or factual existence.

Ontology is the philosophical study of being.

Metaphysics includes cosmology, the study of the world in its entirety and ontology, the study of being.

Between these poles of realism and nominalism stand a variety of other positions.

Finally, many philosophers prefer simpler ontologies populated with only the bare minimum of types of entities, or as W. V. O. Quine said "They have a taste for 'desert landscapes.'" They try to express everything that they want to explain without using universals such as "catness" or "greenness."

Descartes argued further that this knowledge could lead to a proof of the certainty of the existence of God, using the ontological argument that had been formulated first by Anselm of Canterbury.

In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being, existence, or reality) and the theory of value (since some definitions of God include "perfection").

Descartes argued further that this knowledge could lead to a proof of the certainty of the existence of God, using the ontological argument that had been formulated first by Anselm of Canterbury.

An ontological argument is a philosophical argument for the existence of God that uses ontology.

In this latter view, mind, instead of referring to an entity, refers to a collection of mental events experienced by a person; society refers to a collection of persons with some shared characteristics, and geometry refers to a collection of specific kinds of intellectual activities.

This is a fundamentally ontological argument.

In ontology, abstract objects are considered problematic for physicalism and some forms of naturalism.

Plato (lived 420s BCE to 348/347 BCE) developed the distinction between true reality and illusion, in arguing that what is real are eternal and unchanging Forms or Ideas (a precursor to universals), of which things experienced in sensation are at best merely copies, and real only in so far as they copy ("partake of") such Forms.

Complications which arise include the implications of language use and the complexity of relating language to ontology.

Schools of subjectivism, objectivism and relativism existed at various times in the 20th century, and the postmodernists and body philosophers tried to reframe all these questions in terms of bodies taking some specific action in an environment.

In philosophical terms, these objects are ontologically independent of someone's conceptual scheme, perceptions, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc.

In the prologue or proem to his poem On Nature he describes two views of existence; initially that nothing comes from nothing, and therefore existence is eternal.

The universe and the divine are not ontologically equivalent.

Martin Heidegger distinguished human being as existence from the being of things in the world.

In the first part of Being and Time (1927), Heidegger attempted to turn away from "ontic" questions about beings to ontological questions about the idea of Being itself, and recover the most fundamental philosophical question: the question of Being, of what it means for something to be.

Together with "substance", these nine kinds of accidents constitute the ten fundamental categories of Aristotle's ontology.