Abstract
The chapter is organized into three main sections. The first section (paragraphs 1–4) presents basic preliminary distinctions, such as those (1) between ontology and metaphysics, (2) among descriptive, formal and formalized ontologies, (3) between pure ontology and its presentations, and (4) between ontology and epistemology. The second section (paragraphs (5–7) is substantive. After defending the idea of ontology as the theory of the most general categories, and presenting the difference between substance and its determinations, the chapter claims that proper understanding of substance requires at least six different theories, five directly dealing with its internal configuration and one dealing with both internal and external aspects. These six ontological sub-theories address the following problems: (1) the differences among such general categories as object, process, event, state of affairs, stuff, group etc.; (2) classification; (3) structure, or types of whole and their parts; (4) chronotopoids, or types of spaces and times; (5) interactions, or forms of causation; and (6) levels of reality, or the distinction among the basic regions of reality, such as the material, the psychological and the social ones. The third section (paragraphs 8–11) touches briefly upon some of the remaining issues, for instance determinations, the substance-determination relation and predication and non-commutative categorical frameworks.
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Notes
- 1.
Thanks to Ion Baianu, Nino Cocchiarella, Claudio Gnoli, Frank Loebe, Leo Obrst, Jerzy Perzanowski, Johanna Seibt, and John Sowa for their comments on previous versions of this chapter.
- 2.
On the meaning of “item”, see Section 1.6 below.
- 3.
Scholars from the Brentanian tradition usually distinguish between existence (for real items) and subsistence (for ideal ones).
- 4.
Note the use of “categorial” instead of the more usual term “categorical”. The latter will be reserved for the mathematical understanding of category, as for example in Topos Theory.
- 5.
“Presential”, according to the GFO ontology (GFO stands for General Formal Ontology). Presentials exist entirely at a time-point and are seen as dependent boundaries of processes, which then are the only needed independent category. This section of the GFO ontology is based on Brentano’s idea of time, space and the continuum. See: http://www.onto-med.de/en/publications/scientific-reports/om-report-no8.pdf
.
- 6.
See Note 9 below.
- 7.
Needless to say, the typed reading is much more informative than the untyped one. However, the ontological problem remains as hard as soon one ask how types are structured and one another connected.
- 8.
To be precise, one should distinguish, together with the Stoics, among soma, on and ti, or with some of the Medievals, notably Gregory of Rimini (1300–1358), among res, ens and aliquid, or again, with Meinong (1853–1920), among real, ideal and Aussersein objects. What is termed soma, res or real object is the body, the on, ens or ideal object is an entity, while the ti, aliquid or Aussersein object is something indeterminate. That which actually exists, the genuine object, is only the soma, res or real object. An entity, by contrast, could well be asomaton or incorporeal. Thus while the soma is subject to the principle of individuation, the on admits at most some criterion of identity, and the ti admits neither identity nor individuation. For them the on can be objective without having to be existent, a soma. On these distinctions see Poli 1996a.
- 9.
However, a deeper analysis may show that the countable-uncountable opposition is either superficial or parochial. It is superficial if the said distinction could be derived from other, deeper categories. On the other hand it may be parochial in the sense that it is a distinction embedded in only some of the world languages. According to Rijkhoff (2002), linguistic data show that six types of nouns can be distinguished: general nouns, sort nouns, mass nouns, set nouns, singular object nouns, and collective nouns. It may also be that the countable-uncountable opposition is both superficial and parochial. Ontological categories run the risk of being parochial when they are grounded on only a section of the available scientific and experiential data. On the other hand, the possible superficiality of ontological categories may depend on cognitive or cultural biases, and in this sense categorial superficiality is a deeper phenomenon; see the section on ontological presentations above.
- 10.
As usual, relying on an already elaborated classification is a different situation from building a new classification.
- 11.
“Holon” was initially used by Koestler (1967). While I endorse his vision, here I am using holon only as a convenient substitute for “whole”, meant as one of the three subtypes of holons.
- 12.
However, Aristotle’s claim is valid only for solids.
- 13.
The main difference being between relations between items pertaining or not pertaining to the same level (either as a stratum or layer) of reality.
- 14.
- 15.
Cfr. Hartmann (1935). The simplified version presented in Hartmann (1952) is worth reading as well. For an introduction to Hartmann cfr. Werkmeister (1990) and the essays collected in Poli (2001d). Even if my vision is substantially different from Hartmann’s, his contribution is a required starting point for anybody interested in the problem of levels of reality.
- 16.
A proper analysis of the social stratum is still awaited. Aspects of my theory of levels have been presented in Poli (1996b, 1998, 2001a–d, 2002, 2006a, b) and in Gnoli and Poli (2004). Caveat. A major misunderstanding of the theory of levels of reality is interpreting the theory of levels as a theory of items’ granularity. That this interpretation is false can be easily seen by considering that the set of physical items comprises both subatomic particles and galaxies and, indeed, the whole physical universe. Physics comprises items at all (real) granularities. Nevertheless physics does not describe all of reality. Something more is required to describe the non-physical aspects of reality, something that, categorially speaking, goes beyond physics, and in two different senses: as a categorial extension of physics (chemistry and biology) and as a categorial alternative to physics and its extensions (the psychological and social strata).
- 17.
As a matter of fact, each of them comes in a number of different guises. The problem is particularly severe for conceptualism, especially as far as the difference between constructive and holistic concept generation is concerned. Realism too can be articulated in different ways. However, in this paper I shall not consider most of these complications.
- 18.
- 19.
However, different types of domain ontologies should be distinguished, from categorially closed domains to ad-hoc ones. The claim in the main text applies mainly to the former types of domain ontologies. This problem warrants further analysis.
- 20.
About which one must ask how any given collection has been formed.
- 21.
It may be worth nothing that a similar movement from abstract to eidetic structures is taking place in contemporary mathematics under the heading “commutative vs. non commutative mathematics”.
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Poli, R. (2010). Ontology: The Categorial Stance. In: Poli, R., Seibt, J. (eds) Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8845-1_1
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