Ontology

Parmenides was among the first to propose an ontological characterization of the fundamental nature of reality

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality. It is part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics.

Ontology deals with questions about what things exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped according to similarities and differences.

Etymology

The word ontology ('study of being') comes from

onto- (Greek: Greek: ὄν;^{[note 1]} GEN. Greek: ὄντος) and

-logia (Greek: -λογία).^[1]^[2]

Overview

Ontology asks whether "categories of being" are fundamental.

Some philosophers, of the Platonic school, say that all nouns (including abstract nouns) refer to actual entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities. They think some are a kind of shorthand for a collection of either objects or events.

In this 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 a specific kind of intellectual activity.^[3]

Between these poles, called realism and nominalism, are other positions. Any ontology must give an account of which words refer to entities, which do not, why, and what categories result.

Ontology Media

Willard Van Orman Quine used the concept of ontological commitments to analyze theories.
Martin Heidegger proposed fundamental ontology to study the meaning of being.
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) disagreed on whether universals can exist without matter.
William of Ockham proposed Ockham's Razor, a principle to decide between competing theories.
The Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi conceived the concept of li as the organizing principle of the universe.
Alexius Meinong proposed that there are nonexistent objects.