In many ontological debates there is a familiar challenge. Consider a debate over X s. The “small” or anti-X side tries to show that they can paraphrase the pro-X or “big” side’s claims without any loss of expressive power. Typically though, when the big side adds whatever resources the small side used in their paraphrase, the symmetry breaks down. The big side plus small’s resources is a more expressively powerful and thus more theoretically fruitful theory. In this paper, I show (...) that there is a very general solution to this problem, for the small side. Assuming the resources of set theory, small can successfully paraphrase big. This result depends on a theorem about models of set theory with urelements. After proving this theorem, I discuss some of its philosophical ramifications. (shrink)

This article introduces finitist set theory (FST) and shows how it can be applied in modeling finite nested structures. Mereology is a straightforward foundation for transitive chains of part-whole relations between individuals but is incapable of modeling antitransitive chains. Traditional set theories are capable of modeling transitive and antitransitive chains of relations, but due to their function as foundations of mathematics they come with features that make them unnecessarily difficult in modeling finite structures. FST has been designed to function as (...) a practical tool in modeling transitive and antitransitive chains of relations without suffering from difficulties of traditional set theories, and a major portion of the functionality of discrete mereology can be incorporated in FST. This makes FST a viable collection theory in ontological modeling. (shrink)

I analyze the relations of constituency or ``being in'' that connect different ontological items in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus by Wittgenstein. A state of affairs is constituted by atoms, atoms are in a state of affairs. Atoms are also in an atomic fact. Moreover, the world is the totality of facts, thus it is in some sense made of facts. Many other kinds of Tractarian notions -- such as molecular facts, logical space, reality -- seem to be involved in constituency relations. (...) How should these relations be conceived? And how is it possible to formalize them in a convincing way? I draw a comparison between two ways of conceiving and formalizing these relations: through sets and through mereological sums. The comparison shows that the conceptual machinery of set theory is apter to conceive and formalize Tractarian constituency notions than the mereological one. (shrink)

Learning institutions can work in very different manners, but they all share many common and regularly repeated processes. The unambiguous specification of both the processes involved in educationa...

We discuss several ontological properties of explicit mathematics and operational set theory: global choice, decidable classes, totality and extensionality of operations, function spaces, class and set formation via formulas that contain the definedness predicate and applications.

The book discusses the fate of universality and a universal set in several set theories.

Alain Badiou is a highly original, indeed decidedly iconoclastic thinker whose work has ranged widely over areas of equal concern to philosophers in the ‘continental’ and mainstream analytic traditions. These areas include ontology, epistemology, ethics, politics, and – above all – philosophy of mathematics. It is unfortunate, and symptomatic of prevailing attitudes, that his work has so far receivedminimal attention from commentators in the analytic line of descent. Here I try to help the process of reception along by describing (...) Badiou’s remarkably ambitious approach to issues of mathematical (more specifically: of set-theoretical) ontology, and by explaining just where his project stands in relation to some major issues within current analytic debate. Chief among them are: the issue between realists and anti-realists – along with various avowed middle-ground or compromise solutions – and those oddly tenacious problems-from-Wittgenstein (e.g., concerning what it means to follow a rule) that have so preoccupied philosophers over the past decade. In particular I stress the unusual, indeed unique combination in his thought of high formal rigour and conceptual clarity allied to a speculative scope and inventiveness which tend to make those other discussions appear somewhat self-absorbed and parochial. Most importantly, Badiou engages these issues at a level of creative as well as of technical or analytic grasp, which puts his thinking closely in touch with the way that set theory has itself evolved through a constant process of – in Badiou’s phrase – ‘turning paradoxes into concepts.’ I also discuss his strong and principled rejection of the ‘linguistic turn’ in its manifold (analytic and continental) variants, and his idea of the ‘event’ as that which inherently eludes or surpasses the conceptual resources of any received ontology, whether in mathematics and the natural sciences or in the history of genuinely epochal changes in politics and ethics. All in all, I put the case for Badiou as a thinker of the first importance not only for the impressive range, depth and originality of his work, but also because it points to an escape-route from some of the more cramped or windowless quarters of present-day philosophic thought. (shrink)

Alain Badiou is a highly original, indeed decidedly iconoclastic thinker whose work has ranged widely over areas of equal concern to philosophers in the ‘continental’ and mainstream analytic traditions. These areas include ontology, epistemology, ethics, politics, and – above all – philosophy of mathematics. It is unfortunate, and symptomatic of prevailing attitudes, that his work has so far receivedminimal attention from commentators in the analytic line of descent. Here I try to help the process of reception along by describing (...) Badiou’s remarkably ambitious approach to issues of mathematical (more specifically: of set-theoretical) ontology, and by explaining just where his project stands in relation to some major issues within current analytic debate. Chief among them are: the issue between realists and anti-realists – along with various avowed middle-ground or compromise solutions – and those oddly tenacious problems-from-Wittgenstein (e.g., concerning what it means to follow a rule) that have so preoccupied philosophers over the past decade. In particular I stress the unusual, indeed unique combination in his thought of high formal rigour and conceptual clarity allied to a speculative scope and inventiveness which tend to make those other discussions appear somewhat self-absorbed and parochial. Most importantly, Badiou engages these issues at a level of creative as well as of technical or analytic grasp, which puts his thinking closely in touch with the way that set theory has itself evolved through a constant process of – in Badiou’s phrase – ‘turning paradoxes into concepts.’ I also discuss his strong and principled rejection of the ‘linguistic turn’ in its manifold (analytic and continental) variants, and his idea of the ‘event’ as that which inherently eludes or surpasses the conceptual resources of any received ontology, whether in mathematics and the natural sciences or in the history of genuinely epochal changes in politics and ethics. All in all, I put the case for Badiou as a thinker of the first importance not only for the impressive range, depth and originality of his work, but also because it points to an escape-route from some of the more cramped or windowless quarters of present-day philosophic thought. (shrink)

In a recent paper, John Wigglesworth explicates the notion of a set's being grounded in or ontologically depending on its members by the modal statement that in any world, that a set exists in that world entails that its members exist as well. After suggesting that variable-domain S5 captures an appropriate account of metaphysical necessity, Wigglesworth purports to prove that in any set theory satisfying the axiom Extensionality this condition holds, that is, that sets ontologically depend on their members (...) with respect to extraordinarily weak notions of set. This paper diagnoses a number of problems concerning Wigglesworth's formal argument. For one, we will show that Wigglesworth's argument is invalid as it requires an appeal to hidden, extralogical theses concerning rigid designation and the persistence of sets across possible worlds. Having demonstrated the indispensability of these principles to Wigglesworth's argument, we will then show that even granted the enthymematic premises, the argument only proves the ontological dependence of singletons on their members and does not extend to sets in general. Finally, we will consider strengthenings of Wigglesworth's reasoning and suggest that even the weakest generalization will bear undesirable consequences. (shrink)

Social ontology is the study of the nature and properties of the social world. It is concerned with analyzing the various entities in the world that arise from social interaction. -/- A prominent topic in social ontology is the analysis of social groups. Do social groups exist at all? If so, what sorts of entities are they, and how are they created? Is a social group distinct from the collection of people who are its members, and if so, (...) how is it different? What sorts of properties do social groups have? Can they have beliefs or intentions? Can they perform actions? And if so, what does it take for a group to believe, intend, or act? -/- Other entities investigated in social ontology include money, corporations, institutions, property, social classes, races, genders, artifacts, artworks, language, and law. It is difficult to delineate a precise scope for the field (see section 2.1). In general, though, the entities explored in social ontology largely overlap with those that social scientists work on. A good deal of the work in social ontology takes place within the social sciences (see sections 5.1–5.8). -/- Social ontology also addresses more basic questions about the nature of the social world. One set of questions pertains to the constituents, or building blocks, of social things in general. For instance, some theories argue that social entities are built out of the psychological states of individual people, while others argue that they are built out of actions, and yet others that they are built out of practices. Still other theories deny that a distinction can even be made between the social and the non-social. -/- A different set of questions pertains to how social categories are constructed or set up. Are social categories and kinds produced by our attitudes? By our language? Are they produced by causal patterns? And is there just one way social categories are set up, or are there many varieties of social construction? -/- The term ‘social ontology’ has only come into wide currency in recent years, but the nature of the social has been a topic of inquiry since ancient Greece. As a whole, the field can be understood as a branch of metaphysics, the general inquiry into the nature of entities. (shrink)

This paper defends an interventionist account of causation by construing this account as a contribution to methodology, rather than as a set of theses about the ontology or metaphysics of causation. It also uses the topic of causation to raise some more general issues about the relation between, on the one hand, methodology, and, on the other hand, ontology and metaphysics, as these are understood in contemporary philosophical discussion, particularly among so-called analytic metaphysicians. It concludes with the suggestion (...) that issues about the ontology of causation often can be fruitfully reconstrued as methodological proposals. (shrink)

The thesis of methodological individualism in social science is commonly divided into two different claims—explanatory individualism and ontological individualism. Ontological individualism is the thesis that facts about individuals exhaustively determine social facts. Initially taken to be a claim about the identity of groups with sets of individuals or their properties, ontological individualism has more recently been understood as a global supervenience claim. While explanatory individualism has remained controversial, ontological individualism thus understood is almost universally accepted. In this paper I (...) argue that ontological individualism is false. Only if the thesis is weakened to the point that it is equivalent to physicalism can it be true, but then it fails to be a thesis about the determination of social facts by facts about individual persons. Even when individualistic facts are expanded to include people’s local environments and practices, I shall argue, those still underdetermine the social facts that obtain. If true, this has implications for explanation as well as ontology. I first consider arguments against the local supervenience of social facts on facts about individuals, correcting some flaws in existing arguments and affirming that local supervenience fails for a broad set of social properties. I subsequently apply a similar approach to defeat a particularly weak form of global supervenience, and consider potential responses. Finally, I explore why it is that people have taken ontological individualism to be true. (shrink)

In this article I address the issue of the ontological conditions of possibility for a naturalistic notion of emergence, trying to determine its fundamental differences from the atomist, vitalist, preformationist and potentialist alternatives. I will argue that a naturalistic notion of ontological emergence can only succeed if we explicitly refuse the atomistic fundamental ontological postulate that asserts that every entity is endowed with a set of absolutely intrinsic properties, being qualitatively immutable through its extrinsic relations. Furthermore, it will be shown (...) that, ironically enough, this metaphysical assumption is implicitly shared by all the above mentioned alternatives to Emergentism. The current article concludes that the notion of organization by itself is not enough, and that ontological emergence can only be justified by assuming a relational ontological perspective that, in opposition both to atomism and holism, defends that the existence-conditions, the identity and the causal behavior of any emergent systemic property can only be conceived, and explained, as constructed by and through specific networks of qualitatively transformative relational processes that occur between the system’s components and between the system and its environment. Additionally, I try to explain how one can make sense of the idea that an emergent phenomenon is both dependent on, and autonomous from, its emergence base. (shrink)

The problem of merging several ontologies has important applications in the Semantic Web, medical ontology engineering and other domains where information from several distinct sources needs to be integrated in a coherent manner.We propose to view ontology merging as a problem of social choice, i.e. as a problem of aggregating the input of a set of individuals into an adequate collective decision. That is, we propose to view ontology merging as ontology aggregation. As a first step (...) in this direction, we formulate several desirable properties for ontology aggregators, we identify the incompatibility of some of these properties, and we define and analyse several simple aggregation procedures. Our approach is closely related to work in judgment aggregation, but with the crucial difference that we adopt an open world assumption, by distinguishing between facts not included in an agent’s ontology and facts explicitly negated in an agent’s ontology. (shrink)

The philosophical study of what exists and what it means for something to exist is one of the core concerns of metaphysics. This introduction to ontology provides readers with a comprehensive account of the central ideas of the subject of being. This book is divided into two parts. The first part explores questions of pure philosophical ontology: what is meant by the concept of being, why there exists something rather than nothing, and why there is only one logically (...) contingent actual world. Dale Jacquette shows how logic provides the only possible answers to these fundamental problems. The second part of the book examines issues of applied scientific ontology. Jacquette offers a critical survey of some of the most influential traditional ontologies, such as the distinction between appearance and reality, and the categories of substance and transcendence. The ontology of physical entities - space, time, matter and causation - is examined as well as the ontology of abstract entities such as sets, numbers, properties, relations and propositions. The special problems posed by the subjectivity of mind and of postulating a god are also explored in detail. The final chapter examines the ontology of culture, language and art. (shrink)

[Stephen Yablo] The usual charge against Carnap's internal/external distinction is one of 'guilt by association with analytic/synthetic'. But it can be freed of this association, to become the distinction between statements made within make-believe games and those made outside them-or, rather, a special case of it with some claim to be called the metaphorical/literal distinction. Not even Quine considers figurative speech committal, so this turns the tables somewhat. To determine our ontological commitments, we have to ferret out all traces of (...) nonliterality in our assertions; if there is no sensible project of doing that, there is no sensible project of Quinean ontology. /// [Andre Gallois] I discuss Steve Yablo's defence of Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions. In the first section I set out what I take that distinction, as Carnap draws it, to be, and spell out a central motivation Carnap has for invoking it. In the second section I endorse, and augment, Yablo's response to Quine's arguments against Carnap. In the third section I say why Carnap's application of the distinction between internal and external questions runs into trouble. In the fourth section I spell out what I take to be Yablo's version of Carnap. In the last I say why that version is especially vulnerable to the objection raised in the second. (shrink)

E. J. Lowe, a prominent figure in contemporary metaphysics, sets out and defends his theory of what there is. His four-category ontology is a metaphysical system which recognizes four fundamental categories of beings: substantial and non-substantial particulars and substantial and non-substantial universals. Lowe argues that this system has an explanatory power which is unrivalled by more parsimonious theories and that this counts decisively in its favour. He shows that it provides a powerful explanatory framework for a unified account (...) of causation, dispositions, natural laws, natural necessity and many other related matters, thus constituting a full metaphysical foundation for natural science. (shrink)

This revision of an important and lucid account of the various systems of axiomatic set theory preserves the basic format and essential ingredients of its highly regarded original. Quine's innovative exploitation of the virtual theory of classes in order to develop a considerable portion of set theory without ontological commitment to the existence of classes remains unchanged. So, too, does the list of topics treated--the theory of sets up to transfinite ordinal and cardinal numbers, the axiom of choice and (...) its equivalents, and a beautiful comparison of the various major formulations of set theory. There have, however, been a number of important changes, generally in the interest of greater elegance and clarity. One of the most notable of these is in the treatment of ordinal numbers. In the fourth section of that chapter an axiom schema is added to the effect that if α is a function and x an ordinal number, then there exists a class identical with the image of x under α. Although Quine, in general prefers to limit his existence assumptions as severely as possible, this added item possesses two attractive and closely related advantages: it yields the existence of all classes up to the size of any ordinal, and it greatly simplifies the subsequent treatment of ordinals and of transfinite recursion. The treatment of this latter subject, incidentally, has also been extensively modified to square with some difficulties first pointed out by Charles Parsons in The Journal of Symbolic Logic in 1964. Another important change consists in a considerable reworking of the section on infinite cardinals. The result is a more simplified and natural treatment. Finally, some new material on the theory of types and consequences of the axiom schema of comprehension has been added. Particularly with regard to the theory of types, this new material--due largely to the work of David Kaplan--has enabled Quine to drop, at one point, the assumption that there exists an object of lowest type. Altogether, this is a generally improved version of an originally masterful and brilliant work.--H. P. K. (shrink)

In light of the close connection between the ontological hierarchy of set theory and the ideological hierarchy of type theory, Øystein Linnebo and Agustín Rayo have recently offered an argument in favour of the view that the set-theoretic universe is open-ended. In this paper, we argue that, since the connection between the two hierarchies is indeed tight, any philosophical conclusions cut both ways. One should either hold that both the ontological hierarchy and the ideological hierarchy are open-ended, or that neither (...) is. If there is reason to accept the view that the set-theoretic universe is open-ended, that will be because such a view is the most compelling one to adopt on the purely ontological front. (shrink)

In a scientific context, ontological commitments should be considered as supervenient over accepted scientific theories. This implies that the primarily ontological notions of reduction and emergence of entities of different kinds should be reformulated in terms of relations between existing empirical theories. For this, in turn, it is most convenient to employ a model-theoretic view of scientific theories: the identity criterion of a scientific theory is essentially given by a class of models. Accordingly, reduction and emergence are to be seen (...) as particular kinds of relations between (some) models of different theories that subsume the same (or a similar) “experiential field”. The set-theoretical notion of an echelon-set proves to be crucial for this purpose: The domains in the models of the reduced theory are echelon-sets over the domains of the reducing theory. Finally, it is argued that emergence may plausibly be interpreted as akin to but weaker than reduction. (shrink)

This article identifies the benefits of adopting a critical realist ontology to researching esports in the social sciences. The article outlines some of the challenges in researching esports, paying particular attention to the emerging specialisms and sub-disciplines. The article suggests that different schools of thought have different ontological and epistemological commitments, resulting in a complex and somewhat fragmented or contested set of definitions and research directives. The article considers how the philosophy of science can enable researchers to gain a (...) more complete understanding and appreciation of esports. More specifically, the article outlines some of the central philosophical commitments of critical realism and considers their benefits for researching the multi-layered and multifaceted nature of esports. What results is a stratified ontology of esports, in which various biological, psychological and sociological factors interact to produce emergent outcomes at micro, meso and macro levels of causality. Such an interdisciplinary approach resists previous attempts to reduce esports research to singular (and competing) epistemological claims. Instead, this article invites sports researchers to investigate the complex ways natural and social factors interact to generate and change esports structures, institutions and agential behaviours. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to explore what Paul Ricoeur's theory of narrative can contribute to the discussior about the nature and aims of education. Debates about what learning is and how teaching ought to be conducted are usually based ontological theories, i.e., claims about the nature of pedagogy and its desiderata. Theories of narrative (seeTaylor 1989, Polkinghorne 1988, Carr 1986, and Mctclntyre 1981, for example) are usually applied to discussions about teaching and research methods. However I want to (...) show that Ricoeur's concept of narrative identity is relevant not just to issues of methodology; it has both ontological and ethical implications. It constitutes the basis of a unique view of the learning process, one that emphasizes intersubjectivity and authenticity. It also provides a set of ethical principles for the practice of teaching as storytelling. (shrink)

On a widespread reading, the Carnap-Quine debate about ontology concerns the objectivity and non-triviality of ontological claims. I argue that this view mischaracterizes Carnap’s aims in “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” : Carnap’s fundamental goal is to free up decisions about scientific language from constraints deriving from ontological doctrine. The contention, based on his internal/external distinction, that ontological claims are either meaningless or trivial was Carnap’s means to achieving this more fundamental goal. Setting the record straight on this point (...) brings out three important and often overlooked features of Carnap’s views on ontology. First, the target of Carnap’s critique in ESO is not Quine’s mature views on ontology, as laid out in “On What There Is”. Rather, Carnap is responding to arguments for nominalism that were given by Tarski, Goodman, and Quine in the 1940s. Second, a more general rejection of conservatism in theory choice is essential to Carnap’s aims and is implicit in his fundamental views on language. Third, even if it turns out to be tenable, the i/e distinction is not adequate for Carnap’s aim in ESO. Drawing on his basic conception of scientific language, I will suggest an alternative approach on his behalf. (shrink)

Eli Hirsch argues that certain ontological disputes involve a conflict between “equivalent” languages, and that the principle of charity compels each disputant to interpret the other as speaking truly in their own language. For Hirsch, a language’s semantics maps sentences (in context) onto sets of possible worlds but assigns no role to reference. I argue that this method leads to an overly uncharitable portrayal of the disputes at issue – whereby ontologists who speak “equivalent” languages can only argue about (...) syntax. Lack of charity stems from the fact that this portrayal likely fails to uphold the self-conception of the disputants – and particularly what I will call “the weak self-conception”. As a result, Hirsch’s deflationism falls victim of the same principle of charity that informs it. (shrink)

To earn the title “ontological physicalist,” one must endorse an entailment thesis of the following sort: the physical properties that are had, together with the causal laws, determine which higher-level properties are had. I argue that if this thesis is to capture all that is essential to physicalist intuitions, the relevant set of causal laws must be restricted to purely physical laws. But then it follows that higher-level properties are physical properties. The conclusion is that one cannot consistently be an (...) ontological physicalist while endorsing property pluralism. (shrink)

The dominant school of logic, semantics, and the foundation of mathematics construct its theories within the framework of set theory. There are three strategies by means of which a member of this school might attempt to justify his ontology of sets. One strategy is to show that sets are already included in the naturalistic part of our everyday ontology. If they are, then one may assume that whatever justifies the everyday ontology justifies the ontology (...) of sets. Another strategy is to show that set theory is already part of logic. In this case, the ontology of sets would be justified in the sam way logic is justified. The third strategy is to show that set theory plays some unique role in theoretical work. If it does, then its ontology would be justified pragmatically. In this paper it is shown that none of these strategies is successful. One properly constructs foundations, not within set theory. bit within an intensional logic that takes properties, relations, propositions as basic. (shrink)

In mining, manufacturing and industrial process industries, maintenance procedures are used as an aid to guide technicians through complex manual tasks. These procedures are not machine-readable, and cannot support reasoning in digitally integrated manufacturing systems. Procedure documents contain unstructured text and are stored in a variety of formats. The aim of this work is to query information held in real industrial maintenance procedures. To achieve this, we develop an ontology for maintenance procedures using the OWL 2 description language. We (...) leverage classes and object properties from the ISO 15926 Part 14 Upper Ontology and create a domain ontology. The key contribution of this paper is a demonstration of trade-offs required when modelling an existing engineering artifact, where an abstraction of its contents is given a-priori. We provide an ontologically rigorous abstraction of notions captured in procedure documentation to a set of classes, relations and axioms that allow reasoning over the contents. Validation of the ontology is performed via a series of competency questions based on queries relevant to technicians, engineers and schedulers in industry. The ontology is applied to real world maintenance procedures from two industrial organisations. (shrink)

The ontology of musical works often sets the boundaries within which evaluation of musical works and performances takes place. Questions of ontology are therefore often taken to be prior to and apart from the evaluative questions considered by either performers as they present works to audiences or an audience’s critical reflection on a performance. In this paper I argue that, while the ontology of musical works may well set the boundaries of legitimate evaluation, ontological questions should (...) not be considered as prior to or apart from critical evaluation. Rather, ontological claims are a type of critical evaluation made within musical practices. I argue that philosophers of music might learn from the debate in political philosophy about the difficulty of setting the limits of public reason in a way that remains open to a plurality of legitimate evaluative perspectives. Just as pre-political or metaphysical identification of the boundaries of public reason fail to accommodate the fact of pluralism in contemporary democratic politics, so too does a metaphysical identification of the boundaries of legitimate evaluation of musical works and performances fail to accommodate the fact of pluralism in contemporary musical practices. I apply John Rawls’s formulation of political liberalism, arguing that musical ontology should be critical, not metaphysical. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have long been concerned with the question of what a given scientific theory tells us about the contents of the world, but relatively little attention has been paid to how we set out to build theories and to the relevance of pre-theoretical methodology on a theory’s interpretation. In the traditional view, the form and content of a mature theory can be separated from any tentative ontological assumptions that went into its development. For this reason, the target of (...) interpretation is taken to be the mature theory and nothing more. On this view, positions on ontology emerge only once a theory is to hand, not as part of the process of theory building. Serious attention to theory creation suggests this is too simple. In particular, data collection and experimentation are influenced both by theory and by assumptions about the entities thought to be the target of study. Initial reasoning about possible ontologies has an influence on the choice of theoretical variables as well as on the judgments of the methodology appropriate to investigate them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 285 than" which is both immanent and transcendent, a kind of "coincidentia oppositorum" beyond logic and definition. It is the realm of the "person" within which, although the tragic conflict is not resolved, there arises the free self from whose non-dual perspective the unity and eternity of life are seen. Within this realm the individual gains an illumination the result of which is "amor fad," his free (...) decision to affirm his being. In this act of decision lies the "meaning" and "value" of life. The substance and point of Miss Bauer's book is to show the connection between the metaphysical ground of Simmel's concept of the tragic and its manifestations in different aspects of human experience. Her account is especially interesting in her chapter on the "tragic opposition" in which as an example of a tragic personality she cites Socrates who, by his refusal to flee from his prison, freely embraced his fate and, by choosing to die, confirmed his decisive, binding truth that the heavenly powers remain silent to the questions asked by a doubting and despairing humanity. His act declares that the individual must really stand alone in the world, taking counsel only from himself. Miss Bauer's book is written with a sympathetic understanding of Simmel's philosophy. By opening our eyes to the significant in human existence she succeeds in showing file relevance of his thought to our time. RIA STAVR1DES Vassar College Dialogo con Maurizio Blondel. By Michele Federico Sciacca. (Milano: Carlo Marzorati Editore, 1962. Pp. 159. L. 1300.) Sciacca has gathered here various articles which he had written about Blondel as well as new notes about this French thinker. Blondel struggled against the cult of science seeking to vindicate man's religious needs. Man longs for an end which transcends the natural order. Hence philosophy cannot ignore religion which points to a supernatural human destiny. According to Blondel, God is the only Word which answers the search of man and makes his action both fruitful and progressive. PAUL T. FUHRMANN Columbia Theological Seminary Essays in Ontology. By E. G. Allaire, M. Brodbeck, R. Grossman, H. Hochberg, R. G. Turnbull. Vol. I, Iowa Publications in Philosophy. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963. Pp. 216.) Essays in Ontology is the introductory volume of a new series of monographs to be published by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. The first volume, as its title indicates, is a collection of essays whose authors are closely affiliated with the Iowa Philosophy Department, being faculty members there now (Allaire and Turnbull) or former students (Hochberg, Grossman, and Brodbeck). Considered as a representative display of talent, the collection is somewhat unbalanced, since twelve of the fourteen papers are by three of the contributors, Allaire, Grossman, and Hochberg, while the other two are contributed by Brodbeck and Turnbull. It is also a matter of some disappointment that eleven of the fourteen papers have seen the light of print elsewhere; although this feeling is somewhat offset by the impact of sustained inquiry into one philosophical problem which the papers make when brought together in this way. The three new papers are "Particulars and 286 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Time" and "Common Names" by Grossman, and "The Tractatus: Nominalistic or Realistic?" by Allaire. With the exception of May Brodbeck's elegant analysis of John Dewey's philosophy, Edwin Allaire's article on Berkeley, and Herbert Hochberg's disquisition on Quine's supposed rejection of mental entities, all the essays concern themselves, in one way or another, with the problem of universals. Sometimes the problem is looked at independently of any historical context--as in the first seven papers---or as emerging from such a historical setting, as in Robert Turnbull's tightly argued discussion of Ockham's logic, Reinhardt Grossman's investigation into Frege's ontology, and Herbert Hochberg's article on the status of the "non-natural properties" mentioned by G. E. Moore in his early works. There is thus a common core of subject matter in the collection; but even beyond that, the papers reveal a tightly knit community of philosophical opinion. The writers share a common outlook on what the problem of universals is... (shrink)

Common sense is on the one hand a certain set of processes of natural cognition - of speaking, reasoning, seeing, and so on. On the other hand common sense is a system of beliefs (of folk physics, folk psychology and so on). Over against both of these is the world of common sense, the world of objects to which the processes of natural cognition and the corresponding belief-contents standardly relate. What are the structures of this world? How does the scientific (...) treatment of this world relate to traditional and contemporary metaphysics and formal ontology? Can we embrace a thesis of common-sense realism to the effect that the world of common sense exists uniquely? Or must we adopt instead a position of cultural relativism which would assign distinct worlds of common sense to each group and epoch? The present paper draws on recent work in computer science (especially in the fields of naive and qualitative physics), in perceptual and developmental psychology, and in cognitive anthropology, in order to consider in a new light these and related questions and to draw conclusions for the methodology and philosophical foundations of the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

This paper sets out an organizing framework for the field of social ontology, the study of the nature of the social world. The subject matter of social ontology is clarified, in particular the difference between it and the study of causal relations and the explanation of social phenomena. Two different inquiries are defined and explained: the study of the grounding of social facts, and the study of how social categories are “anchored” or set up. The distinction between (...) these inquiries is used to clarify prominent programs in social theory, particularly theories of practice and varieties of individualism. (shrink)

This article introduces a novel theoretical framework for addressing epistemic injustice—a phenomenon where certain groups or individuals are systematically excluded from knowledge creation and dissemination processes—by employing ontological relativity and conceptual analysis. “Ontological relativity” refers to a philosophical perspective that posits our understanding of reality as being shaped by our toolbox of concepts, categories, language, and social practices; “conceptual analysis” is a method of inquiry that involves the rigorous examination and deconstruction of a particular concept or set of concepts in (...) order to uncover their constituent elements, relationships, and underlying assumptions. To exemplify the effectiveness of the ontology‐based approach, two paradigmatic applications are explored: (a) educational practices and (b) clinical practice and access to health care. Through the presentation of these applications and the step‐by‐step illustration of the applied methodology, the aim of the article is to showcase the efficacy of ontology in tackling epistemic injustices, suggesting innovative paths for future research in this domain. (shrink)

This article identifies the benefits of adopting a critical realist ontology to researching esports in the social sciences. The article outlines some of the challenges in researching esports, paying particular attention to the emerging specialisms and sub-disciplines. The article suggests that different schools of thought have different ontological and epistemological commitments, resulting in a complex and somewhat fragmented or contested set of definitions and research directives. The article considers how the philosophy of science can enable researchers to gain a (...) more complete understanding and appreciation of esports. More specifically, the article outlines some of the central philosophical commitments of critical realism and considers their benefits for researching the multi-layered and multifaceted nature of esports. What results is a stratified ontology of esports, in which various biological, psychological and sociological factors interact to produce emergent outcomes at micro, meso and macro levels of causality. Such an interdisciplinary approach resists previous attempts to reduce esports research to singular (and competing) epistemological claims. Instead, this article invites sports researchers to investigate the complex ways natural and social factors interact to generate and change esports structures, institutions and agential behaviours. (shrink)

Circular sets are said to provide clear-cut cases of circular orders of ontological dependence. I argue that this claim is unwarranted given the epistemic parity of two principles of set-dependence.

Sciences of complex systems thrive on compositional theories – toolkits that allow the construction of models of a wide range of systems, each consisting of various parts put together in different ways. To be tractable, a compositional theory must make shrewd choices about the parts and properties that constitute its basic ontology. One such choice is to decompose a system into spatiotemporally discrete parts. Compositional theories in the high-level sciences follow this rule of thumb to a certain extent, but (...) they also make essential use of what I call distributed ontologies: divisions of the system into entities or states of affairs each depending on sets of fundamental-level facts that to a large extent overlap. The point is developed using the example of statistical theories in which the probabilities are ontologically distributed. (shrink)

The General Formal Ontology (GFO) is a top-level ontology that is being developed at the University of Leipzig since 1999. Besides introducing some of the basic principles of the ontology, we expound axiomatic fragments of its formalization and present ontological models of several use cases. GFO is a top-level ontology that integrates objects and processes into a unified framework, in a way that differs significantly from other ontologies. Another unique selling feature of GFO is its meta-ontological (...) architecture, which includes set theory into ontology and which accounts for its specific role in common representation approaches. The second level of that architecture starts from the distinction of categories and individuals, which forms the backbone of the world’s structure. Furthermore, GFO comprises several kinds of categories, among them universals and concepts, and it considers several ontological regions and levels. In the context of this special issue paper, we study five pre-determined use cases from the perspective of GFO. The results of these analyses yield insights into how the ontology treats several important notions. Very abridged, this covers material objects and their composition; roles and social entities; properties with their relations to objects and processes, and their changing; changes of processes, including a functional perspective; and, eventually, the nature and changing of concepts as well as terminology. A final part summarizes application projects that use GFO in various contexts. (shrink)

Axiom weakening is a novel technique that allows for fine-grained repair of inconsistent ontologies. In a multi-agent setting, integrating ontologies corresponding to multiple agents may lead to inconsistencies. Such inconsistencies can be resolved after the integrated ontology has been built, or their generation can be prevented during ontology generation. We implement and compare these two approaches. First, we study how to repair an inconsistent ontology resulting from a voting-based aggregation of views of heterogeneous agents. Second, we prevent (...) the generation of inconsistencies by letting the agents engage in a turn-based rational protocol about the axioms to be added to the integrated ontology. We instantiate the two approaches using real-world ontologies and compare them by measuring the levels of satisfaction of the agents w.r.t. the ontology obtained by the two procedures. (shrink)

This chapter discusses ontological commitment to properties, understood as ontological correlates of predicates. We examine the issue in four metaontological settings, beginning with an influential Quinean paradigm on which ontology concerns what there is. We argue that this naturally but not inevitably avoids ontological commitment to properties. Our remaining three settings correspond to the most prominent departures from the Quinean paradigm. Firstly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with a primitive, non-quantificational notion of existence. Ontology then concerns what exists. (...) We argue that this strengthens the Quinean case against ontological commitment to properties while also newly distinguishing between stronger and weaker forms of nominalism. Secondly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with the ideology of fundamentality. Ontology then centrally concerns what’s fundamental. We argue that this leaves ontological commitment to properties wide open although Bradleyan regress threatens. Thirdly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with primitive higher-order quantifiers. Ontology then expands to concern what there higher-order is and what there first-order is. We argue that this naturally but not inevitably incurs ontological commitment to properties. (shrink)

Gödel claimed that Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory is 'what becomes of the theory of types if certain superfluous restrictions are removed'. The aim of this paper is to develop a clearer understanding of Gödel's remark, and of the surrounding philosophical terrain. In connection with this, we discuss some technical issues concerning infinitary type theories and the programme of developing the semantics for higher-order languages in other higher-order languages.

Face-coverings were widely mandated during the Covid-19 pandemic, on the assumption that they limit the spread of respiratory viruses and are therefore likely to save lives. I examine the following ethical dilemma: if the use of face-masks in social settings can save lives then are we obliged to wear them at all times in those settings? I argue that by en-masking the face in a way that is phenomenally inconsistent with or degraded from what we are innately programmed to detect (...) as human likeness, we are degrading the social quality of our relations. Drawing on my previously published proof that Self is socially reflexive (mutually mirrored) rather than monadic in its constitution, I conclude that any widespread en-masking is also deleterious to humanity and therefore unethical. (shrink)

In this paper I defend a contextualist interpretation of authenticity in musical performance: we judge a performance as authentic not in respect of a stable set of requirements but according to contextually determined factors. This solution is the natural outcome of an independently supported ontological account of musical works: Musical Stage Theory. The aim of the paper is to give new momentum to the debate concerning the notion of authenticity and to challenge a monistic interpretation of authenticity: there is not (...) one authenticity but many. (shrink)

Contrary to Sankey’s central assumption, incommensurability does not imply incomparability of content, nor threaten scientific realism by challenging the rationality of theory comparison. Moreover, Sankey equivocates between reference to specific entities by statements used to test theories and reference to kinds by theories themselves. This distinction helps identify and characterize the genuine threat that incommensurability poses to realism, which is ontological discontinuity as evidenced in the historical record: Successive theories reclassify objects into mutually exclusive sets of kinds to which (...) they refer. That is why claiming that scientific progress is an increasingly better approximation to truth is difficult to justify. Similarly, Sankey’s attack on neo-Kantian antirealist positions is based on his misunderstanding of some of the central terms of those positions, making most of his attack on them ineffectual, including his diagnosis of their incoherence. We conclude by reiterating our conviction that in this debate meta-incommensurability plays an important role.Keywords: Scientific realism; Incommensurability; Meta-incommensurability; Thomas Kuhn; Paul Feyerabend; Howard Sankey. (shrink)

This month’s APA Blog Substack Newsletter extends a discussion with Barry Smith, who is a Distinguished Julian Park Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Biomedical Informatics, and Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo. He is also Director of the National Center for Ontological Research and a lead developer of Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), an international standard top-level ontology (ISO/IEC 21838-2) used by over 700 ontology development groups across the world. Barry’s work led to the (...) formation in 2005 of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry, a set of resources designed to support information-driven research in biology and biomedicine. He also contributes to ontology projects in the military and security domains and is one of the founders of the Industrial Ontologies Foundry (IOF), whose goal is to advance interoperability of information systems in the industrial domain. Now he and his University at Buffalo (UB) colleague and Co-Director of the National Center for Ontological Research John Beverley lead what one might call the academic arm of the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community Working Group (DIOWG), in which the principles of the OBO Foundry are being applied in the defense and security domains. (shrink)

Upper ontologies have traditionally arisen from the approach in which concepts that are common across a set of domains can be axiomatized at a general level. The rationale is that reuse across domains is to be supported through specialization of the general concepts from an upper ontology. Similarly, semantic integration between ontologies is to be achieved through the general concepts they specialize. The TUpper Ontology follows an alternative approach (referred to as the sideways approach) to the conventional upper (...) ontology paradigm. Rather than think of an upper ontology as a monolithic axiomatization centred on a taxonomy, the sideways approach considers an upper ontology to be a modular ontology composed of generic ontologies that cover concepts including those related to time, process, and space. TUpper is therefore composed of a set of generic ontologies, and each generic ontology axiomatizes a particular set of generic concepts (e.g., the classes and relations relevant for time, process, and space). The TUpper Ontology is designed as a top-level ontology that contains modules from the ontologies within existing international standards. (shrink)

The problem with model-theoretic modal semantics is that it provides only the formal beginnings of an account of the semantics of modal languages. In the case of non-modal language, we bridge the gap between semantics and mere model theory, by claiming that a sentence is true just in case it is true in an intended model. Truth in a model is given by the model theory, and an intended model is a model which has as domain the actual objects of (...) discourse, and which relates these objects in an appropriate manner. However, the same strategy applied to the modal case seems to require an intended modal model whose domain includes mere possibilia. Building on recent work by Christopher Menzel (Synthese 85 (1990)), I give an account of model-theoretic semantics for modal languages which does not require mere possibilia or intensional entities of any kind. Menzel has offered a representational account of model-theoretic modal semantics that accords with actualist scruples, since it does not require possibilia. However, Menzel's view is in the company of other actualists who seek to eliminate possible worlds, but whose accounts tolerate other sorts of abstract, intensional entities, such as possible states of affairs. Menzel's account crucially depends on the existence of properties and relations in intension. I offer a purely extensional, representational account and prove that it does all the work that Menzel's account does. The result of this endeavor is an account of model theoretic semantics for modal languages requiring nothing but pure sets and the actual objects of discourse. Since ontologically beyond what is prima facie presupposed by the model theory itself. Thus, the result is truly an ontology-free model-theoretic semantics for modal languages. That is to say, getting genuine modal semantics out of the model theory is ontologically cost-free. Since my extensional account is demonstrably no less adequate, and yet is at the same time more ontologically frugal, it is certainly to be preferred. (shrink)