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Scientific literature on particular themes in ontology is extremely abundant, but it is often very hard for freshmen or sophomores to find a red thread between the various proposals. This text is an opinionated introduction, a preliminary text to research in ontology from the so called standard approach to ontological commitment, that is from the particular point of view that connects ontological questions to quantificational questions. It offers a survey of this viewpoint in ontology together with their possible applications through a broad array of examples and open problems and, at the same time, essential references to the classics of philosophy, so as to allow non-specialists to understand the terms and analysis procedures characterizing the discipline. Its result is a wide-ranging overview of the issued tackled by ontology, with a particular focus on the most relevant problems of contemporary debate (categorial taxonomies, nonexistent objects, case studies of ontological debates in specific fields of knowledge).
Ontological commitment implies that each theory is supposed to specify the type of entities that form its components. Representatives of a theory share an ontological commitment in relation to the objects they refer to. There are theories that admit the existence of universals while others do not. As there are different ways of speaking about universals it is necessary to decide what a universal term corresponds to. It is essential to have a criterion that enables us to decide which kinds of objects are allowed as references for the terms used. In this volume two different approaches are discussed: first, in cases where only extensional languages are accepted; second, when intensional elements are required to determine the meaning such terms as "Sachverhalt", intentional statements or representations. The ontological commitment associated with extensional theories exclusively admits the existence of physical objects, whereas intensional theses additionally include universal and abstract entities. The study of ontological commitment enables us to measure the ontological economy of theories. This serves as a basis for the choice of theory. The authors of this volume discuss relevant issues of both models and provide new solutions.
Sponsored by the Dept. of Philosophy of the University of Georgia. Papers of the 2d conference are entered under the title: Education and ethics. Includes bibliographical references and index.
If we take mathematical statements to be true, must we also believe in the existence of abstract invisible mathematical objects? This text claims that the way to escape such a commitment is to accept true statements which are about objects that don't exist in any sense at all.
A new approach to the metaphysics, background logic, and semantics of ontological debate, Ontology Without Borders offers new solutions to perennial philosophical puzzles about constitution and the nonexistent. Book jacket.
W.V. Quine, a champion of philosophical naturalism and pioneer of mathematical logic, was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Contemporary thought in ontology, epistemology, and the philosophy of logic and language owes much to his influence, yet recent work in these areas has become increasingly dismissive of his views. This is often because of mistaken or overly simplified conceptions of his philosophy which overlook the development of his views over time, in particular the growing importance of a kind of structuralism to his system as it evolved. This volume provides a fuller, richer picture of Quine's views and their development. With contributions from leading philosophers in a range of subfields including philosophical logic, philosophy of language, history of philosophy, mathematics, philosophy of time, and set theory, it is the first to investigate Quine's views on structure and how it permeates and shapes his attitude to a range of philosophical questions.
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.
The book highlights the concept of ontology, relationship between language and ontology, the distinction between ontology and reality, the role of linguistic philosophers in dealing with ontology etc. Apart from these, the eminent scholars address themselves with the ontology behind the value of valuation, exclusion and discrimination, inter-religious dialogue, Indian theories of language, values in cinema, poetic language etc.