...nd Ontology aa e ysics of Ide etaph as M rn de o Id An Ess M Marc A. Hight ay i nE ar ly Idea and Ontology Idea and Ontology an essay in early modern metaphysics of ideas marc a. hight t h e p e n n s y l va n i a s t at e u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s u n i v e r s i t y p a r k , p e n n s y l va n i a Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hight, Marc A., 1969– Idea and ontology : an essay in early modern metaphysics of ideas / Marc A. Hight. p. cm. Summary: ‘‘Provides an interpretation of the development of the ontology of ideas from Descartes to Hume that reaffirms the vital role metaphysical concerns played in early modern thinking’’—Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978–0-271–03383–9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Ontology. 2. Idea (Philosophy). 3. Metaphysics. I. Title. BD301.H54 2008 110.9—dc22 2008002466 2008 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 Copyright The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. This book is printed on Natures Natural, containing 50% post-consumer waste, and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material...
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...Ontology A collation by paulquek Adapted from Barry Smith's draft @ http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/ontology_PIC.pdf Download PDF file http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/ontology_PIC.pdf ***** Adapted from Stanford Univ's KST Project @ http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html [KST : Knowledge Sharing Technology] What is an Ontology? By Tom Gruber ontology Page 1 Short answer: An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization. The word "ontology" seems to generate a lot of controversy in discussions about AI. It has a long history in philosophy, in which it refers to the subject of existence. It is also often confused with epistemology, which is about knowledge and knowing. In the context of knowledge sharing, I use the term ontology to mean a specification of a conceptualization. That is, an ontology is a description (like a formal specification of a program) of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents. This definition is consistent with the usage of ontology as setof-concept-definitions, but more general. And it is certainly a different sense of the word than its use in philosophy. What is important is what an ontology is for. My colleagues and I have been designing ontologies for the purpose of enabling knowledge sharing and reuse. In that context, an ontology is a specification used for making ontological commitments. The formal definition of ontological commitment...
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...Ontology by Tom Gruber in the Encyclopedia of Database Systems, Ling Liu and M. Tamer Özsu (Eds.), Springer-Verlag, 2009. Synonyms computational ontology, semantic data model, ontological engineering Definition In the context of computer and information sciences, an ontology defines a set of representational primitives with which to model a domain of knowledge or discourse. The representational primitives are typically classes (or sets), attributes (or properties), and relationships (or relations among class members). The definitions of the representational primitives include information about their meaning and constraints on their logically consistent application. In the context of database systems, ontology can be viewed as a level of abstraction of data models, analogous to hierarchical and relational models, but intended for modeling knowledge about individuals, their attributes, and their relationships to other individuals. Ontologies are typically specified in languages that allow abstraction away from data structures and implementation strategies; in practice, the languages of ontologies are closer in expressive power to first-order logic than languages used to model databases. For this reason, ontologies are said to be at the "semantic" level, whereas database schema are models of data at the "logical" or "physical" level. Due to their independence from lower level data models, ontologies are used for integrating heterogeneous databases, enabling interoperability...
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...The Ontology problem in eCommerce applications Rasheed M. Al-Zahrani Information Systems Dept., KSU PO Box 51178, Riyadh, 11543 rasheed@ccis.ksu.edu.sa Abstract Originating in AI semantic networks, ontologies are becoming an essential component of many modern systems. An ontology is a set of specifications, relationships and constraints that describe a certain domain. These specifications capture the concepts pertaining to the domain. Research in this domain is now witnessing intensive efforts due to the growth and success of distributed computing systems in real world applications such as eCommerce, eHealth, eLearning and other eServices. Though at the core of modern distributed technologies, such as multi-agent systems, the ontology issue has sometimes been considered secondary and related issues are underestimated. In this paper, we attempt to address the ontology issue in modern distributed services, and the various problems to be investigated, with special emphasis on eCommerce systems. Our paper illustrates how the semantic-web initiative integrates with ontology. It critically appraises existing solutions, and offers ideas for tackling major ontological issues in eServices. 1. Introduction Distributed systems is the future computing model. This fact is proved by the success of the client-server model and the recent extensions to that model. Maturity of cheap PC, networking and communication technologies contributed to the wide spread adoption of this model. The advent...
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...reality and character of things) and epistemological nature (how the knower discovers the knowledge about the reality). Ontology and epistemology Before researchers embark on their journey to explore social phenomena, they need to clarify what their ontological and epistemological stances are. Just as every project has its start and finish, so does academic research. The first stage of academic research is for inquirers to ask a research question, answers for which will be learnt using proper research methods. Researchers can go about answering the research question quantitatively, qualitatively or utilizing mixed methods. It is believed that while undertaking academic research, ontologies and epistemologies, also called paradigms, must be defined separately from research methods, although these constituents are interlaced and they shape each other (Crotty 2003; Guba and Lincoln 1994; Poetschke 2003; Scotland 2012; Grix 2002). The word ontology is derived from two Greek words meaning being and word. Ontology deals with the world and the question whether the reality exists regardless of our knowledge about it or not. There are two contrasting philosophical traditions: positivism looking at reality as being real, true and concrete and interpretivism looking at the world as socially constructed. While positivist ontology is the one of realism, interpretivist ontology refers to relativism. The proponents of the first view acknowledge objects existing without our knowledge about them...
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...emphasis on existence, reality, and life. epistemology: Epistemology focuses on the origin, nature, and limits of human knowledge. For example, questions related to whether knowledge of any kind is possible, and what kind, if so. Do we have knowledge at birth? And what sort is present during this time. Do we inherent knowledge through mental states or properties in our lives? These questions offer avenues that are still under much scrutiny by many philosophers. Knowledge and existence offer minimum answers, but there are justifications for how we acknowledge its nature around us. ontology: This is described as the study of being in general, or what applies neutrally to everything that is real. Many questions surrounding ontology deal with concerns around what type of entities exist, or for that matter, what can be said to exist? Are there similarities and differences to existence? Ontology has been a major branch of metaphysics and still continues to be very important in its philosophical approach to reality. axiology: The philosophical theory of value. The studies of value, and goodness to its highest level. The question of value for one’s own sake or which is considered valuable to something else. Through the history of axiology, different groups have settled with their theories of what is subjected as being considered valuable. Some theories suggest it is only valuable, if it is...
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...would unveil that it was from the extensive treatise of Aristotle that the term “Metaphysics” was first coined – not even by Aristotle himself – but by the first century editor of his work, who, in assembling some of the philosopher’s writings on various branches of philosophical studies, took the title from those Aristotle most likely considered should be studied (literally) ‘after the Physics’; or after the treatises dealing with nature (ta phusika). Even during the Medieval era, the subject-matter of metaphysics was “being as such”; “the first causes of things”; ‘that which does not change.” Aristotle had divided metaphysics into three main categories, which now stand as the branches of the traditional Western science of metaphysics: ontology (the theory of being in itself), cosmology (the theory describing the origin and structure of the universe), and psychology (devoted to the study of the soul). Then, sometime in the seventeenth century, many topics and issues that Aristotle and the Medievalist philosophers would have classified as belonging to physics (for instance, the concept of the soul, the relation between the mind and the body, or the freedom of the will, or personal identity across time) began to be “reassigned” (rather abruptly) to metaphysics. The term “metaphysics” began to be a catch-all classification under which any and all philosophical problems that could not be otherwise categorized could be lumped. In other words, if it could not be called ‘epistemology’...
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...SARTRE AND DENNETT ARGUMENTS AGAINST GOD NAME: INSTITUTION: Sartre arguments In the first phase, the philosophical career of Jean Paul Sartre lays emphasis on the construction of a philosophy of existence known as existentialism. Existentialism considers human nature condition as a critical philosophical problem and in which this problem can be shared through ontology (Douglas, & George, 2003). Sartre’s philosophy is explained through his ontology in which he defines two types of reality, which lie beyond our conscious experience: the being of the object of consciousness and that of consciousness itself. He argued that the object of consciousness exists in a non-rational and independent way as in-itself while consciousness is the consciousness of something concerning something else, and it is nigh possible to understand it within one's conscious experience: it exists as "for-itself." A fundamental feature of consciousness is its negative power that human experience nothing less and in which this power is also at work on the self (Douglas, & George, 2003). According to Sartre Jean-Paul (2003), God does not exist and does not exist neither on logical or rational grounds. Be it one believes His existence or not largely depends on the strength of his argument. Many scholars and philosophers commonly feel that Sartre Jean-Paul existentialism is an irrational counterpoint to the enlightenment. Sartre Jean-Paul, at least, gave reasons for his conclusions. He argued that everything...
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...Biranchi Poudyal Freelance Writer, Researcher Enrolled in Department of English Tribhuvan University Contact Information: Bhadrabash, Kathmandu Email: bantipd78@gmail.com Contact no: 977 9849447364, 9810009182 Dance In Fire In late 1980s, a person named Chandra committed suicide by hanging himself from peepal tree nearby his house. It was an "ill-timed," "unnatural" or "bad omen" death. Consequently, his family and other close relatives frequently encountered problems of dealing with his spirit; they were uncertain that the appropriate performance of the morgue rituals would be effective in altering his bad spirit (kacho bayu) into good spirit (pako bayu). -—an expert in dealing with spirit was consulted by Chandra‟s brother. As many suspected, the incineration and morgue rituals had failed to alter his spirit into forefather soul and Bayu Utarnu ritual should be carried out to sooth his upset spirit. The Bayu Utarnu for Chandra‟s ghost began under the headship of a prominent spirit consultant. It comprised, nightly ritual during which the religious expert, using heavy mantras and chants, convinced the Bayu to possess intimate male allies, who performed as a spirit agent.. After this, the ritual reached its climax, the ceremony known as ‘khali khane’. On the chosen night, the possessed agent performed dance on burning coals of holy fire, thereby altering the ghost into a Pako bayu who would no longer invite ill luck to his family and relatives. Through choosen agent‟s body, Chandra‟s...
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...Knowledge Cultures 3(1), 2015, pp. 24–44 ISSN (printed): 2327-5731 • e-ISSN 2375-6527 PHENOMENOLOGY OF RACIAL OPPRESSION LAUREN FREEMAN Lauren.Freeman@Louisville.edu University of Louisville ABSTRACT. This paper attempts to further understand the lived experiences of racial oppression by bringing together personal testimonies, resources from phenomenology, and empirical work on stereotype threat. Integrating these three areas provides a psychological, existential, physiological, and embodied understanding of the fundamental harm of racial oppression. My aim is to show that the harm of existing as racially oppressed is not just psychological or physiological. That is, racial oppression is not only harmful with regards to the immediate and lasting effects of the compiled stresses that result from continually being made aware of one’s bodily existence as “other” in a predominantly and normatively white world. In addition, racially oppressed people also often lose a sense of themselves, become alienated from themselves, and come to understand themselves vis-à-vis the oppressor. Combining contextualized analyses of the psychological, existential, physiological, and embodied dimensions of oppression, I argue that existing as racially oppressed in a white supremacist society also changes the ontological structure of one’s being-in-the-world. Keywords: phenomenology; oppression; stereotype threat; Martin Heidegger “Only when we come to be very clear about how race...
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...reality”, what is free will”. It encompasses everything that exists, as well as the nature of existence itself. Compared to other branches of Philosophy such as epistemology that deals with things like the sources of justification, knowledge, metaphysics is concerned with explaining the way things are in the physical world. This is not the origin of the term The term “Metaphysics” comes from the Greek term “meta” meaning “after the Physics”. Although the term metaphysics generally makes sense in the way that it partially refers to things outside of and beyond the natural science. Instead, the term was used by later editors of Aristotle. Aristotle had written several books on matter and physics, and followed those volumes with works on ontology and other broad subjects. These editors referred to them as “The books that came after the books on physics” or “metaphysics”. Aristotle referred to metaphysics as “first philosophy”. This term was also used by some other philosopher like Descartes whose primary work focused on the subject of metaphysics. Metaphysical systems come in three main component: Physical system such as Kant’s, ideologies which are usually political, moral or other practical philosophical systems; and other religions which in their theologies attempt to create comprehensive metaphysical structure. Religious metaphysics often attempt to correlate a philosophical system with basic theses about the nature and purpose of God. Metaphysics is important because it...
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...SARTRE AND DENNETT ARGUMENTS AGAINST GOD NAME: INSTITUTION: Sartre arguments In the first phase, the philosophical career of Jean Paul Sartre lays emphasis on the construction of a philosophy of existence known as existentialism. Existentialism considers human nature condition as a critical philosophical problem and in which this problem can be shared through ontology (Douglas, & George, 2003). Sartre’s philosophy is explained through his ontology in which he defines two types of reality, which lie beyond our conscious experience: the being of the object of consciousness and that of consciousness itself. He argued that the object of consciousness exists in a non-rational and independent way as in-itself while consciousness is the consciousness of something concerning something else, and it is nigh possible to understand it within one's conscious experience: it exists as "for-itself." A fundamental feature of consciousness is its negative power that human experience nothing less and in which this power is also at work on the self (Douglas, & George, 2003). According to Sartre Jean-Paul (2003), God does not exist and does not exist neither on logical or rational grounds. Be it one believes His existence or not largely depends on the strength of his argument. Many scholars and philosophers commonly feel that Sartre Jean-Paul existentialism is an irrational counterpoint to the enlightenment. Sartre Jean-Paul, at least, gave reasons for his conclusions. He argued that...
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...In assessing the claim that a realist account of universals is indispensable to our ability to construct propositions, we draw upon three main positions. These are realism, nominalism and conceptualism. The realist school would claim that universals are real, and they are different from the particulars that instantiate them. The types of realism I will reference here are Aristotle’s ‘strong’ realism and Platonic realism. In contrast, the nominalist would assert that only particulars exist and deny that universals exist as real entities. Conceptualists urge that words that might seem to refer to universals actually refer to concepts. They are mind-dependent classificatory schemes. Realists tend to argue that universals must be distinct entities in order to account for various phenomena. For example, a common realist argument is that universals are required for certain general words to have meaning and for the sentences in which they occur to make sense. Words such as ‘to’, ‘on top of’, ‘honesty’, ‘rationality’ etc. cannot be labeled as particulars because there are no particular ‘things’ that they reference. The most famous of realists was Plato, who argued that for us to know something, that which we know must be unchanging. Since material individuals are subject to change, Plato argued, there must be things that don’t change, suitable as objects of genuine knowledge. Here fit universals. In terms of Platonic realism, he believes that in order to explain the qualitative identity...
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...Second PHI1GPI Essay – Question Two Humanity knows of nothing. And according to Jean-Paul Sartre this is what makes humanity unique. In his Being and Nothingness Sartre explores this uniqueness through a series of exercises that, he hopes, will bring forward new ideas of our existence and the meaning of nothingness. His chapter on ‘The origin of negation’ explores the existence of the non-being, a concept that he explains is unique to the human condition. In comparing the natural world with the human; we see that Sartre’s argument can make a clear distinction between the two, presenting a convincing argument that places humanity above anything else in this world. Sartre uses allegories to make a case Humanity is unique in that we ask questions and have expectations of answers. Even the most seemingly simple of questions such as ‘what is that?’ is the sign of a higher level of thinking than had ever occurred before humanity. It is our questioning and expectation, according to Sartre, is our link between our being and non-being. Sartre starts off by stating the everyday experience “does not seem to reveal non-being to us” (Sartre, p.5), that if we take the world on face value non-being shall never be shown. Yet, he goes on to explore how our questioning of the world acknowledges that the world is made up of is and is nots. That objects have perceived essence and qualities, that is; a tree is a tree and is not a car because it shares simular qualities with other trees. When we...
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...Phil 4 Midterm Study Guide Introduction: - Ontology is the study of being, kinds of things that exists, the different kinds of being. What is ultimately real? - Material: spatial/public/mechanical - Immaterial: nonspatial/private/teleological - Materialism: Matter is truly real and immaterial things are not - Idealism: Ideas are ultimately real - Dualism: Reality is both material and immaterial - Monism: There’s one single reality Lau Tzu (Laozi): - Taos analogy to water: water takes all shape, water doesn’t compete, it does nothing yet there’s nothing it can do, takes no form, all forms can be taken. - Taos analogy to uncarved block: un-carved block is preconceived, preconceived thoughts/values makes it harder to respond to present situations. - Taos analogy to valley spirit and the female: nonbeing “spirit of value with divine female”. Value -> space-> spirit -> life. Life fills empty space. Always allows for nonbeing. - The Tao that can be told of not the eternal Tao because the name that can be named is not the eternal name. - The Tao is the source of all reality because “The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth and The Named is the mother of all things.” - The saying there is a doing that comes from not doing is when the action emerges from you instead of it being something that you think about. Plato: - Form is immaterial reality - The divided line represents B as the highest point in the scale of reality, A being the lowest form...
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