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Essay On Ontology

Ontology is the theory of objects and their relationships. There are three types of ontologies: formal, descriptive, and formalized. Formal ontology examines logical features of predication and theories of universals using tools from formal logic. Descriptive ontology concerns collecting information about dependent and independent objects. Formalized ontology attempts to construct a formal codification of the results from descriptive ontology.

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86 views4 pages

Essay On Ontology

Ontology is the theory of objects and their relationships. There are three types of ontologies: formal, descriptive, and formalized. Formal ontology examines logical features of predication and theories of universals using tools from formal logic. Descriptive ontology concerns collecting information about dependent and independent objects. Formalized ontology attempts to construct a formal codification of the results from descriptive ontology.

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sana
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“ESSAY ON ONTOLOGY”

Ontology is the theory of objects and their ties. It provides criteria for distinguishing different
types of objects (concrete and abstract, existent and nonexistent, real and ideal, independent
and dependent) and their ties (relations, dependencies and predication).
We can distinguish: a) formal, b) descriptive and c) formalized ontologies.
a) Formal ontology was introduced by Edmund Husserl in his Logical Investigations (1):
according to Husserl, its object is the study of the genera of being, the leading regional
concepts, i.e., the categories; its true method is the eidetic reduction coupled with the method
of categorical intuition. The phenomenological ontology is divided into two: (I) Formal, and (II)
Regional, or Material, Ontologies.
The former investigates the problem of truth on three basic levels: (a) Formal Apophantics, or
formal logic of judgments, where the a priori conditions for the possibility of the doxic certainty
of reason are to be sought, along with (b) the synthetic forms for the possibility of the
axiological, and (c) "practical" truths. In other words it is divided into formal logic, formal
axiology, and formal praxis.
In contemporary philosophy, formal ontology has been developed in two principal ways. The
first approach has been to study formal ontology as a part of ontology, and to analyze it using
the tools and approach of formal logic: from this point of view formal ontology examines the
logical features of predication and of the various theories of universals. The use of the specific
paradigm of the set theory applied to predication, moreover, conditions its interpretation
This approach is best exemplified by Nino Cocchiarella; according to whom "Formal Ontology is
the result of combining the intuitive, informal method of classical ontology with the formal,
mathematical method of modern symbolic logic, and ultimately of identifying them as different
aspects of one and the same science. That is, where the method of ontology is the intuitive
study of the fundamental properties, modes, and aspects of being, or of entities in general, and
the method of modern symbolic logic is the rigorous construction of formal, axiomatic systems,
formal ontology, the result of combining these two methods, is the systematic, formal,
axiomatic development of the logic of all forms of being. As such, formal ontology is a science
prior to all others in which particular forms, modes, or kinds of being are studied." (2)
The second line of development returns to its Husserl an origins and analyses the fundamental
categories of object, state of affairs, part, whole, and so forth, as well as the relations between
parts and the whole and their laws of dependence -- once all material concepts have been
replaced by their correlative form concepts relative to the pure 'something'. This kind of
analysis does not deal with the problem of the relationship between formal ontology and
material ontology."
b) Descriptive ontology concerns the collection of information about the list of objects that can
be dependent or independent items (real or ideal).
c) Formalized ontology attempts to constructs a formal codification for the results descriptively
acquired at the preceding levels.
"A system of logic can be constructed under two quite different aspects. On the one hand, it can
be developed as a formal calculus and studied independently of whatever content it might be
used to represent. Such a formal system in that case is only a calculus ratiocinator. On the other
hand, a system of logic can be constructed somewhat along the lines of what Leibniz, called
a characteristic universalism. Such a system, according to Leibniz, was to serve three main
purposes. The first was that of an international auxiliary language that would enable the people
of different countries to speak and communicate with one another. Apparently, because Latin
was no longer a "living" language and new trade routes were opening up to lands with many
different local languages, the possibility of such an international auxiliary language was widely
considered and discussed in the 17th and 18th centuries.
In any case notwithstanding its visionary goal, the idea of an international auxiliary language is not the
purpose of a formal ontology. The second and third purposes Leibniz set for his characteristic
universalism are what distinguish it from its precursors and give his program its formal or logistic
methodology. The second purpose that the universal character is to be based upon an arc
combinatorial, i.e. an ideography or system of symbolization that would enable it to provide a logical
analysis of all of the actual and possible concepts that might arise in science. Such an arc
combinatorial would contain both a theory of logical form, i.e., a theory of all the possible forms that a
meaningful expression might have in such a language, and a theory of definitional forms, i.e., a theory of
the operations whereby one could construct new concepts on the basis of already given concepts. The
third purpose was that the universal character must contain a calculus ratiocinator, and in particular a
complete system of deduction and valid argument forms, by which, through a study of the
consequences, or implications, of what was already known, it could serve as an instrument of
knowledge. These two purposes are central to the notion of a formal ontology."
 Name: Syed Anas
 Student ID: BM-26639
 Subject: BASIC RESEARCH METHOD
 Submitted to: Miss Ambreen
 Name: Sana Nafees
 Student ID: BM-26632
 Subject: BASIC RESEARCH METHOD
 Submitted to: Miss Ambreen

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