Online research in philosophy

The ontology of medicine—the question of whether disease entities are real or not—is an underdeveloped area of philosophical inquiry. This essay explains the primary question at issue in medical ontology, discusses why answering this question is important from both a philosophical and a practical perspective, and argues that the problem of medical ontology is unique, i.e., distinct, from the ontological problems raised by other sciences and therefore requires its own analysis.

In this brief book one of the most distinguished living American philosophers takes up the question of whether ethical judgments can properly be considered ...

Trope ontology is exposed and confronted with the question where one trope ends and another begins. It is argued that tropes do not have determinate boundaries, it is arbitrary how tropes are carved up. An ontology, which I call field ontology, is proposed which takes this into account. The material world consists of a certain number of fields, each of which is extended over all of space. It is shown how field ontology can also tackle the problem of determinable properties and the problem of completeness of things.

In this paper recognition is taken to be a question of social ontology, regarding the very constitution of the social space of interaction. I concentrate on the question of whether certain aspects of the theory of recognition can be translated into the terms of a socio-ontological paradigm: to do so, I make reference to some conceptual tools derived from John Searle's social ontology and Robert Brandom's normative pragmatics. My strategy consists in showing that recognitive phenomena cannot be isolated at the level of human interaction, and are, rather, in part proper to animal interaction as well. Furthermore, it is argued that recognitive powers are constitutive powers more basic than deontic ones and play a role much broader than the one they in fact assume in Searle and in Brandom.

There are two main ways, philosophically, of characterizing the business of ontology, and it is good practice to try and keep them separate. On one account, made popular by Quine, ontology is concerned with the question of what there is. Since to say that there are things that are not would be selfcontradictory, Quine famously pronounced that such a question can be answered in a single word—‘Everything’. However, to say ‘Everything’ is to say nothing. It is merely to say that there is what there is, unless one goes on to specify the population of the domain over which one quantifies—and here there is plenty of room for disagreement. You may think that ‘everything’ covers particulars as well as universals, I may think that it only covers the former; you may think that the domain includes abstract particulars along with concrete ones, I may think that it only includes the latter; and so on. Exactly how such disagreements can be framed is itself a rather intricate question, as is the question of how one goes about figuring out one’s own views on such matters. But some way or other we all have beliefs of this sort, at least as soon as we start philosophizing about the world, and to work out such beliefs is to engage in ontological inquiries. The other way of characterizing ontology stems from a different concern, and made its way into our times through Brentano and his pupils. On this second account, the task of ontology is not to specify what there is but, rather, to lay bare the formal structure of all there is, whatever it is. Regardless of whether our domain of quantification includes universals along with particulars, abstract entities along with concrete ones, and so on, it must exibit some general features and obey some general laws, and the task of ontology would be to figure out such features and laws. For instance, it would pertain to the task of ontology to assert that every entity, no matter what it is, is self-identical, or that no entity can consist of a single proper part, or that some entity can depend on another only if the latter does not depend on the former..

The basic question of ontology is “What exists?”. The basic question of metaontology is: are there objective answers to the basic question of ontology? Here ontological realists say yes, and ontological anti-realists say no. (Compare: The basic question of ethics is “What is right?”. The basic question of metaethics is: are there objective answers to the basic question of ethics? Here moral realists say yes, and moral anti-realists say no.) For example, the ontologist may ask: Do numbers exist? The Platonist says yes, and the nominalist says no. The metaontologist may ask: is there an objective fact of the matter about whether numbers exist? The ontological realist says yes, and the ontological anti-realist says no. Likewise, the ontologist may ask: Given two distinct entities, when does a mereological sum of those entities exist? The universalist says always, while the nihilist says never. The metaontologist may ask: is there an objective fact of the matter about whether the mereological sum of two distinct entities exists? The ontological realist says yes, and the ontological anti-realist says no. Ontological realism is often traced to Quine (1948), who held that we can determine what exists by seeing which entities are endorsed by our best scientific theory of the world. In recent years, the practice of ontology has often presupposed an ever-stronger ontological realism, and strong versions of ontological realism have received explicit statements by Fine (this volume), Sider (2001; this volume), van Inwagen (1998; this volume), and others.

Recent work in the ontology of music suggests that we will avoid confusion if we distinguish between two kinds of question that are typically posed in music ontology. Thus, a distinction has been made between fundamental ontology and higher-order ontology. The former addresses questions about the basic metaphysical options from which ontologists choose. For instance, are musical works types, indicated types, classes of particulars, or some other kind of entity? Higher-order ontology addresses the question of what lies ‘at the centre’ of a specific form of music, such as rock or jazz—or perhaps classical music. The argument of this essay is, first, that a close examination of the best efforts in two of these territories shows that they have the effect of pressing the music in each sphere into implausible Procrustean beds. Second, it is argued that the general question that higher-order ontologies pose, that is, ‘What work-kind is it that lies at the centre of a given kind of music, F?’ is a question based on a mistaken but seductive assumption, namely that the concept of the work of F has actual application. In fact, these concepts—upon which higher-order ontology depends—are mere artefacts of philosophy. The question is also addressed why the assumption is so seductive. Finally, the question finally is posed about what, if anything, is implied from the foregoing about the traditional ontology of classical music.

The ontological nature of works of music has been a particularly lively area of philosophical debate during the past few years. This paper serves to introduce the reader to some of the most fertile and interesting issues. Starting by distinguishing three questions – the categorial question, the individuation question, and the persistence question – the article goes on to focus on the first: the question of which ontological category musical works fall under. The paper ends by introducing, and briefly considering, meta-ontological questions in the ontology of music.

The book highlights the concept of ontology, relationship between language and ontology, the distinction between ontology and reality, the role of linguistic ...